Before it reaches 365 days....

The blog has been collecting webs for the past 10 months. Sigh!! With a little time on hand, decided to put in a few words...

Day 2 (Nongprue, Bang Lamung)

We are back again in the Land of the Smiles but at a different location totally. The Province of Chon Buri is now 'the home'. From an apartment building in Pathum Thani, now it's a landed abode. A bit far from Suvarnabhumi Airport but it's the highway (Hiway 7) all the way. To reach the new place, we made a left turn before reaching Pattaya. It's about 4km off Sukhumvit Rd. Well, I like what I see... And what do I see? A small garden....:-)

Anak Misai Kucing -- For Sale!!

MISAI KUCING UNTUK DIJUAL

Anak misai kucing #7 (Orthosiphon stamineus - betulke nama saintifik ni) ini disediakan oleh lamanoflife sendiri. Tanah hitam dan baja digunakan.

Setiap polibeg berharga RM5.

Untuk pertanyaan, boleh hantar ke ruang comment.

Majalah Laman Impiana - Oasis Pembaca

'Ma, ada hantar gambar ke Laman ke?' Begitulah ungkapan anak sambil membelek majalah Laman Impiana terbaru, keluaran Karangkraf.

'Ada,' balasku sambil meneruskan pemanduan ke arah Pajam. 'Dah keluar ke?' tanya ku lagi ingin tahu.

'Ha..ah...dahh... Eh, mama letak nama ayah sekali ye?' tanya Mar lagi.

Begitulah serba sedikit perbualan ibu-anak. Gambar laman dan sikit penerangan telah dihantar hujung Jan 09 ke pihak majalah. Tak sangka begitu cepat diterbitkan. Memang seronok bila artikel atau sebagainya di'print'kan. Lebih lagi bila teringatkan waktu jadi 'freelance writer' sedikit masa dahulu. (PS. Those who need writing services, do contact me!)

Yang berminat, silalah ke m/s 12, majalah Laman Impiana, Edisi Bumper, Mac-Apr 2009. Bukan apa, cuma berkongsi kegembiraan.... Mungkin satu hari, pembaca lain pun dapat berbuat demikian, insyaAllah.

The All Knowing!! Ya 'Alim, Ya 'Alim, Ya 'Alim!

The whole family spent some time watching the eclipse of the sun last Monday (26/01/2009). Starting from 5pm right up to 7pm, we were in the garden whilst having our tea and doing a little bit of gardening!! Old strips of exposed films were used to see it more clearly. I was hoping to see the 'ring' but there was none. Only about 70% of the sun was 'blocked' at one time.

SubhanaAllah. HE is the All Knowing. The Creator of the Universe and far beyond. And yet, we are the Khalifah of Allah on this planet that HE creates. A heavy responsibility indeed.

'Dialah Allah yang menciptakan segala apa yang ada di bumi untukmu kemudian Dia menuju ke langit, lalu Dia menyempurnakannya menjadi tujuh langit. Dan Dia Maha Mengetahui segala sesuatu.' (2:29 Al Baqarah:29)

It's HOT....

Blue skies with no clouds.

Yes, it has been like this for the past few days...and my laman needs a lot of water. Kolam ikan pun nampak surut airnya.

Whew, tropical weather at its best!!!

Semua di alam ini atas perintahNya.

Frugality: A dirty word?

According to wikipedia, frugality among others is the practice of acquiring goods and services in a restrained manner, and resourcefully using already owned economic goods and services.

With a looming large number of unemployment in our country, the buzz words now will be cost-cutting, savings, spend (or the economy won't grow!!) but only on necessary items, just to name a few. Whatever word that you use, it will come back to a little bit of frugality. So, is that a dirty word, in times of economic uncertainties?

Anyway, just wish to point out certain measures taken by others and myself included. These ideas may be of good use for others too.

1. A local bank has sent out its monthly statement using both sides of the paper. Usually, 2-3 pcs of paper were used but the recent one was just a piece of paper.
2. Some cos has resorted to using e-statement ie going paperless. Another membership co had sent materials to both husband-wife in one envelope as opposed to two envelopes before.
3. Plant some veggies and herbs for your own consumption. Use up the idle area in your lawn/backyard. (For examples, you can go through lamanoflife). P/S We've also gotten our share of betik from our parents.
4. Find alternatives to what you've been using all these years (I know it's hard to some), which are cheaper and if you can, locally-made items.

I can only have my hands dirty when doing gardening. Frugality, a dirty word? Think about it and be honest to yourself.

