Evening walk

Green

Its the rainy season here and things are Green. And we have finally hit on a combination of good fencing + hanging planters that has (knock on wood) foiled the goats.  I'm enjoying my roses for the first time, and they were planted a year ago. Also thriving are my herbs; parsley, oregano, basil and thyme.

Clean

The snake was vanquished. Lessons have been learned: lesson one, trap the snake under something before you flee, or face a two hour search for the missing snake. Daniel found the snake when he flopped onto the bed in defeat, and glanced up to see the snake twined into the rafters directly above the bed. Lesson two, snakes can climb up walls.
Moving on from that terrifying thought, as I have spent the last 3 days deep cleaning the house (only partially in reaction to the snake) and also because currently I only have internet on my phone, here are some lovely overly processed cell phone pictures of my clean house. I've never put up pictures of the upstairs before... so here it is.

guineas in the yard, snake in the closet.

I like this picture because you can't tell when it was taken.  1960's?  Maybe.  This morning? Also possible. Laundry, fences, and roaming birds tend to stay the same on the farm.

I have some pictures from my birthday last week, but right now I am dealing with a crisis of epic proportions which is a SNAKE in my BEDROOM, last seen heading towards my SHOES.  I am dealing with this in what I think is a very sensible manner; I ran out of the room, barricaded the door, called my husband to get home RIGHT NOW, and am currently sitting on the couch down stairs blogging to keep my mind off the snake until Daniel gets home.  My feet are also on the couch with me.... just in case there happens to be another snake lurking under the couch.  I am feeling rather mature and blase for not running screaming out of the house but A. it's raining and B. I recognized the snake as a common garden type and I don't feel like being laughed at by extended family.  My mother in law has been known to hack up snakes with a machete, and my sister in law once killed a snake as thick as her arm using a fence post.  Apparently I do have some pride.

Belizean cheese dip

Guys, I am so conflicted about posting this recipe.  On the one hand, it is a food that is present at 99% of social functions in Belize.  Weddings, wakes, birthday parties, Quince Anos.... chances are good that if you've been to any sort of gathering here you have been served cheese dip along side your rice and beans. And probably scarfed it down as it is universally good, and perhaps want to recreate the goodness at home.  On the other hand, it is made from cheese so processed that it actually doesn't melt and has to be blended.  Although I have eaten this countless times, I have actually only made it twice because seriously? I don't want to think about the ingredients. I just want to enjoy.

 If you want to experience the non-gourmet but quite enjoyable cheese dip, here is the recipe.

1 small (220g) can of salsa.  La Costena is a Mexican brand and quite possibly the best salsa in existence
1 small can of condensed milk (unsweetened)
1/4 lb block of Happy Cow Cheese.  This is processed, shelf stable cheese that is available here in Belize, but I'm sure you can find an equivalent.  Look for a solid, processed cheese that doesn't need refrigeration.  Or use a block of American cheese.

Now prepare yourself for the complicated instructions.
Cut the cheese into small squares, and add to the blender.  Pour in the salsa, and about 2/3 of the can of condensed milk.

Blend until completely smooth.

Pour on tortilla chips, eat.
If you need it a bit more spicy, add a few drops of your favorite hot sauce.
Enjoy!

catch up

After a long process involving a new hard drive, new software, and a new card reader, the mac is finally able to work with my pictures.  These pictures are from as far back as April.  I love being surprised by what I download from my camera, I had forgotten about most of these.

Corozal town's blue sky and blue sea never fails to take my breath away.

Baby Buns!!

Stealth cow....

There he is!

Best thrifting find EVER-- $600 US Manolo Blahnik shoes found for $2.50.  The cat has claimed them.

Behind me, a pickup full of feed.  The Standoff begins.

We ended up baby-sitting some baby geese at the Agriculture show this year.  This guy kept falling asleep with his little legs stretched out-- SO cute!

My 5 yr old niece left me this message on the fridge.   I'm thinking I should be frightened.

Spring field burning + sunset.

shower of gold

Triumph!  You know what is so special about the small, rather blurry photo above?  I took it with my phone and then uploaded it to blogger!  I know this is not impressive to those of you who have iphones and whatever, but believe it or not the technology to do this has only been readily available in Belize for about 5 months.

Of course, things can never run super smoothly here, which resulted in this awesome email exchange with my mother:

What I thought my phone send my mom:  A picture of my cat, with the caption "peed on the floor this morning"

What my mom got: no picture, just the one sentence.

What my mom replied: ? Daniel???

yes mom, my husband peed on the floor this morning and I felt like I should let you know.

BTW the tree in the picture above is called Shower of Gold.  Isn't it gorgeous?

what I have been up to

• The computer problems have mostly been resolved.... except, of course, for my pictures. All 10,864 pictures (no exaggeration) have been transferred onto my new hard drive, but due to a software glitch I can't actually see them.  Hopefully I will have it sorted out soon.

