Saturday at the Beach neighbourhood

This morning was cold, there was a slight frost on the ground, which is quite unusual at this time of the year for Oklahoma. In fact, we have been having below normal temperatures for the past week or so. I let the dog off by 7:30 in the morning and let them run around to stretch their legs after being chained up the whole night. About 8:00 I went for a walk in the woods with them. As usual I would look around for wild grapes blooms. I think this year most of the wild grape vines are blooming on a large scale. I went and sat on the rock crop at the end of the property and listened to the running brook/creek, a peaceful morning.
Later, after I put the dogs back on the chains and let the chicken out of the coop for the day, I helped my husband build a big bird house. I actually painted the pieces of wood for the house. It looks more like he is bulding a multi-storey condominium for the birds "purple martin". It is not just a simple box with holes in it, it is actually a compartmentalised individual cells. Very sophisticated.There are 8 units on each floor and he is making 2 floors for the moment which can be added when needed. The pole that will hold the house is about14 feet high made in 2 segments held together with hinges and all other gadgets that I do not know their names. It is made in 2 segments so that the house can be brought down to clean from time to time.
At about noone my niece Sandra drove up. My husband and Sandra took a ride on the ATV 4 wheelers around the neighbourhood and they helped to look for a runaway horse. A neighbour down the road said that her horse just took away. They later found the horse romancing a mare in heat a few miles away. Horses like dogs can smell a female in heat from miles away, so when they have the chance they will take off to answer the call of nature.
We had BBQ for dinner and watched a movie. Sandra left for home after the movie, about 9 pm and I sit here blogging about my day.

Mother's nature plays a trick

This is going to be a very short one. Last night or early this morning we had frost. Who would ever thought that in the last week of April we still has freezing temperature??? Got up this morning saw the grass was frosty white and I knew instantly that my plants and fruit trees would be dead. My kiwi plants that form the roof and sides of my arbour are burnt and when the sun came up, all the leaves turned black. My young grave vines that are just having shoots are layu too. I am so sad...Hopefully my young peaches, cherries and apple would survive and I will have some fruits this year.
Kita hanya merancang...DIA juga yg menentukannya.

Beautiful morning and beautiful thoughts

This is a very beautiful spring morning, not a speck of cloud in the sky and the temperature is about 60F. After walking my dogs in the wood I took a rest under my arbour, a canopy of kiwi vines. I thought it would be nice to sit here on the stone bench and blog on the laptop. There isn't terribly interesting thing to write, but what the heck, just type what comes to my mind. My husband built this arbour (10X15 ft) for me after i mentioned to him that I used to sit under one when I lived in Uzbekistan. There, the arbour was covered by grape vines. In the spring and summer, the arbour provided a cool place to sit and drink choi/tea. In the fall/autumn, it was full of hanging grape bunches. My arbour is covered with kiwi vines and a few grape vines. My kiwi has just started to bloom and last year it only made a handful of brown hairy fruits that taste like buah ciku. On one side of the arbour I planted multi colored tulips which are in full bloom now. red, pink. purple, yellow, white with purple edges and dark pink.
My husband thought that one day i would have enough courage to sit under the arbor and write or just sit and read. I really appreciate his thoughtfulness and to make me feel more at home, we have limau nipis, kunyit, serai, cili api growing and in winter time they come into the house with plant light turned on all night.
When I first got here, the nearest place to get a can of coconut milk was 60 miles away but the local supermarket sell coconut. So, one day I said, if I have a coconut grater, I would use one in case I need coconut milk desperately. Well and behold, a few days later i discovered that i had a kukur kelapa like the one the people in the north use. The one like riding a horse when you kukur kelapa. So far i only used it once to make inti for kueh pau, but it is comforting to know that I have one incase I need one. My husband got the picture from the internet to make the kukur.
I used to go back to Penang every year to visit my family at this time of the year and every other year with my husband. This year when we have our tax return, my husband asked if i want to go for a visit, and I said no, and he asked me if I would like to use the money to buy a more fuel efficient car. I said it would be nice to get a new car since my mazda 626 is getting old. Here i am sitting under the arbor he built and thinking how wonderful he is.
Where is he now? he is on the tractor levelling the dirt in the adjacent 2 acres to make a new garden for next year. We had a bulldozer did some clearing of the area recently. We plan to have a garden as well as planting more fruit trees there. My husband thought it would be good to have a small orchard to replace the one I had to give up when moving here. The only difference is my new orchard will be filled with apples, apricots, more grapes, peaches, plum, berries etc instead of durian, cempedak, dokong, rambutan, petai and manggis.
Well, I guess i have done justice for a beautiful morning.

They are here again

Every year they come without fail. They arrive at the same time of the year. I am talking about the ruby necked hummingbirds. They travel every year from central america and be at my homestead by mid April. They will stay around until early October. When the first one arrives, it will make sure that you are aware of its presence. You will see it hovering your window and dashing in and out to the place where you used to hang the feeder. Then another batch will arrive and you will need more feeders. Sometime I wonder why I feel oblige to put out feeders for these migratory birds. Perhaps thinking that they take the thousands of miles flight just to visit me. They drink more sugar than i do for a whole year. You think that those tiny birds don't drink much, but they do. They drink very frequently for their energy to fly. One wonders how much they have to drink to fly from Honduras to Oklahoma.
Well...these are my annual visitors. They are here now.