Simply Belle

Our summer garden got frost out because of unexpected frost at 27 degrees not too long ago. We didn’t have the chance to cover them with the poly greenhouse plastic. Even the next batch of vegetables from the other bed which is supposed to be cold hardy also got hit by the frost. Luckily, most of them were able to survive. The next day, we immediately covered the vegetables with the plastic to minimize the damage and to protect the garden from further frost, possible hail, or other severe weather.  We live at 5000-foot elevation so we get a lot of early morning frost around end of October. Also, we live in an area where weather can be unpredictable. One day, it is nice and warm, the next day, it is freezing cold.

Lately, I haven’t been visiting the garden because I have been coming home late, and also, I have been busy with my yoga, late appointments, and Bible study. Today though, I came home on time, and while still in my uniform, I rushed straight to the garden.  The last time I saw them, they were recuperating from the frost. I thought I would take a peek and see how the veggies are doing. Boy, was I in for a big surprise.

Take a look:

Chinese cabbage

Bloomsdale spinach

Thumb-thumb lettuce (right), and Grand rapid lettuce (left)

Turnips

Kale - frost worst hit as shown in the picture.

I couldn’t believe the transformation of the plants from few days ago. They look so healthy and vigorous, and have gotten huge. My husband said that he gave them a drink of compost tea.  Yes, a compost tea that he brewed for about a day and half out of hay, cow’s manure, kitchen waste products, and whatever he could find. Even used tea bags and banana peel get thrown in.  It is truly what I call an organic gardening. Not a bad thing to have in the sunny spot of your backyard.

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Look how easy it is to slip into the tar pit. And once your foot enters the pit, it sticks in the tar and never lets go.  The harder you struggle, the deeper you sink. Eventually, you sink out of sight.

An example of this happened to an acquaintance who sold their house for $750,000. The buyers of the house had no down payment and the bank would only loan $600, 000. So the seller took the $150,000 on real estate contract with monthly payments due directly to them. They built a real expensive retirement house in another state exhausting all the money they had and had to borrow the rest. The monthly payment for the new house amounts to $2,700 which should be coming from the house they sold in CA.  Suddenly, the payment stopped because the buyers decided the house wasn’t worth what they owned.  The bank foreclosed the house and sold it at an auction for $450, 000, $150, 000 short of the $600, 000 they needed.

Meanwhile, the guy who is supposed to enjoy retirement, was forced to take a night job for $10 an hour to somehow cover the mortgage on his new house, which is for sale for almost a year now.  Sadly though, the salary that the guy is getting from his night job isn’t enough to cover the mortgage. As a result, they are steadily exhausting their savings and sinking deeper into the carpet. It will not be long before the savings will be soon be depleted. And I am envisioning a retired couple will soon be forced to leave the key of the house on mortgage lender’s desk and end up in a crammed rental apartment for the rest of their lives.

In the meantime, friends are trying to cross their fingers that a right buyer will pop out of nowhere and save the couple. But, so far, no buyer has showed up yet….except for one looker in 10 months. From talking to one of the couple, I could sense a panic deep inside. I hate to see the inevitable but unless there is 180 degrees turnaround, the future is bleak and gloomy for these couple,  I am afraid.

Lessons of the story:

Live within your means. In their case, they could have built a much smaller house that they can afford in case the payment stops from the sale of the old house.  They also bought a very expensive vehicle, which makes my vehicle look inferior, which I don’t mind as long it takes me to work and back and everywhere I want to go without hassles. Besides, mine is all paid for and it is not a gas hog type.

Anticipate the worst things that can happen. Know your financial limit. Just because you have payment coming in from another source doesn’t mean your are secured. Come up with plan B in case plan A doesn’t work. And when you are in your 60’s, approach things with caution.  Don’t be blinded by the glitter and sparkle of the material things around you.  You can’t work as much overtime as when you were younger. If you don’t have the cash to buy it, let it go or better yet, save the money first and then buy.

It is nice to have credit card for emergency like paying for airline ticket but in most cases, credit cards suck you into a hole. They come in your mail almost daily begging you to take them. Why are they so easy to acquire? There must be a hidden agenda, right?  Because if you miss your payment, which can easily happen, they are going to charge you with exorbitant late fees, and huge interest, and card fees.  Crazy! Why would anyone have 3 or 5 of them in his/her wallet is beyond me.