• Daniel and I had a wonderful, short visit up to DC for Memorial day weekend.  We met up with my family, and I got to take Daniel to a few of the Smithsonians and the zoo.  We definitely need to go back and spend much, much more time there.  
• And now I have a new smart phone, courtesy of eBay, and I'd feel really smug about it if I could get the dang thing to actually do smart things, like take pictures and share them online.  Any fun app suggestions while I climb up the learning curve?
• Yesterday when Daniel came in for lunch I asked him what project he was working on.  He said he was building a chicken coop, which I thought was nice but rather overkill for our 3 chickens.  Then I went out to see it and discovered we now have 13 chickens.  And then we were obligated (no idea why) to go over to our neighbors last night and pick up 4 more chickens.  I'm still not quite sure how this happened....

quirky things about Belize

Living in Belize can be quite frustrating.  Things take a lot longer to get done then you can ever plan for, things are hard to find, it is ridiculously hot (the forecast for the the next week is 90's every day!).  To stay relatively non-cynical, I try and notice things about Belize that make my day a little lighter.  Here are some amusing things you can find in Belize:

1.  Randomly, there is a great appreciation for lawn art, specifically bushes carved in the shape of something.  Birds seem to be the most popular.

2.  Horses are still an acceptable and rather normal means of transportation.  It's not unusual to drive by a farmer riding his horse on the side of the road, or to find a couple of horses parked in the shade by the market.

3.  "Babes" is commonly used by men and women, (usually) without any bad connotation.  I am always tickled when I am being serious and businesslike at a bank or somewhere, and the large creole lady in charge comes up and says, "Yes babes, how can I help you?"

4.  Continuing with the non-PC Belizean slang,  there is a large Asian population in Belize, and most of the grocery stores and chinese restaurants are owned by this community.  Belizeans thus refer to all grocery stores and chinese restaurants as "the chinese." (I have to admit I was rather appalled by this when I first came here and stuck to 'grocery store' but... it is a cultural thing and not meant maliciously.) Also, the favorite thing to get from chinese restaurants is fried chicken (I don't know either).  So this is a common phrase: I'm going to the chinese, do you want a fry chicken?

5.  Police methods are a bit different in Belize.  Instead of  hiding on the roads and catching speeders and other rule breakers sneakily, Police set up check points on the highways to make sure the cars are properly insured and licensed.  This is what I like to call the Belize radar detector:  Someone stands in the back of a pickup, facing forward over the cab.  If he sees a checkpoint up ahead, he bangs on the roof of the cab and the driver stops and turns around. 

6.  Instead of police monitoring vehicle speeds, we have speed bumps.  I would say about 70% are marked in some way, with a sign or with yellow paint.  The rest... you have to have sharp eyes, or know where they are.  This is probably only amusing to people like me who have a weird sense of humor, and find it funny when a non- local comes zooming by and hits a speed bump...

a guide for a new farm girl

So my hard drive crashed last week... things are backed up, no worries, but I will be using my husband's computer for a few weeks which means no pictures.  Instead, I've decided to write some lists.  First up:  things you should know about if you suddenly find yourself living on a farm.  Useful!

1.  Close the gates.  ALWAYS close the gates.

2. Both male AND female cattle can have huge horns.  Use other....signs... to tell them apart.  Or your brothers-in-law will never let you forget it.

3. To catch a chicken:  wait till they are roosting somewhere at night.  Grab them by the feet and hold them with their heads hanging upside down.  For some reason this calms them and they hang there quietly.  My theory is the blood rushing to their tiny little brains allows them to become suddenly philosophical.

4.  Never learn how to do the following: drive a tractor, use a lawn mower, milk a cow.  If you don't know how to do these things, no one can make it your job.  This theory was confirmed when I found my poor nine-months-pregnant sister in law milking the cow one morning.

5. Rubber boots are essential.  They may not look super cute, but I am always thankful when I am wearing them.  This has been a hard lesson to learn.  It goes something like this: "walking in my cute new shoes, la la la... SQUISH!  #*%& COW!"

6. To herd cows/ goats/ chickens/ horses in the direction you want:  stand in the place you want them to walk away from, wave your arms around in the air and make SHH SHH SHH sounds.  You only feel like an idiot the first 50 or so times you do this. 

7. To hold a baby cow while it's mom is getting milked:  Grab it's head between your legs and hold on for dear life.  Be warned: it is very hard to hold a calf once it is older then 4 days or so.... and if you don't know this, someone will try to get you to hold an older calf and then fall down laughing when you get tossed by a tiny little cow.


8. Learn the differences between these: cow, bull, steer, ox, mare, gelding, stud, foal, colt.  Lesson-- a cow is not always a cow.

9. Close that gate.