Roselle

Have planted 3 roselle plants and alhamdulillah, have used the flowers to get the roselle drink. Without sugar, it's quite sour but full of Vit C, I'm sure. Apparently, the plants are quite hardy when compared to other plants that we've planted. The soil suits them. To get the drink, I've soaked the whole flowers in hot water (not boiling) until the water changed colour to red. Did it 2-3 times until the colour has been fully extracted. The flowers are not thrown but used in the curry that I cooked later on, well ...to replace the asam jawa. Everything is trial and error, though the info on extracting the roselle was taken from an Agri Dept website. Hubby suggested that, the flowers be blended but I haven't come across any lit on it. Furthermore the flowers that are harvested were in small number. Planned to plant more so needs to get some seeds. By the way, a daughter has taken along a bottle of roselle drink to school today!

Laman Impiana Lagi....

Sejak kebelakangan ini, ramai pengunjung lamanoflife meng'google' majalah Laman Impiana. Memang banyak maklumat dari majalah tersebut. Edisi Jan-Feb 2009 telah dibeli semalam di Seri Putra. Belum habis membelek lagi tapi terdapat beberapa mukasurat mengenai tumbuhan herba yang boleh digunakan seperti aloe vera a.k.a lidah buaya (#9) dan roselle atau nama saintifiknya, Hibiscus sabdariffa (#10). Alhamdulillah, herba tersebut memang ada di laman kami. Memang banyak khasiat yang Allah 'sembunyi'kan dalam alam botani kita. Cuma kita saja yang kadang2 tidak mengambil tahu atau hanya bersandar kepada perubatan berasaskan bahan kimia semata.

Pagi tadi sempat menyambung semula menanam kuku jin. Pagi semalam sambung rafia untuk sokongan pada petola dgn harapan dapat hasilnya nanti!! Just wait and see. InsyaAllah.

Vertical Farming

I snapped a pic on vertical planting and posted it at flickr a few weeks back. Today, an article in Time, issue Dec 22, 2008, titled Vertical Farming tells us that 'this idea can work in a big way'... with some drawbacks of course. It's an idea that can be looked upon deeper!!

In the morning....

Taking advantage of the not-so-sunny weather, I spent about 2 hours in the laman this morning. First, the keladi needs to find a home. I cleared the grass, dig a hole and put in some black compost soil and went in the tuber. Hopefully, it'll grow.

Next, the area around the blue vase (heliconia). I want to have some plant covering the base area. The same procedure repeated. But for the plant, I had to dig them from the planter box at the gate. So off I went to the front and digged out the purple 'kuku jin' (#8). Now, they have found a new home. By the way, only one vase is 'decorated' for I don't have enough of the 'kuku jin'!!

As for the mulch, after pausing and thinking for some time, I decided to use the (??? brown thatched-like material) from the coconut and palm trees!! Yes, I'm a frugal gardener....

And in today's edition of the New Straits Times (Life and Times - Living), there's an article on thrifty gardeners, plus a column by Desmond Ho of Terra Garden on Orchids. Anyone for the contest in Desmond's column?

New Seedlings

Some new seedlings have found their way to our home. Though not yet planted, we look forward to have these additions that we brought home from Pasir Mas. The seedlings include mango, sukun, a type of keladi, purple-coloured-flower misai kucing and pokok duit (the Chinese love this plant).

A few days before, I took some white rose cuttings, green ati-ati seedlings and hydragea cuttings from an ex-neighbour's house. These too, haven't been planted. Ohh...so many plants to be planted.

Btw, one of my misai kucing has gone to Pasir Mas....

B is for Bucida (Cat. #3)

I'm trying to catalogue the plant species in our laman. No formal knowledge though but will try to find out. Ok, so this will be the third (since the first was the ulam raja and second, pokok mengkudu).

Cat.3 -- Bucida (molinetti or buceras??? Anyone knows)


The pic on the left is the verigaeted species. When first planted it only had one layer but over 10 months, two more layers have grown. However, the same can't be said about the others (altogether there are 8 of this kind)! This Bucida is right at the front lawn, on your right hand side of the driveway (when driving in). How am i to make others grow into layers?



The pic on the right shows 4 Bucida plants. When planted they were already 3 layered (but haven't grown much since). Any ideas on how to make them grow faster?
Have seen this plant planted by the road side in Bandar Baru Bangi, near Billion and also at the Mahallah Ruqayyah at International Islamic Univ, Gombak.