Do you know nutmeg fruit has male and female? Do you know that goats are similar to human being and they will get running nose, fever and take the medicine same as human? The trip to Nutmeg factory and goat’s farm in Balik Pulau last school holiday is really an eye opener not only for our children but also to the parents! This is the first time QQ has organised a trip that involved parents in the field trip together to create bonding and learning together opportunities! We received good response from the parents and we even have grandmother go with their grand children!
The weather on that day was really hot! However, 60 people from QQ Kulim and 47 people from QQ Padang Serai were so excited for the trip! We walked up and down the hill to the organic farm, listened to the owner explaining how they plant the organic vegetable, children experiencing the harvesting of the bayam under the hot sun! Then, we walked up the hill again to the fruit farm to enjoy fruits and DURIAN! I was really surprised that so many of our students were DURIAN lovers! Every child was happy when leaving the organic farm as each one got a pack of organic vegetable !
Next stop was nutmeg factory, the owner, Mr Cheah, an experience man in nutmeg greeted us at the main entrance and started to show us the nutmeg tree! Nutmeg tree will start to bear fruit after 5 years. One year there is two seasons March and September. Nutmeg fruit has male and female, the usage of the male and female nutmeg is the same except female can be used for planting and male nutmeg fruits cannot be used for planting. Male nutmeg has double seed and irregular shape. Nutmeg can be used for making oilment, juice, tea, pickle and spice. Unripe nutmeg is used for making oil and ripe nutmeg is use for pickle and juice. The seed is beautiful and with red stripe when ripe ! Mr. Cheah even teach us how to open and cut the nutmeg and let us tried the cutting process. Few parents and myself tried the cutting process, it was not difficult but need skill to be efficient!
We have cold nutmeg juice to quench our thirst especially with the hot weather! We had our lunch there and imagine more than 100 people were there as this is the point where both QQ Kulim and Padang Serai met!
After lunch, everyone gets a bottle of nutmeg juice and dried banana chips and left the factory happily and proceed to goat’s farm. We need to walk about 10 minutes to the goat ‘s farm located in the ‘kampung’. Children are enjoying and walked eagerly toward the farms whereas parent s were a bit exhausted! This might be the result of lack of exercise!
The goat farm was neat and clean, of course we can sense goat’s smell before we reached the farm ! All of us were given the grass to feed the goat! This is the great time I can say as children as well as parent were so anxious to feed the goats. The goats were white in colour and were originated from Australia! Everyone was so focused in feeding the goats and you can hear screaming and laughing all over the farm!
The visit will not be completed without watching the milking process and taste of fresh goats milk! We were served with fresh pasteurised goat’s milk and the taste was superb! Many parents bought the milk home!
It was indeed an informative and fun trip I would say, every one of us was exhausted and enjoyed ourselves very much! Some parents even requested to join in the next trip!
All photos were uploaded on QQ Kulim facebook ! Please visit QQ fan page and download the photos if you were in the photos! Http://facebook.com.qq.kulim or go to http://on.fb.me/jlbBq2 to download.
