Earth Hour

   It is this weekend.  We've participated these past four years by turning off our lights for a little longer than the hour.  Back in Makati, the whole village participated. Here, in this village, all lights remain on, there is no notice, and the Earth Hour project seems unheard of.  Lights are out in homes that are mostly empty, and it doesn't really matter to me...I admittedly haven't given much thought to why I participate, except it would not hurt anyway. It is good.  

    These were shot last December.  The last photo, with the vast Indian Ocean front and center, seems poignant now, in the light of MH 370. We may never really know what really happened...and it's one of those mysteries I need an answer for from God.  May their souls rest in peace.

Hope, Birds, and Flowers

      There is! Hope.  I open my front door to see a long-wavy-haired teenage boy turn back, stop his scooter in the middle of the road outside our fence...and look down. I thought he was going to pick up the brown object...maybe something he dropped?  But he sped one direction, and returned quickly, with another boy behind him.  They both looked down and the second boy picked up a little maya (Sparrow) bird...

      I asked..."...alive?".  Wavy-haired kid turned to me, and nodding said "it can't fly...we'll take care of it".

      He looked sincere and their discussion was serious...I trust that they were taking it home to heal it. What else?

      At this hormonal, cranky and cynical phase of my life, when I have begun to mutter "teenagers" whenever I find some irritating, I pause. No, I bonk myself on the head.  There are many good kids out there, and the world is still a good place.  Heck, they are better than you, I tell myself.   

      And no, this isn't a maya...it's a sunbird. It sang from 5-6 pm, also today, directly overhead. Watch out for the droppings, my kid warned.

    A year ago...or maybe even more than a year ago...(I really ought to resume a gardening journal), I cut a small stem off the hydrangea (milflores) pictured in the first March 2011 post.  Now, finally, blooms from that cutting.  I am pleased, because I didn't think it possible.

   I've also just learned they are pink because the soil is alkaline. Apparently they are originally blue and turn pink depending on the soil (or water?).

   We don't have Spring in the Philippines. But if we did, today would probably have been it. Just today. I bet tomorrow the hot Summer begins.

Narra Showers

Coming full circle from the first post 3 years ago...

I will never tire of these...after March 2014 showers...perfumed air yesterday

yellow carpet today

Makopa (Malabar plum?)

  ...and I find I have nothing more to say.

Honeybees and Humans

   Tonight's rant may be inspired by three things, or not. First, my walking along my child's school pathway and seeing a row of about four dead honeybees.  On the other side of this path is a flower bed of different colored blooms.  The school is located on hilly land, blessed with a moderate climate and vegetation is abundant.  I wondered if their deaths were part of the normal cycle of honeybee life...to suck their last blossom's nectar and then just pass out on the side. Or, if the recent almost-daily burning of grass (again by the big property developers...see March 2011 post) had anything to do with their demise.  I did read somewhere that honeybees' navigation has been affected by the world...

   Second...my child's current piano piece, "Honeybee" and her second visit to a farm animal and botanical ''zoo" with a honeybee section have made her wildly passionate about them.  Third, and this is related to the first and second...I just swatted one inside my house today.  The child found it flying against a closed window.  As we were in a hurry to leave and I worried about not seeing it and it buzzing around later when we were asleep...I immediately did the deed.  I apologized, actually apologized to the bee and explained my action to the child.  She only echoed what I usually tell her ..."it won't harm you if you don't harm it".  She was then worried it might harm me in retribution.  I was worried about how it found its way inside.

   Well, my child hasn't grasped the effect of "death", but her worries about retribution are not unfounded.  Honeybees are probably too sweet (sorry) to do that...but the reality is, they go, humans go. It's not retribution, it's self-inflicted.

    And this is the latest out there:

    http://tvnz.co.nz/sunday-news/honey-bees-under-attack-5847035

Santa Rosa Sunset February 9, 2014

Happy New Year

Note the donkey

This Side of Heaven (Patti Austin)