Day 47: Community Quarantine

   DAZED AND CONFUSED -  It is only logical that as the quarantine moves along into its second month, misconceptions, missteps and challenges are identified, corrected and resolved along the way. 

   This is first time a pandemic happened in this lifetime. We are unprepared and the rules are being written from the ground up. It is trial, error, correction, a work in progress. But there should be learning curve.

   But it seemed this is not what happening in Taytay. There are conflicting ordinances. One coming from the OIC police chief and the barangay captains, and then an hour or so later, there are corrections of the same orders  from the Sanggunian through the vice-mayors FB page.

  

  According to the Sanggunian, the closing down of sari-sari stores and talipapa are still plans and have not been enacted into a municipal ordinance. But the the closures has already been communicated and enforced, judging from the FB posts, to the barangays yesterday.

    Then there was also the replacement of Q-passes with a new serial numbered ones whoch later was reversed too. 

   We don't know which is which. This is more like the first day of the community lockdown where everyone has no idea what they are doing, when confusion reigns, but we are already into day 47th day of the ECQ.

   The mayor should (may have already done so) clear this confusion.

   QPASS- My neighbors were restless yesterday. There's were talks of soldiers patrolling our area and a stricter implementation (again) of the ECQ extension (again). Our Qpass were collected and replaced with a new print out this time with serial numbers. The idea was to prevent duplication or forgery, I think. But I don't know how that will work since a scanner can simply copy the document. It would be difficult to differentiate the original from the copy since the original is a print out too. 

   WEBINAR- I attended an on-line seminar conducted by a book publisher yesterday. I was not inclined to join it because I don't like seminars that do not interest me. But there is a message from our division super requiring teachers to participate in the series of webinars with topics relevant to what is happening now.

 Well, I had to with reservations. But after the first session, I found that it was to my liking. I could listen to the discussant in the comfort of the home, sitting down, standing up, drinking coffee, lying down.

    There were no corny ice breakers. No speeches and other ceremonies and rituals that make traditional seminars seemed like a religious gathering complete with doxologies and benedictions. 

   But most important of all, the discussant was erudite, the topic was relevant to the current situation were in and it addressed the paradigm shifts that will happen in learning delivery post quarantine. 

   SACRIFICE BRANCH- A little bonsai talk. This is a sacrifice branch (circled red). The idea here is to allow it to grow to help thicken the base of th e first branch. To show age and proportion, the first branch of the bonsai must be the biggest or thickest to be followed by the second branches and so on. 

    It confuses the eye if the first branch is smaller than the upper branches. The illusion of age is broken.

   Since trees have the tendency to focus all it's energy upward, the first branch is usually left behind. One solution to this is to allow a sacrifice branch to grow at the base of the first branch. 

   The node will contribute to the thickening. Once the necessary thickness is achieved, the branch is cut off.

Day 46: Community Quarantine

    FULL TANK- I gassed up the motorcycle and I was surprised that a hundred pesos worth of gasoline filled up the tank, almost over flowing. Pre covid days, a hundred peso fills just about half the tank.

 

  ACACIA FLOWERS- During rainy seasons the fallen acacia flowers and seed pods  on highway 2000 mixes with road dust and soil decomposes into loamy soil. It is loose and do not compact which allows the plants roots to breathe and grow easily. Ideal for potting when mixed with soil and other organic materials. 

   I am collecting some now that I will mix with the dried canal sludge  that the  neighbors left at the gate after their clean up.

    One thing though, after a few days,  acacia saplings sprouts everywhere.

   PROFESSIONALS -  Once a pupil asked me what I was doing collecting empty water bottles in a pile of trash, I told him off hand that I sell junks (kalakal) to augment my income as a teacher. He gave me a laugh and walked off.

    I sometimes wonder what people who knew me as a teacher would think of me when they see me collecting dirt and rocks on the side of the road, or on my knees digging up tree stumps, or on dump rummaging through trash.

  I remember my former school head reminding us teachers that we should always dress well and look presentable even out side the school. We are professionals look and act like one. We should always be found prim, proper and respectable anywhere and everywhere. 

  And to that I say! Hmmmm...ciao!

   BANANA- What are we going to eat? There are just three of us and because I eat less now, so does my wife and my daughter, we accumulated left overs in the ref. 

