our life at fruitopia

end of january 2010

our life at fruitopia in no way reaches our ideal, but despite that, we are happy to have a roof over our heads, especially now, during the tropical rainy season, I know that a temporary stay in a tent might probably/possibly not be a very happy experience, even so, it could be an interesting one, but we have gladly decided to let go of it.

we still have the first offer to move out to a different place, to house sit for one man, who on most days is working away from home, and therefore his house is empty, but we are hesitating to move in, because we also have another very simular offer, which is more suitable for us, as we prefer the area and the house as well, but the man who owns the house is a bit adventurous, so he arranges meetings with us, but does not arrive for them, or ring, that happened already two times, i have to give him credit for arriving once, but the other times he was fully silent for almost a week, so we are not sure what to expect and how it is all going to turn out. oh, no, but such is life, and we are doing our best to take it as it comes, and to accept that everything is happening for a reason, even at times we do not see the meaning of it straight away, that's life.

i got a bit tangled with the time in my last note about fruitopia, i wrote, that we had only two weeks left until we have to leave, but i found out that we have the whole month, but we are still hoping to move in to another place before then.

i also forgot to add, that this farm is registered as organic, and that made me more aware of such statements, so in future when i am going to buy organic fruit straight from a producer, i will look more in to what kind of fertilizers they are using. so far, i have not been too concerned about it, and we get the most of our fruit, which is very tasty and does not get so easily mouldy as the ones from fruitopia, on local markets. and since we become more aware of quality and production of fruit at fruitopia, we are eating much less of it. we are eating mainly passion fruit, a tiny bit of peanut butter fruit and we also ate some akee, which we love so much, but even though there are several akee trees here, on sunny days we were getting at most about ten a day, but since the time when the abundant rain arrived, we have only been finding one every few days, and that is hardly any. akee, just like us love the sun.

i also forgot to mention last time, that in the beginning fruitopia had two owners, but one recently left, because even though those two people shared the same vision at first, that changed with time and now fruitopia has just one owner, and a little bit poorer as well, because he had to buy out the previous co-owner. and because he did not have enough money, he agreed to also sell him a corner of fruitopia, with the agreement that the previous co-owner would not sell it, but instead should keep the land. but as it happened, this promise was not kept and the corner was sold to some slightly not so wanted neighbour.

i would like to add as well, that another neighbour beside fruitopia is a farmer on a huge acreage, and he is producing a big mono mango and avocado orchard and he is not at all organic or environmentally friendly because he is using poisonous chemicals as fertilizers and he also uses poison to spray the trees, and the wind blows those deadly chemicals onto some parts of Fruitopia as well, and on top of it, all those damaging chemicals are in the soil, and they travel a long way through waterways and rain water. we were also told, that here at fruitopia no one keeps eye on the soil condition, and that once a year the owner gets a form to fill in and send with the required money, and that is all that's needed to certify the farm as organic. so, as far organic produce goes, i learned, that i truly don't know, what is on my table and getting in to my bloodstream. it must be my intuition, which i do listen to, that i never feel very positive about organic fruit sold in the shops, and therefore i never truly did look for it. i was also turned off by overpriced organic fruit and its appearance and also my intuition was telling me it is not the real deal. the only organic fruit my intuition agreed with was from the gardens of people i knew well and such fruit was very tasty. the story goes the same for fruits from my own previous gardens.

thanks to the abundant rain, the water everywhere has risen up and gotten very wild, so we have recently been bathing only in the bath tub, just because we have not wanted to be carried away by wild waters. we could swim in any of the many lakes on the tablelands, but they are a bit farther away from our present location. we only hope that our new home is going to be situated not far from some of the beautiful lakes of far north queensland, so we would be able to swim as much we want even in the peak of the rainy season.

since we arrived in the tropics, we've been regularly visiting, each friday, cairns fresh produce markets, rusty's, and that is where we are getting our very yummy and each one very original fresh magic durians. they began their season just around the time we moved on to fruitopia. and as usual, we are learning from experience, and by now, we know who is selling the best and the most yummy durians. yes, it happened, that we've occasionally bought very off durians, and so far, we've always managed to get our money back or another durian, and that is great, because fresh local durian is expensive, it can cost from eight to ten australian dollars per kg. the best price so far was once at one stall for six dollars, and on that day me and mango bought more durians than usual, so we feasted on durians big time. each friday, after we arrive at rusty’s markets, we buy durians first, and then we have an adorable durian breakfast, we share usually two, or three, depending on the size, and after breakfast we continue our fruit shopping. we always get oranges, we only drink them, and pineapples, we only eat them, even though we get some juice by hand squashing the pineapple skin, and we also always get red pawpaw. and occasionally the odd rare fruit or 2, like different kind of sapote, mango, they are still available in abundance, mangosteen, lychee and longan, which is a bit expensive, because the longan season just began.

