DQ Farm (est. 1991)

The thing about keeping the farm environment as natural as possible is that there’s so much wildcrafted food around.

Taking a walk today in one of our ‘wild corners’, there ahead of us are some wild mushrooms:

A corner kept 'wild' for its 'Qi'

Cendawan Busut (Termitomyces albuminosa) or Termite-Hill Mushrooms just ahead of us.

More mushrooms at the side, on slightly elevated grounds.

Further ahead of us, round a corner, a patch of daun meranti, a solanum nigrum variety that has a long history of safe consumption among village folks.

Solanum nigrum var. patch

Fruits of the plant, considered toxic in some varieties, especially the green fruits.  On the safe side, best to avoid consuming them.

Delicious stir-fried. 

Frankly, wildcrafted food is our preferred food.  At any given day, we would have wild eels, mushrooms, fruits and so many different varieties of vegetables.

Ingredients for a 'wild' lunch: daun meranti, bunga kantan and some garlic.

Sweet yet bitterish daun meranti with a hint of kantan aroma, and of course garlic to bring it all together. A light, healthy lunch; great by itself or with some rice.

Wildcrafted foods are not bred to grow fast, nor bred to exhibit a certain characteristic such as a particular color, or a particular flavor, or in most cases, to make it sweeter.

In many  ways, it would be a more “balanced” food.  By this I mean you are not going to have fruits that are so sweet that it affects your glucose level adversely, or vegetables with excessive nitrates, etc. 

These are foods made by Nature,  not altered by man to suit man's taste-buds or to suit marketing and production requirements.

We were surprised to find that the nest of Treron Olax have not only hatched, but have fledged.  There they were a family group, three fledglings and three adults hanging on to some branches of a tree about 10 meters away from their nests.

A flimsy platform in our petai tree was where they made their nests overlooking the staff kitchen and dining area and the noise of tractors and chattering workers.  These are supposedly forest birds.

Three parents guarding over their fledglings. Sorry about the bad photography, clearly I need some lessons.  The birds flew from their nests at 7am and hung on to this tree 10 meters away, for two hours.  

Then with a loud flutter, as if by a common signal, they flew off at speed simultaneously towards the nearby forest.  Wonder why they are not nesting in the forests? Poachers?

The male

One of the females next to a fledgling.

Treron Olax or Little Green Pigeon is a resident bird in Malaysia. Will have to get better equipment to document all these birds at our farm, plus take some lessons.

Here's a couple of photos showing the birds in their glory from http://www.tomo-rhino.com/malaysia/

Treron Olax is a protected bird in Malaysia.

When birds find your farm environment to be conducive, they become resident and no longer transcient.  We can farm and yet we can have a bird sanctuary, sharing just a small percentage of our farming produce with the birds.

It is an honour that many birds, both common and rare have started to nest at our farm.  Subsequent generations become increasingly tame and human-friendly.

Emerald Dove – two years  ago they first started to appear; always flightly.  Today they have started nesting at our farm in at least 5 locations.

Click for close up.

Yellow Vented Bulbul – they have nests all over our farm, and subsequent generations are no longer transcient making our farm their permanent home.

Click for Close Up

This juvenile Asian Glossy Starling is part of a flock hatched from nests in our farm.

And our personal favorite, the diminutive Tailor Bird, which goes about its business right next to us without a care.  This bird was just 5 feet away  from me while I was noisily cutting some brush. How’s that for trust?