   There's also the chicken, hotdogs, and hams, that I bought in case of emergency or lockdowns (the real one) that prevents people from going out for two weeks, which did not happen and may not happen at all. These processed food must be also consumed little by little.

   I told my wife that we have to eat the left overs before they spoil. No cooking for today, it's reheating time. 

   I bought bananas for snacks.

Day 45: Community Quarantine

    RAPPLER PROBLEM - A foreigner spewing expletives to a police officer went viral on social media. The altercation started when a group of quarantine enforcers cited and fined a maid for not wearing facemask, a city ordinance, while watering the plants. 

   I for one thought that the police had over reacted. The facemask ordinance is in relation to social distancing. The idea is to avoid spreading or contracting the virus.

  The maid was watering the plants within her employer's property with no other person present with in the area. To whom could she passed or to whom could she contract the virus, from plants?  Taking into consideration the spirit of the ordinance and with common sense, wearing a facemask is unnecessary in this circumstance.  A reminder from the officers should have been enough. 

   Both parties would be filing charges and counter charges for an infraction that could have ended well if the foreigner was not drunk and did not verbally attacked the quarantine enforcers.

   Anyway, my issue is not with what happened. My issue is with RAPPLER. How it presented the confrontation.

   Did the police officers assaulted the foreigner or did the foreigner resisted arrest?

   Assault is a poor choice of word because it means intentionally causing someone physical harm. 

  Resisting arrest on the other hand is struggling to free oneself against restraint. When a person struggles or fights back, naturally the police officer must subdue the suspect to enforce the arrest as dictated by circumstances. 

   Which is which?

   Rappler is bad. There are better news organizations that presents news with objectivity. 

   FINALLY- I was able to complete the ingredient for a Graham mango cake. There are still no Nestle cream in groceries, and wonders of wonders I was able get two from a sari-sari store recommended by an FB friend. 

  BONSAI- One advantage of having many hobbies is that I have a lot things to do with my time productively or artistically, as if I am an artist.

  I rewired some of my bonsai materials to avoid scars. 

  Bonsai tools are expensive especially imported signature Japanese brands. But since I don't have that money, and even if I have I would not spend it on them, I use common garden shear.

   I have been doing bonsai for eight years without any proper tools. I have been dreaming of owning a bonsai tool set but the cheapest quality brand cost around 12 thousand pesos. Affordable but not practical at my salary grade.

Day 44: Community Quarantine

  FROG-  I was removing garden soil from a plastic bag when eyes popped out from the bottom. There was a frog. Good thing I was using my hands and not a trowel else I could have wounded or killed it.

   It was a big bellied frog commonly found in moist areas buried under ground or in mulch.

   I remember doing bisection to frogs during our biology class decades ago. I didn't feel any remorse torturing the animal then. 

  Now, older, I don't feel like I can intentionally harm animals. I guess when one gets older one gets more emphatic.

   I picked up the frog and put it in a moist and shaded area without ants. I have seen frogs like this killed by ants.

    POWDER- There are fine powders under of the bamboo sofas and one look I knew what it was.

   I brought the sofa out to check. One leg was infested with dry wood termites (bukbok). 

    I had a left over general insecticides that I applied, but it did not work. The wood needs to be immersed for the poison to seep through the tunnels where the insects live. I will need a lot of poison.

   I had an idea. I boiled water and poured it into the affected node. The node was filled to the brim with scalding hot water, sure enough I saw termites floating to the top. 

   I will be repeating the process three times every morning. 

   MALUNGGAY- I planted five malunggay cuttings near the papayas. This I should have done long ago. The thing is, I am running out of space and there's no more "social distancing" between the trees. I will have to regularly trim them to give each trees their equal share of the sun.

Day 43: Community Quarantine

    XPUPILS- I was out hunting for Graham crackers yesterday. I found boxes of it. The problem was Nestle creamers were out of stock. Most of the shelves were not empty but they were not well stocked.

    I had been to two grocery stores when I gave up. Chances are, all the store are also out of it.  

   Our cravings for Mango Graham cake will never satiated, sadly.

    I was asking a merchandiser when he called me sir. It's usual for grocery personnel to call their customers sir or madam, nothing unusual. But the sir was followed by a question, "are you still teaching at TES sir George?" 

