little ears

I thought I'd share a picture of my favorite part of these little guys.  Their ears are so, so soft.
Things have been a bit busy around here this month.... but it's ending in a good way because tomorrow I will be getting Belizean nationality! It's been a looong wait....

my weekend

So this last weekend was a jumble of random things.  Made a couple of batches of banana bread, and our first batch of goat cheese! Our nannies are giving over a liter a day now, so we finally had enough to make it worth our while.

Daniel kneading the cheese.  Who knew you had to knead cheese?

this is how much cheese you get from 1 liter of milk

Unfortunately, the cheese was kinda bad.  Daniel thinks we added too much renin, so next week we will be a little more scientific and try experimenting with different amounts.

I did a little flower-shooting and the cat decided to model for me

 

and then this happened:

Yep, that's a baby pig that Daniel is bottle feeding.  He was out walking with our dogs, when my dog suddenly ran by carrying a screaming baby pig in his mouth.  Which was something of a shock, because we didn't even know there were baby pigs on the farm.  Anyways, Daniel brought the little guy home (still screaming-- I heard them coming from quite a distance) and we cleaned it up and quieted it down with some warm milk.  Fortunately it only had a few scrapes and bruises.  Then it fell fast asleep and Daniel took it back to it's mom.... I think I'm going to have to visit them tonight, baby pigs are soooo adorable.

Sprinkles.

 Sprinkles is a little orphan bull we are bottle feeding.  He got his name because of his markings, but also because how awesome will it be when he weighs 2000 lbs and answers to the name of Sprinkles?

Sprinkles is a very confused little guy-- he thinks Daniel is his mom.  He also thinks he is a goat (we keep him penned with the goats).  But he is very, very serious about his bottle... he can suck down ½ gallon on milk in about 30 seconds.  

painting help

So over the weekend I painted my front door, and I love it:

 

and yes, I did consider photoshopping out the muddy dog prints, but ended up being too lazy.

Anyways, I need some opinions on what color to paint the porch pillars.  Option 1- leave them unpainted,

 

option 2: black (I love, Daniel can't stand)

 

option 3: white (not sure how long it would stay white...)

opinions?  Other suggestions?

baby goats for valentine's day

just born

these are the tiniest little guys we've had yet

see how little?  I was checking here to see if he was able to suck yet.  We had to work hard to save these guys, they were really weak when they were born.  The second one nearly stopped breathing, we had to blow in his nose for quite a while.  We had to feed them both from a dropper for a bit because they were too weak to stand or suck.  But now they are one week old and running around like crazy!  Still no names yet- they go by #1 and #2.  I want to call them Henry and James, Daniel is pushing for #11 and #12 (we have 10 other goats).

A new set of twin goats was born over the weekend, and I will put up pictures soon- the transformer on the farm blew last night and we didn't have electricity, so no fooling with photos.  As I was grumbling while squinting over a candle- lit dinner, I kept reminding myself that a) this is supposed to be romantic and b) I live in a third world country and Daniel's family didn't even have electricity until he was 13 so suck it up.  Didn't really help, bugs kept being attracted by the candle flame and flying at my face.

Anyways the reason I'm posting today is because I saw the movie The Tourist last weekend and it was really fun.  Go watch it.  It had a great mix of twisty plot, beautiful location, and to-die-for clothing (seriously if I had millions I would hand this movie to a tailor and ask for one of everything that Angelina Jolie wears).  Also, it was kind of funny.  I love the connotation given to 'the tourist' in this movie- the universal assumption is that a tourist must be slightly helpless and more then slightly dumb.  Maybe this is just extra amusing to me because I live in a tourist area...and am constantly mistaken for a tourist. And although I appreciate the asthetics of Johhny Depp's wardrobe in this movie, for the sake of authenticity perhaps his tailored suits and subtle scarves should have been replaced with white tube socks worn with sandals, a ball cap with an American flag on it, and 2-3 cameras hanging off him.  He is playing an American tourist, after all...

saturday market

So last Saturday started off as your average market day.  A guy hauling porta-potties called me baby and offered me a ride, a band in the Cayo square was playing some song with mostly inenteligible words except for the refrain of "ganjaaaa, ooooh gaaanjaaaa"....

And then, I saw something amazing for sale--

Peas!  Ok, so it doesn't take very much to get me excited, but Daniel has been trying to grow peas here for years without success-- our theory is that it is just too hot here.  We are limited to those awful mushy canned peas.  I bought a couple of pounds, and we are drying some in the hopes that it is some hardy strain that we will finally be successful growing.

Market total:
1 lb tomatoes
1 lb onions
1 lb peppers
2 lbs beans
1 lb carrots
10 bananas
1 pineapple
2 lbs peas
---------------------
$10 US!  (produce is really cheap right now)

snowbirds

Every wonder where all the birds are going to escape the crazy weather you all are having up there in the states?

.... my back yard!  We had a pair of Baltimore Orioles in our madre cacao tree the other day.  Beautiful, isn't he?