Morning Blessings

It rained the whole night

This morning

the sun breaks the dark clouds

And this is its reward –

My Hoya

finally in bloom!

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Garden Scents

I went back to gardening  after letting my hands heal for a few days. Goodness, I have to trim the carabao grass again, they have grown quite wild in three weeks.

This morning I was at the garden at 5am, still dark for some but it was nice to see the world unfolding with a hot cup of coffee and the company of our dog Noki.  Mimi went back to sleep besides mom as soon as I opened the door to our dirty kitchen.  Have you ever spent an early morning smelling different garden scents? The sweet aroma and spicy scent of oregano, the spicy and sharp fragrance of ginger leaves that linger,  the lemony smell of calamansi flowers and the intoxicating scent of gardenia flowers  captivate the senses. You wish you could put each scent in a bottle and maybe use them to make scented candles.

Last week, I trimmed one of our calamansi trees. Time is a gentle and  nice reminder that new life will always be something to look forward to.  Look at those healthy leaves sprouting like crazy.  It is always nice to see something growing in one’s garden.

The rhizomes of the turmeric I bought at the wet market have finally produced buds.  I planted them in three pots and they are thriving nicely. It is  my first time to try cultivating turmeric in my garden.

Ginger foliage…

I only have one potted ginger and the roots are ready for harvest. I wonder if ginger produces flowers just like the turmeric. I can’t wait to see it blooms.

And these capped my early morning garden adventure, my bleeding heart blooms.

Bleeding hearts…

It is good to be alone in a garden at dawn or dark so that all its shy presences may haunt you and possess you in a reverie of suspended thought. ~James Douglas

 

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Up Close

 

My lovely Ruellia

And it’s not enough that you trim the grass,

taking shot of a lovely bloom is a must.

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Good Morning World

Oh my, it seems like months since I last posted here.  Thank you for those visits even if there is nothing new to read.  No valid reason though except the same old one, been busy the past few days.  Blogging took a back seat for a while.

Gardening has been a priority of course. It rains almost every day now so those unwanted weeds sprout like crazy too. Every two weeks, I need to trim our carabao grass, a tall order for aching backs and sore muscles.  The reward though is more than enough to make me smile. All the Portulaca I planted three weeks ago are blooming now in different colors of yellow, white, orange and pink.  They are the most easy to grow annual plants.

Saw this white rain lily in early bloom. Flowers only appear during rainy season but they are nice ground cover.

Yesterday, I attempted to cook my version of Bicol Express  for our lunch.  It’s  that popular dish from the Bicol region where coconut seems to be the main ingredient in lots of their local dishes. And know what, the main ingredient here is not the pork but the sliced green Thai chili peppers that we have plenty of.  The dish is really hot and it requires a lot of rice to go with it. I omitted the shrimp paste since Josef is allergic to shrimp, used ordinary rock salt instead.  It was yummy.

Bicol Express

Some of my friends are urging me to cook another dish in coconut cream which we call Ginataang Santol.  I asked  my favorite vendor yesterday if they have the Bangkok variety but she told me it is not yet in season.  Would love to cook this again when I find those sweet Bangkok santol in the market.

I was able to transfer all the photos I took on my tab at Photobucket and to my hard drive.  Better be safe than sorry. One  more thing I need to do and it is a hard and dusty undertaking – to clean our book shelves and separate books, the favorites and most important ones from those we just bought on a whim. There are some authors that I have never known before but surprisingly delivers a good  piece of  a story.

Eight books in advance for my 2016 Reading Challenge in Goodreads. Hooray!

 

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Hop In, Visit My Backyard Garden

Gosh, the sudden morning rain prevented me again from finishing my garden chores but I am glad I don’t have to water the plants. Everything looks so green and fresh. Gone are the dusts clinging  to the leaves of the plants.

I’ve focused my time and efforts  just updating this site that I forgot I have to visit and post a thing or two to my other blogs. I must admit it is quite hard to maintain several blogs.  The thing is, years ago I  have decided to separate my gardening blog, photos, my blog posts on Nate and lately a new platform which I could use when I fully consume my allowed limits here. Got 29% more to go before it ends. Hopefully, without posting so many photos, I could still use this in the next year or two.

This morning (finally) I updated my gardening blog called Gardens and Empty Spaces, I really hope you’ll find time to visit it too. My intro page is quite long but you can find it on the widget sidebar, an easier way to know the gardener behind the garden🙂 I  also included some excerpts on my latest blog posts at my other sites.

Hop in, you are welcome to visit my backyard garden.

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Another Day In The Life Of A Gardener

I was about to start gardening but there was this sudden drizzle enough to wet the grass but not enough to water the plants. It made  me quite lazy to garden and played with our three dogs instead.  I haven’t taken any picture with the three of them together since they run around when I am in the garden.  I tried my tab’s camera to take a few shots though.

Haha, they are camera-shy.  I often read in the garden  using my tab and sometimes they are curious enough to see what I am doing, short of wanting to take a sip of my coffee or tea. Sometimes I feed them a day-old pandesal and they like it.

Most of my garden blooms now are my orange and pink-striped lilies. I replanted some plants early this morning and trimmed my overgrown bleeding hearts.

They are not as clear as those I take with my Canon camera  and it is not so easy to focus the subject when you would like to take macro shots. Such is the limit of a lower  megapixel.

My blackberries are thriving nicely. I planted five of them in  a row behind the house. Oh, and the spicy and sweet aroma of the oregano mixed with  minty  smell of basil  which I planted in a pot – heaven. Add  the lemony scent of my Calamansi flowers and you’ll get the feel of a small garden where you can stay for a while, write a few lines or two or just watch the world go by.

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It’s A Pink Wednesday

Ah yes, color me pink for the day.

I spent the early morning in the garden weeding a bit. I don’t know, our carabao grass needs trimming again, it seems to grow by leaps and bounds. The rainy days last week contributed to the rapid growth of everything. I had a lovely time picking some Calamansi (Philippine lime) from our two fruit trees in the yard. They are almost ripe, just perfect for a pitcher of fresh Calamansi juice. Our Bougainvillea planted at the corner outside our perimeter wall is blooming again, those lovely clustered pink flowers are a sight to behold. The shrub serves as a protection to our concrete corner wall where there is busy traffic every day. Even my pink rain lilies are showing flowers in every tip. My pink and yellow Portulaca are blooming too so are my pink angels. How lovely to see different shade of pink in the garden. I call it a pink Wednesday.

My son and I had a good laugh a while ago when I heard the Beatles playing on his tab while he was having a late breakfast. I asked him, “since when have you learned listening to that kind of music?” He said, “don’t you remember, we used to watch them when I was in grade school”. Oh, senior moments again.  I laughed. Of course, I remember now, there was this new tv station (on test broadcast for a few days) and they played those old movies by the Beatles and some clips of their concerts worldwide.  You bet, I am now listening to their music on YouTube while blogging🙂 Those were the days and the good thing about the 60’s and 70’s music is that you always have the option to listen to them even just on YouTube.

Do you find pleasure in listening to old music, that kind that resonates with you, that kind of music that was a part of your growing up years? I do.

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