    "Oh", I said. "You studied there?"

    "Yes, sir"' he replied.

     I waved, smiled and left. I hope he saw the smile in my eyes since I wore a face mask. 

    There are two kind of former pupils, those who approach, acknowledge and even bow to their teachers to pay respect and there are those who ignore and even avoid us. 

    Hundreds of pupils pass  through my classes each year and it's impossible to remember all of them, even a fraction of them. 

   But being smiled at, waved at, asked about even if I couldnt remember their face or name feels nice, never fails to make my day.   

   MOUSE TRAP- .These pesky rodents keep coming back and to think there are a lot of stray cats that sleep on our roof and in the bodega. I think cats have stopped becoming hunters instead they turned to scavenging.    

   They have lost their hunting skills  and as each generation of felines are born into urban areas, they either become lazy house pets or hardworking thieves.

   Not that I hate cats, I just hope they do their jobs well, like dogs do.

   LAST KINGDOM- Finished the third season of Last Kingdom last night. I hope season four will be different because King Alfred and most of the antagonists are already dead.  

    Again, I woke up late because I slept late, already morning in fact. I felt like I'm floating.   

    What I hate the most after a netflix marathon is that I feel lazy the next morning, lack of sleep. It's like a hang over. 

    MANGO- Harvested the Indian mangoes. Blah, blah, blah...and the lockdown is extended.

Day 42: Community Quarantine

    SALUYOT, CAMOTE, ALUGBATI- The saluyot that I have  planted at the start of the lockdown is now about a foot fall. I have already harvested the tops earlier.

    This is the second generation of saluyot from the seeds I bought from Lazada many months ago. Most of the first generation died after harvesting which I thought was normal.

  But it was not, the plants should produce more branches and leaves in about a week or two as often as the tops are harvested, which did not happen.

   I joined the Philippine Urban Gardening FB to learn tips and techniques in gardening. One thing I am curious about is saluyot. I posted a picture of my plants and asked about it and I received about fifty comments. So, I'm sharing the most popular here.

     1. Cut the tops with scissors and not by hands to avoid dehydration (or getting old)

     2. In about a week or two, new branches and leaves will sprout.

    3. Pour hot water on the seeds before planting. This is weird and I have never tried it. 

    I have also been harvesting sweet potatoes, also planted at the onset of the lockdown, almost daily. 

    The alugbati fruits have germinated and I am transplanting them to other areas. I learned from a docu that alugbati planted from seeds produce bigger leaves than the ones planted from cuttings. But, I doubt it. I think it depends on the soil, sunlight, and water. Leaves exposed to too much sun are smaller while those growing near the base, in the shade, are larger. 

    Anyway, it's a personal observation.

    DOGS AND WATER- Bathing Jaya and Koko is an ordeal. I have to tie and wrestle with them before I could get them wet. They resist like they are being brought to a slaughter house. Everytime is a first time.

    But once they are wet and the soaping and rubbing starts, they behave. They love the massage more than they hate the water.

     EXTENDED- it's official, the lockdown is extended here in CALABARZON and the NCR. Hmmmm...blah, blah, blah.

    I think it's time for the government to try survival of the fittest, or herd immunity in areas where people do not observe quarantine.

Day 41: Community Quarantine

    END OR EXTEND- This is the 41st day of the quarantine and 39th day of the ECQ. Like everybody else, I am waiting for the president's announcement whether the lockdown will be lifted, extended or modified. 

  It is a difficult decision to make and whether we love or hate the president, let's hope and pray that he will make the decision based on well thought of counsels that will best put the health and welfare of the 100 M+ Filipinos above all no matter how unpopular his decision maybe. 

  ( My rheumatic knee is telling me that it will be extended. The knee has never been wrong)

   FRUITS- Fruits are expensive. Bananas that sells for 50-70 pesos a kilo a few months ago now sells at 100-120 pesos. This is partly due to the fake news that bananas help fight covid.   Mangoes are even worse.  

   It's summer, the time of the year when fruits abound and prices evens out with the harvest. But the price has not gone down even after experts have disproved the banana-covid claims.

