Hello, my name is Cade. My wife and I live in the mountains on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. We sailed away from Florida (St. Petersburg) back in 2001 and washed up here! We have a house with a big cistern and solar panels, but we are still connected to the world via internet - wirelessly. We learned a lot about living off the grid and being well-prepared in our years of traveling by sailboat - in some ways a farm is actually easier. We have coffee, bananas, avocados, oranges, and several tropical foods that are not so common elsewhere. I think we will start raising ducks and tilapia in the next year. Anyway, that is our situation. We have plenty left to learn.
Hola! welcome to the monkey tree... grab a branch and enjoy... we have a very eclectic set of skills among our members...
Hi Cade, welcome to the Monkey Tree. Have you considered a couple of potbelly pigs. Yes I know, people make pets out of them, but when you look at how they fill out like an old world pig except on a smaller scale, you just have to know they would produce tasty meat. Smaller would seem to mean easier to contain, corral, catch (if free range), butcher, etc. Also, a lot of us here at Monkey have heirloom garden seed that you might be interested in. Just ask. Again, Welcome to the tree. Oh, question. .... what methods do you use to preserve food in your climate.
Welcome aboard, Cade. It looks like you may have a lot to contribute here, as well as a few questions we can try to answer. If I read things rightly, you are a ham. If so, you might spend some time reading the comms forum.
Welcome to the Monkey Tree, Pick out a branch and have a look around..... Lots of Good Folks, here'bouts and plenty of Good Information to peruse. Looks like a Ham Call for a User Name..... Feel free to add to the Comms forums... and I hear from your area on occasion, so maybe we could swap stories, and Ideas on the air.....
hi, regarding food preservation - we are experimenting with sun-drying, but like we once heard from a grocer in Cartagena, Colombia - "why would anybody can tomatoes?" In the tropics, the growing season is so long, preserving is not common practice. We have bananas year-round. But of course there are seasonal items. The locals just eat something different but we can't let that ride! We also have a small freezer (4cf) and a decent sized refrigerator (8cf) - both top-loading. I am a HAM, general license. My radio is slightly broken right now and I have not managed to get it high enough on the list to fix yet. Something in the amplifier circuit I think. I will check out comms forum.
Welcome, I have spent a lot of time in the D.R. around Puerto Plata, San Pedro De Marcoris, Boca Chica, Santa Domingo. DR is home to a lot of my friends, a couple that still work for the salvage company that employed me. One of my crew was murdered there in San Pedro De Marcoris outside Casa Amarillo. I have often thought of returning to live there, maybe I'll sail back that way in a few years.
Welcome aboard. May I ask you a question about bananas? Someone told me that the big yellow bananas that I see in my local market are extremely genetically modified. They said the true natural original banana is small and not bright yellow. Just a curious question.
as to bananas, they originate from southeast Asia and Australia, I am told. There are many varieties, but these are cultivars and not necessarily separate species; they are hybrids and varieties that arose and were preferred. That might constitute genetic modification I suppose, but it is not genetic modification that was done in a laboratory by Monsanto or anybody like that. I hear there are some moves in that direction and even a GMO variety that has a lot of vitamin D. But my bananas, and generally all bananas grown in the D.R. as far as I know, are simple clones. The banana root produces sucker plants called "sepas" (at least here in latin america) and these are transplanted to start a new stalk. When a stalk yields a "bunch" after about a year, it dies and new stalks emerge from the root ball - those sepas. The "seeds" in bananas are undeveloped and sterile - of course that was not the case in the wild species, only in the economically important cultivars. The bananas in supermarkets are selected for their durability in transportation. They are a variety known as Cavendish, which according to Wikipedia was developed in 1836, so predating modern genetic manipulation techniques.
Welcome to the Monkey Tree - my favorite Survival Forum due to the friendliness-kindness combined with a HUGE amount of knowledge and knowledge sharing.