and every saturday we visit other near by, or not so near by, local fresh produce markets where we get our fruit straight from growers. especially very tasty cucumbers, i never tasted so yummy, sweet, juicy and creamy cucumbers like the ones here in the tropics. also one very nice originally german man, mango worked for him for a while, it was at those days, when mango used to live in this neck of the woods, about 11 years ago, sometimes gives us very soft, but not mouldy, ready to eat red pawpaw for free. he lets me pick them, as many as i want to. so far, it seems that he grows the most yummy red pawpaw in the region, yum. he also sold us yesterday, about 5kg of very yummy and top quality lady finger bananas only for one dollar, mango gave him two. from another man, we get the yummiest avocados, and then from what ever other stall holders have to offer, we choose intuitively and buying usually passion fruit, water melons, pineapples, etc..

at times, we even buy fruit from supermarkets, usually telegraph cucumbers on special, and they are super tasty. also on special, very sweet white nectarines, and just recently so far cheapest in the area, and also very sweet, green grapes.

the truth is, we don't know how exactly the fruit we buy is fertilized or treated, but we know that it is taste very yummy, it looks and behaves very healthily and we feel its great benefit. we do not feel sick, or suffering any pains, yes, our health is with us.

and because it's often raining, mango is writing more than usual and i do a bit more writing as well, but i read more, not on the internet, but books. i already read a few of them. mango also planted in a box some durian seeds and they have already sprouted out and i took some pictures of them. we are going to take them with us, once is time to move out. we also gather some other fruit seeds, we like to grow at our next location.

there is, here at fruitopia a very very slow dial up internet connection, so slow, that it is taking a few minutes to turn the page, and on top of it, they are often errors occurring, and that is for me the worst scenario, because in most cases i don't know what to do, and my only choice is to bother mango, to help me with it. luckily, he is so nice, that he always helps me, with smile (almost always), but i do not like much the idea, to bother him with such thing. and that is the reason, why i am not very often on internet, and i use it only very shortly. mango was looking for solution for better internet access, and after some research we bought a wireless broadband modem for about hundred dollars, and prepaid usage for seventy dollars for two months. there was some limit on the usage, and even though, mango did a fair bit of research and spoke for ages with the sales person at "allphones", very soon, after we began using our wireless broadband, mango discovered, that our limited usage was disappearing way too fast, even though we were doing our best to use it sparingly. no, wonder, even mango, the net whiz, got confused, and he went to some forum debating net connections, and very quickly learned, that optus was making big money for a tiny bit of service, and our luck was with us, that he discovered this just before our 14 day trial period was due to run out, so we could return the modem, get the $100 refund, but we lost seventy dollars, witch was advertised to last for two months, and it was used in two weeks, despite hardly being used. and because we are not sure, were we will be living in the near future, we decided to stay on fruitopia's dial up connection, and we'll look in to it again once we have moved out. not every area is network accessible, so we do not want to end up with a useless modem, and more loss of money as well.

and it is monday, the beginning of the new week, and i am looking forward to see what this week is going to deliver to us.

i woke up in the morning to a lovely sunny day, but in one hour dark big clouds arrived, and it was overcast, without rain, so far.. yesterday was a little bit sunny, mostly cloudy and it rained only a bit at night time, i went to sleep at three o'clock in the morning. oh, i would never believe it, but i miss the rain :) true is i always loved the rain, as long as the temperature stays around 30 + celsius.

mango has lost appetite for watermelons, actually, he was never very keen on them, so he had today orange juice and i had a watermelon juice. they were fresh juices, made by me from raw fresh fruit, and we drank them fresh , straight after they were made. as always. yum, yum, yummy, yum. i love fresh, freshly squeezed fruit juices.

life is beautiful

ps: the pictures will appear again, as soon as we get a fast internet connection :)