   I have not bought banana as a protest of sort. I don't even see a spike in demand to warrant the extortion. There are the papayas, singkamas, Indian mangoes, peanuts, etc. Lots to choose from.

    Anyway, people should eat less fruits due to its sugar contents.

    Here's to the vegetables.

    BEAUTIFUL HOUSE- This garbage dump used to be a beautiful house in our neighborhood. It's a classic bungalow with a landscaped yard and trees. The owners were well to do, good people.

    After the owners died and passed it on to one of the sons, it was neglected and later sold. But I suspect that the house is foreclosed by the bank because the owner fell into hard times. 

   The son and his wife are gamblers and I often see them playing mahjong, pusoy or bingo. Where there's gambling, they are there, which is not a good thing when you are running a business. From owning a business,  several vehicles, and a fish pond, they have lost their fortune and properties but at least they still have their family intact.

    I heard they are now living with the in-laws. Maybe they have learned their lessons and I hope that they'll be able to rebuild their business back from scratch, or maybe they already did. 

   I am going the best for them.

    EGG AND TUNA - My daughter craved for Graham mango cake (is that what it's called?). So, I went to the grocery to buy creamer, milk, crackers. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the grocery had no Graham crackers, out of stock. 

    Since I was already in the grocery and have waited in line for minutes, I took the time to buy some necessities, what I can afford.

    This is the second time I have bought a gallon of mayonnaise since the lockdown. We use it for salad dressing, condiments for sweet potato, and for bread spread. My wife have made ham and eggs, and eggs and tuna spread.  Now it's my turn to prepare egg and tuna spread.

   This is economical than buying spreads in small jars.

Day 40: Community Quarantine

     SHOOTING- I saw a video of a policemen shooting dead a citizen who refused to obey the order to stay down, resisted arrest, and at the same time acted as if he was drawing a gun.

    Seen from the outside and, away from it all, in the safety of home, it is easy to draw conclusions and condemn the policeman for killing an unarmed man that allegedly suffered from PTSD or war shock.

   But when a person acted as if he is drawing a gun at you, it is fight or flight. 

    What does a person do when faced with this scenario?

    1. Run away- preserve your life

    2. Fight- preserve your life

  It is a split second decision and it does not give time to ask whether the person is armed, unarmed, sane or sick. The threat to life is imminent. It's the instinct and the training that kicked in.

    It's easy to feel for the person at the receiving end a gun, but try to be in the shoe of the person behind the gun

    What the officer did is still killing and he will be answerable for it, but there are mitigating circumstances that may say otherwise. 

   LAING- Finally done cooking Laing. This is one of my favorite Filipino dishes. I love it whether it is cooked with ground pork, dried anchovies, smoked fish, dried fish, etc. It doesn't matter. 

    When I cook laing, I used pure coconut milk or kakang gata all the time. I dont use secondary coconut milk, which came from the second pressing of the coconut meat and it is dilluted with water.

   Laing is one of those foods that gets better every time it is heated. This is especially true when pure coconut milk is used because it turns into oil which gives it that distinct sweet and coconutty taste.

    INNARDS- I bought a kilo of pigs innards for our dogs. This is cheaper than pork, chicken liver, and dog food.  

   I cook it adobo so that it will last without spoiling in the ref. Added with rice, which our dogs consume more than us, this will feed Jaya and Koko for about a week. 

   TSHIRTS- This is what I like about this particular brand of t-shirt, biodegradable. It's made from cotton. It breathes. 

   I have tried shirts made from  polyester or other synthetic fabric and they are hot, they trap the heat inside especially printed ones. I have since got rid of them by giving them away or turning them into rugs, even the recently bought. 

   That is why 99 percent of the time I wear white shirts even when it is full of holes. The more holes, more air, the better, it's all about comfort.

Day 39: Community Quarantine

       ATM- I withdrew cash from the ATM and looked around and saw that there were less people than the last time I was there. There were less uniformed personnels and less noise from the bullhorns.

        It's been 38 days, nothing to talk about anymore, same thing, same people, same routine. 

     Ennui.

     EMPTY PAINT CANS- My tomatoes and eggplants are starting to sprout and in a few days I will be needing containers to put them in. It's better that they are planted in the ground. But because we have trees that block sunlight at certain hours, I find it more convenient to plant them in containers so that I could move them around periodically to catch more light.

