Wednesday, April 20, 2005

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.

4 comments:

Kak Teh said...

sal, this is beautiful. I can just imagine you sitting there, tping away. A picture would have been nice. Pakai seluark ka berkemban??

Mutiara said...

narfnarf: thanks.
Kak teh: Ajark camna nak add gambark, and i will load the pic.

atenah said...

wei narf naft hang pun org penang ka? la ramainya bangsa kita in the blog world LOL
M, one day i want to blog abt my dream to have a garden but its kinda sad so tak terblog2 lagi. but as u often write abt gardens, i teringat my dream. emmm sedap ka dok bersembang dgn AuntyN tu?

AuntyN said...

Kak M, nak jawab kat tenah dulu, awat tak sedap sembang dgn aunty, tau sajalah, mesti lupa dunianya org penang sembang tu.

I saw your arbour tu. Best nya. Don't worry lahkalau ada orchard tanamlah apa pun, nak makan yg lain tu a good excuse to balik Msia.