Earth Hour...

“Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you…” - Terry Pratchett

'
We were in the kebun that night.

Earlier we reminded each other about the Earth Hour and in what way we can contribute. I have voted to switch off the lights for an hour but we don’t even have electricity in our chalet, so how to switch off the light switch?

Instead, we switched off the generator and sat at the verandah in the dark, watched beautiful fireflies among the durian trees, and listened to the silent of the night…

I wish hubby had switched off his cigarette but the mosquitoes were also celebrating and feasting too. Sigh…

The fruit trees are flowering...

“Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be…”- Elizabeth Gilbert

(My uniform in the kebun)

That day after a hard-day’s work cutting and getting rid of creepers and wild vines that have pulled down some parts of the fence around the kebun, we rested under our favorite durian tree and noticed small buds coming out of the branches. A few weeks later, we saw flowers blooming from the branches of the other durian trees. The rambutan and dokong trees are flowering too.

(Durian)

(Rambutan)

(Dokong)

My heart jumped with joy!

I am looking forward to harvesting those sweet durians, juicy rambutans and tasty dokong. Yeah!

Your memory will live...

Mirza Ashran passed away today, 3 years ago

We miss you so much.
But beautiful memories
Will always live in our Heart.

(All in the family - happy moments)

A Mughal Princess...

“A person visiting a country for the first time must not put any labels on anything, he should just enjoy observing...”
(If I am an Indian lady, I may end up looking like this...)

Walking into the City Palace museum in Jaipur in December 2008, we were enthralled by its vast collection of displays of original parchments and ancient manuscripts of Hindu scriptures. Paintings of Mughal and Persian arts are also on display. While browsing the paintings, we imagined a date with history, where we walk down lanes once trodden by kings and princess, where battles were won and lost.

We were engrossed admiring Mughal paintings, when I was approached to have my portrait sketched by a famous artist of Jaipur. And I acquired an art piece more priceless than Van Gogh or Monet.

My Travelogue: munmus.blogspot.com

Our goldfishes are overweight...

"There are no hopeless situations; there are only men who have grown helpless about them.." -  Clare Boothe Luce ''

A few months back hubby bought a small aquarium and filled it with 4 cute little fancy goldfishes. It was fun to see them swimming gracefully in the aquarium. It was more fun to see them during feeding time as our four goldfishes would swim upside down and beg for food like puppies.'


When nobody is around at home my daughter, Sara, talks to the goldfishes as she feeds them. She said they understand people talk. We have been feeding the fishes too much. They have doubled their sizes and look lethargic and sick. They said that extreme overfeeding can actually be fatal to goldfishes, so we’ll need to starve them for a few days and get them back in shape…

Cerita biawak

"The bad days make the good days better..."

(As big as a small crocodile)

We visited our kebun Sg. Rambai only on weekends. So most of the time the chalet is left empty. Very often when we go back to our kebun, we’ll find other creatures making comfortable homes in our chalet. I don’t know what attracted them but we have bird nests on the roof and bee hives in the bathroom. We also find rats making their nests under the sink. We even have a couple of resident bats, looking after our chalet. We cleared nests and hives and they’ll be gone for a while, but a few days later, they’ll come again to take shelter and stay. After we spread sulphur and spray insecticide around the chalets, they stopped coming back.

But until recently…

We were rudely awakened by the noises in the attic. At first, we thought it must be some rats making their nests up there but when we went up to investigate, we found a pair of biawak (monitor lizards). No, not the big ugly ones like the komodo lizards but smaller. The easiest way to get rid of them is to kill them with something sharp but cold blooded murderers we are not! And on seeing us they fled speedily away.

We bought some eggs, made tiny holes and inserted some poison and left the eggs in the attic. Last weekend, we found one dead decomposing biawak. Another one to go… That evening we heard the other biawak searching the attic looking for his partner. When hubby went up to investigate, he shouted from the attic:

‘yang ini pun dah nak mati. Tak gerak2 pun. Nanti later I remove bila dia dah mati betul2…’

The rest of the day we did other chores and when it was nearing dark, hubby when up the attic to remove the dead biawak. To his surprise the biawak was no more there…

Before and after

“Sometimes love means letting go when you want to hold on tighter...”- Melissa Marr

Our back-breaking painting project is almost completed. The chalet will need another coat of paint later but for now, we'll leave it as is for our backs need a good rest...

(Before)

(After)