Forty Trees Farm: The Farm

The Farm

In the beginning, there's Khyru and Katie..and Keyaan..They were faced with 3 and 3/4 quarter acres of chest high weeds and grass, a mini zoo consists of herd of elephant, mischievous monkeys, monkey eater iguana, snakes and whatever thrown out from Australia. The house were broken into, fixed, and broken into again. They were robbed, their fruits were missing, they are losing hopes.. That's not even including all the pressure of using pesticides and poisons which against their belief. And they are not living there due to his day job, and her responsibilities. They were weekend farmer, which throw into the mix, was pretty hard to persist.

Slowly they bought sturdier locks, they befriended their neighbours, and they try to minimize the damaged done by the animals and human. They planted vegetables, replanted, experimenting with ways of doing, skirting around the people's well-meaning-but-often-not-possible-unless-you-have-thousands advice. She read, researches and plan. He argues and executes. The smaller he played and played.

Well, this isn't fairy tale, and the story is still in their 2 minutes introduction, so sorry, just stay tune and cheer us on, will ya? We appreciate all the cares and advice thrown to us! Maybe when we are making thousands, we will use them, hopefully. *laughs darkly*

Enjoy some of the pictures of our farm and send us blessing, will ya?

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Here is one of our first visit to the farm, with super delicious ferns called miding in his language (Sarawakian Kedayan). The first time I cooked it, I put in everything. You are not supposed to put in everything. Khyru said I'm a town girl (to be honest, I first taste it in his house, I honestly never eat it, let alone cook it!)

The expert gathering the miding

Can you spot them?

Here the non expert gather only a handful.... compare to the expert foraging on the right.....

The second time, he supervise me cooking. So it turns out you just need to pick the shoots as well the young leaves, not the stalk, not the old leaves.. It was delicious!!

The house were broken into, people took our windows and broke our home..

The prayer mat left from my dad's.

We are still in progress of renovating it, but at least we have windows now.

The first visits. The gate around were torn down by elephant (no kidding!) And the weeds are knee to chest high.

The occasional bounty, coffee and cempedaks.

Keyaan playing in his own road for his toys

The tired guy after whole day playing

Slowly we clear some areas.

Then...this happen:

The elephant came and raid our farm!

They destroyed the juiciest and tastiest durian tree.

And here is their poop:

This valuable left over, were a gold star fertilizer.

The old rattan chair from my childhood and the farm after mowing, all the grass are knee high again...

We plant some lemongrass with a few techniques.

Plant some peas and made a trellis from brances.

We explore the land. There's always a lot of butterflies, dragonflies, and at times fireflies!

Keyaan always running after butterflies, while screaming "batupai batupaiiii" excitedly

There's a weird looking bird nest, we called them burung tempua. Its highly valuable and we notice the next week its missing. Poor birds..

One time we found baby mice, and there's like 18 of them or something.

Keyaan was wary at first but I told them it just like bunnies babies.

And then this happen:

He put them in egg cartons! And even counting them and putting one in each square. He kinda enjoy it I guess. Khyru burned and drown them in the end. (Yes he's cold heart, no emotion kind of guy. Certified not pro animal.)

We often cooks outdoor during these glorious outing. Khyru's usually the cook, and I'll eat. :)