New Goats

We got two new goats! And white ones, at that. Alas, one of them has been slaughtered to feed schoolchildren in Batangas. But, the younger one remains.



They are curious and cautious creatures.

Urban Greenery

Here is a link to my other blog about a little urban garden I chanced upon by the train station in Sta. Mesa. I couldn't decide where to post it, but I had to decide.

Goat Updates, Flowers, and Rain!

The rain was strong today! It was frightening. It's around the same time of the year as Ondoy, and I'm getting anxious because things can grind to a standstill again, a whole metropolis paralyzed, cold, and relatively hungry. Cross fingers, catch the water that you can, stock reserves, plant.



But I have to say that the garden looks great! It gets so lush around this time. In particular, a clump of cogon grass that we have not been touching is huge! About three times taller than me and flowering. It is a source of amusement outside.

Our goat is pregnant, and her stomach is moving. She is really about to extrude a baby, and I'm really excited. The rain is complicating things, because they hate getting wet, and their shed cannot protect them from side sprays. We were thinking inside the house, but what a mess that would be.



This is the dude and he loves katuray:



And things are flowering! I don't remember so much color during rainy season.

Cannonball Tree Encounters

So I've fallen behind with updating this blog, although so many amazing things have been seen and happening. I've yet to upload all my photos from Singapore, but one good thing that came about was actually seeing a cannonball tree in Fort Canning. Here is a picture of Fort Canning, indeed a beautiful place:



I had seen a cannonball tree a couple of years ago outside a temple in Cambodia, and it wasn't fruiting so all I could do was look in wonder at the flowers. They grow very weirdly on gangly branches straight out of the tree's midsection, and they are large and beautiful.



This year, my father brought a gigantic fruit home (I believe it was from a cemetery), and kept it around the house. It was an oddity and we identified it as the cannonball fruit. After a bit of time, it started emitting a weird smell. Kind of fetid, but actually, not unlike something we Asians would still eat. After awhile, the odor became overpowering, and the fruit was voted out of the house. I had every intention of planting it, but I guess I forgot about it. It decomposed somewhere in the garden. Cross your fingers about it germinating.



In Singapore, I reached out and grabbed a small fruit. It by no stretch of any imagination resembled a cannonball. Maybe it could pass for a potato, or an airborne ube. In any case, I left it on my brother's drawer. After awhile, it began to smell, so I wrapped it in clothes. That didn't work and the towels all smelled funny, so I put it outside his window.

One day, coming up his building, we saw my fruit on the landing of the stairs! Quite miffed, I returned it outside the window. Later on in the day, I heard my brother's landlord talking loudly outside and it was quite the funny moment when he realized I was actually keeping this Thing, which he had attempted to throw it out (on the landing, responsible citizen) thinking it was rubbish, only to come up later on and find it back by the window.

At the moment, it is resting inside a pot at home, waiting to germinate. I shall soon split it open to see if there is even any seed inside, considering I picked as it was very small.