If you are buying a car on a 3 year time table, once it is paid off, keep the car and continue making payments as before but send it to your saving accounts. And then when it is time to buy a new car, you will have the money saved up in the bank plus it has the chance to earn interest.  You can apply the same principle for vacations and almost everything except buying a big ticket item like a house. This way, you will avoid making monthly payments, penalties, interests, and stress.  Or in case you lose a job, you don’t have to worry about losing your car to some collection agency.

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Two weeks ago, my husband, Lexi, and I went on a trip in a far-away corner of Arizona, about a day drive including bathroom and shopping stops. My husband had been wanting to see this mecca in the middle of high country of Arizona, kind of a wind-swift, treeless, nondescript countryside, with only occasional shrubs growing. I never heard or seen this before, unlike Grand Canyon which is famous worldwide.

We thought that it would help Lexi to get out of the house and get her mind occupied on something. We bought a tent for Lexi and I to sleep in while my husband had the car to himself. We brought everything we needed to get by comfortably including firewood.  We love sitting next to a fire, sipping a cup of tea and at the same time enjoying the dark surrounding with occasional uninvited visits from the bugs.

While I was preparing dinner, Lexi volunteered to assemble the tent, and my husband unloaded the truck. I was especially thrilled that Lexi offered to do a semi-challenging task of setting up a brand new tent given her condition. And she did amazingly well in no time with zero help.

Sleeping in a tent was quite comfortable with queen-sized air mattress spread over the tent floor and comfortable pillows, quilts and blankets to keep us warm. I was sleeping like a log until I heard this  squeaking noise from behind us at 3 AM.  It was my husband re-inflating his mattress because evidently it had a pinhole somewhere that deflated  the mattress slowly over the night.  I was pretty sure he wasn’t happy about it, but it was either get up and inflate the bed or sleep on the cold ridges of the truck floor in the wee hours of a very cold morning. What would you rather do?

Got up at 7:30 AM and shortly thereafter, we drove 12 miles to see Canyon De Chelly. Lexi didn’t want to wake up that early no matter how hard I tried to get her to come with us. We had no choice but to leave her in the tent with a promise to be back in 2 hours, instead of waiting for her to get up for who knows how long and by then it would be scorching hot in the canyon. It was so beautiful up there, so many interesting things to focus my camera that we lost touch of time, and before we knew it, the clock said 12:30 PM….oooopssss!!

Lexi was fuming mad and made us drive her up there again taking the south side route as we already covered the north side. It took a while before her anger subsided.

Canyon De Chelly is totally a wondrous place. I was mesmerized by its pure natural beauty. Nearly 5,000 years ago, Navajo Indians lived here.  It was such a beautiful place filled with spectacular rock formations, and green luscious trees in between canyons. So beautiful that I rank it second behind Grand Canyon. Sadly though when the Canyon was established as a monument in 1931, people had to be relocated in the higher elevation though some still own a farm where they grow apples, peaches, and corn. In fact, I had a chance to talk to one of the Navajos (picture below) who used to live down there and I could tell how proud she was of the place she called home many years ago.  She now sells affordable home-made jewelry made out of juniper seeds, and some stones.

Although, the Canyon is under the jurisdiction of the US government, it belongs to the Navajo people who I considered the most industrious, artistic, and skillful, of all the indians in the USA.

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sweet and juicy persimmons - make excellent salsa, too.

Just because we live in Arizona, where scorching heat is a plenty, and rain is scarce, doesn’t mean we are unable to enjoy organic gardening.  Particularly now that organic vegetables are not only expensive but very limited, and some varieties are hard to find because of modern agriculture in which vegetables are grown for their appearance, shelf-life, and not for their taste and nutrients, these babies are delicious and refreshing treat. For example, the freshly ripened figs have only a shelf-life of 3 days and bruise easily on shipment, and so you rarely see these in the market. Yet, they taste mightily awesome especially when eaten fresh. I don’t care though for the dried ones and the fig newton cookies, which are considered processed figs. Nothing can really beat tree-ripened fruits, more so if they are raised from your own garden.

Earlier, in one of my blog posts, I explained methodically the mechanics on how to build a raised bed for those of you who may be interested. It isn’t easy, but it isn’t hard either. It involves cunning and hardwork, lots of hauling gravel, dirt, manure, and hays. Results are phenomenal as show in the pictures below.

We expect to have an all-year-round gardening even on the harsh winter days this year. Yes, we do get snow as it can get down to zero here, but the good thing is, it warms up during the day time which is essential to growing plants. Right now, we are using a 40% to 50% shade cloth to cut down the heat because most plants simply can’t bear sweltering heat of Arizona. Eventually, when the weather gets colder and below freezing point, we will replace the shade with the plastic cover, which will then resemble a green house. Of course, we had to carefully select the cold-tolerant plants like kale, lettuces, radicchio, and many more. It is like a trial and error to see which ones grow best in our climate. We did this before many many years ago, and I remember having supply of organic salad in the cold winter months. You can’t beat that, right?

