Tag Archives: Suriname Cherry

Amusing, Belize, Farming, Food

Goosie News & Misc.

Our two month old goosie has reached adolescence and is starting to feather.  She has stopped calling for Mama Munchkin and is starting to make new twittering noises with the occasional Chinese goose Qwack (not quite quack, there are finer nuances to goosie language).   She is out during the day and she is back in her cage at night.

She’s bigger than this now; about 4lbs (2kg).

Growing Goosie.

I thought that she would be “lonely” but now I think that this is perhaps a human concept; she is perfectly content to sit by herself, twitter and preen…sleep…look for water, wander around at her leisure and eat grass whenever it takes her fancy.  Animals are rather resilient little things and can face the world with such braveness and independence.  It has been a great pleasure to see my goosie grow up into an adult…more so because of the short length of time!   🙂

Oh, and look at these two!!  Two more to fulfil my mothering instincts.  Double Easter Goosies…Very Auspicious…

Double Goosie.

The miscellaneous subject of today is suriname cherries.  Last year, we had an awful time with the thieving black-birds and brown jays.  Despite putting up all sorts of silvery, glittery things;  the usual Internet silliness…you know…when they say, “…here’s another great idea for old CDs and aluminium cans…recycle your garbage to scare birdies away…”

Oh, and the big eyes drawn on pieces of card-board didn’t work either…it just ended up being an arts and crafts afternoon for Munchkin and Gnome…much to Gnome’s chagrin.   A word of caution: Gnomes do not do Arts and Crafts!!  They only want to tinker around with useful things that can make life better in some way.

Anyway(s), I am collecting a pound in weight of suriname cherries each day right now.  I have started harvesting them un-ripe (yellow-reddish) EARLY morning (before the early bird) and I place the un-ripe cherries in dry season room temperature (40C/104F) during the day.  Viola…they all turn plump red and ripen up very nicely by the end of the day.  By the way, I didn’t get this information on the Internet…I just experimented since I was soooo mad at the birdies for eating up all my cherries.  🙂

Suriname Cherry.
Belize, Farming, Food, Philosophy, Plants, Saving Money

Car Stuff And Farm Stuff!

The last few days, we’ve been having a bit of car trouble; we were driving back home and the fuel warning light came up.  Of course, we didn’t know what that meant so Gnome had to phone up the Toyota dealership to ask them about the light.  This is what he was told over the phone: get a new fuel filter, get a car mechanic to install the fuel filter and then get the mechanic to re-set the warning light.  This is what Gnome did: get a fuel filter, do a Google search on “how to install a fuel filter” and “how to reset a warning light.”

There was enough information on the Internet for a Gnome, without any car mechanic skills whatsoever, to install the fuel filter.  We would ordinarily have just paid to get it done but this time Gnome said to me,

“…wait a minute…between the messing around with a mechanic and paying for it, maybe it’s just easier if I have a go at doing it myself.”

And so he did.  His conclusion was that generally car stuff is quite simple and straight forward and if you actually take the time to read up instructions on the Internet, you can generally get it done yourself.  He did say as an after thought:

“…I’m talking about car stuff…not medical stuff…there are too many people who get on the Internet to make a self diagnosis and get it wrong.”

That for true, I can vouch for that!!  Too many people using Dr Google!!

Anyway, with the car thing, I am really glad that Gnome works with the philosophy of self-reliance and he’s not afraid to learn new things all the time.

Okay, so what’s happening on the farm?  Well, we have some new harvests.  This is suriname cherry which has a lovely resinous taste.  I have taken a picture of one pristine cherry because we seem to have something that is biting holes in all of them.  I can’t spot what is causing it but I think that we have a problem with ants.

Suriname Cherry.

Some nice cayenne chilli  peppers.  Gnome has strung these on a string in the kitchen to dry.

Cayenne Crop.

Oh, and these are canistel.  They taste like sweet potato; we actually eat this with our meals as a carbohydrate substitute.  Our tree is loaded this year! Yay!!

Canistel.
Canistel.

Ooooh…it is really punishingly hot right now!!  Try to keep cool everyone!!