Anyway, without further ado, let me show you our garden.

chard- eat your heart out guys.

carrots

this bed supplies us with fresh veggies every other day, and now and then, to some of my friends.

one of my favorite vegetables- spinach

Chinese lettuce ready for harvest by end of October

there are probably 15 kinds of veggies planted in this bed which has inside dimensions of 32 feet by 4.4 feet.

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I got up one morning to a beautiful sunrise in Batalay beach, a rare occurrence during my recent vacation to the province in the month of June. I thought I would go for little walk along the beach as I didn’t feel like walking on the main road. Too many onlookers, too many people to acknowledge, too many loud vehicles releasing hazardous smokes, and I wasn’t in the mood to greet and smile early that morning. All I wanted was to avail of the fresh breeze of the ocean, and to get some exercise.

I had my breakfast of rice and tinapa, with tomatoes drowned in soy sauce for dipping sauce. I put on my shorts and sleeveless blouse and happily skimmed the beach alone.

There were quite a bit of people already on the beach doing all sorts of things - the majority were the netters. I walked along, eyes fixed on what they were doing. One group of fishermen were scurrying with their nets to higher ground to close in on every single little fish. Curious Belle paused and watched every single move they made. I wanted to know what was inside the net or if there was anything worth buying. They probably weren’t thrilled of me snooping on them. It is a free world, you know, and I had every right to be on the beach as I own an itsy bitsy beach property there, too.

I continued with my walk in hopes of reaching Marinawa way over on the other side. Given the terrain, the loose gravel, the walk was somewhat torturous, plus the fact that I was wearing my flip-flop complicated it even more.

On my way over, I saw another set of netters. I made another stop. I didn’t recognize any fishermen. Suddenly, I heard a yell from behind me. I spinned around and saw a big fat bossomed older lady with a Marinawa accent..hehe

Why are you just standing there?!

Get down and help! another guy exclaimed.

Huh, huh? was all I could say.

Before I knew it, I bent over and picked poor little minnows that got stuck in between the holes of the net. Immediately, I accumulated a handful of little fish…maripati in bikol term. One big handful, weighs about half a pound, costs php30.

I didn’t know where to put the fish and I still had a ways to go for my walk. Most people made a little sack out of their blouses and shirts, and kept their shares in there, exposing belly buttons of all sorts. I couldn’t imagine myself doing that as I would be showing not only my navel, but my protruding abdomen.

Horrified at the thought, I quickly dropped the handful of little fish to the next guy’s pile. Though now that I had a chance to gather my thoughts, I could have wrapped them in one of the tree leaves, set them somewhere cooler and safe, and pick them up on the way back.

And then some random guy from out of nowhere was lecturing me about what I was supposed to do when in this situation.

“Don’t just stand up there and stare, we need the help we can get.” Because they were in a hurry to make another cast.

“Whoa, what if I didn’t want to? Such a bossy/demanding bunch of people,” I thought. Luckily, I uttered no self-incriminating words.

I proceeded to where I was heading. I met a prominent guy from town, probably in his late 50’s whose initials are RA. He owns a beach property in Batalay, too, and he was there for a dippin’.

Me: May I pass through!

RA: (Looking unfriendly, and thinking probably that I was going to cut through his property) Where are you passing?

Me: No, I am just passing through, (my way of acknowledging people I met on my walk so I would not be labeled a snub.)

RA: Ohh

Then we got into talking and introduced each other.

RA: You are married to a white?

Me: Yes, tabi (tabi = po in tagalog, to show respect.)

RA: Good thing he is not divorcing you.

Me: (Feeling insulted) Why will he divorce me? It could be the other way around, too, you know.

He said it again.

RA: You are lucky, he isn’t divorcing you.

I could tell that our conversation was going nowhere, so I hastily said goodbye, and continued with my walk, completely baffled. Why would he say that? He was a respected guy, but he acted like a jerk, in fact, he didn’t deserve any of my respect. He ought to go back to grade 1 and re-learn Good Manners and Right Conduct. I actually didn’t feel a need to respond to such a fool and totally uncalled for remarks even if they were meant to be a joke.

Moral lesson: It is a must that we should think first before we speak, sparing us a great deal of hurt to someone and a great deal of embarrassment to ourselves.

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