    GABI- Thanks to my late Kumpareng Zaldy, my neighbor, we have a lot of gabi in our backyard. He planted them a few years back and I have been harvesting them regularly.

    Zaldy died when his head was accidentally hit by a golf ball while caddying. According to stories, the player gave him cash for medical check ups, a hefty sum for a caddy, but instead of going to the doctor, he kept the money.

   After a few days he died in his sleep due to blood hemorrhage in the brain.

  He was a good drinking buddy of mine. Thanks to him,  today I will be cooking laing, one of my favorite dishes.

   PAPAYA- The papaya tree's flowers are falling off and I can see buds of the fruits starting to reveal themselves. I hope that they will mature and ripen and will not fall victim either to bats or thieves.

   I trust my neighbor. I don't think they will touch what is not theirs, that I cannot say with the bats. Or, is it the other way around.

Day 38: Community Quarantine

     MEET- Yesterday the school held a staff meeting online using Google meet.

    It is my first time to experience an online meeting complete with the ceremonies of a formal faculty assembly. The meeting was almost 4 hours long with various agendas presented and discussed.

    The problem was the ISPs signals were unstable that many participants, including me, were intermittently  disconnected. Our school head had a laugh when she found out that all the time she was talking, she was offline and had no audience. 

   Anyway, after all the discussion and schedules, in the end, we were all hostage to the Corona Virus' terms, everything depends on when the lockdown will be lifted.

     LEAF MINER- The string beans is under attack by leaf miners. It is the larvae of moths or beetles that eat through between the leaf tissues. 

    Fortunately, I see it early and is able to save the leaves. 

    How to control it? There are many ways to deal with it and the most common is using insecticide spray, homemade mixture of liquid soap and oil, or organic or toxic commercial pesticides. There are also preventive measures like frequent smoking to drive the insects away.

   What I do is simple and does not cost anything. I seek out the worms and kill them by pressing with my nails or pricking them with a pin. 

   But I have to check the leaves daily because the eggs and larvaes are almost invisible to the naked eye.  

     MULBERRY- I have four mulberry trees that came from cuttings. They are meant to be bonsais but since they have large leaves, I find it unsuitable for my preference. I like bonsai with small leaves, it's all about proportion. 

    Instead, I released them into the ground and allowed to grow wild though I keep them at about a meter and half high. I don't want them to grow tall and wide because they will soak up all the sunlight depriving the other plants of their main source of energy.

    I check up on them and see they are fruiting. Most of the times, I forget about the berries and they end up drying up, wasted . I notice that it is the young branches that produce fruits. So, I keep on trimming the branches to create ramifications to produce more fruits.

Day 37: Community Quarantine

     NETFLIX MARATHON- I have been trying to avoid or at least minimize my time spent watching shows on Netflix because once I get hooked on a show, I can't help myself watching  a season or even a whole series in a day.

     I missed Game of Thrones and The Witcher's new season is still coming, so I browsed Netflix for something similar to the genre. I found The Last Kingdom, saw the pilot, and I was addicted.  

   I stopped only when my eyes couldn't take it anymore. I paused the series at 1:30 in the morning, eight episodes. So, I woke up with a throbbing head and watery eyes. I was late going into the market and my suki couldn't help herself from commenting about it. 

   I feel guilty spending hours watching shows on Netflix. Even after doing hours of gardening  My head keeps reminding me that time is running fast and I should have not spent it doing unproductive or useless things.

    I should have been doing something productive or artistic like practice the guitar, do sketch, read a book, watch educational video, etc. Of course, most of the time I just ignore the "conscience" and just plough on watching.

   Maybe, many people have this struggle too. 

   SLUDGE- My neighbors teamed up to clean our purok's drainage, which is always clogged because of plastic trash. This is laborious because our canal have heavy concrete covers. It takes two persons to open and lift them out and getting them back in place is even trickier.

    I gave them sacks to put the sludge in. 

    I collect the sacks of sludge, sun dry them, and then separate the plastic trash. When dried and cleaned, I mixed with it compost or dried leaves, it is a good planting medium for plants. 

   When removing the trash from the sludge, aside from the usual plastic trash, I find a lot of spoon and forks, playing cards, coins, and even rings, not  made from precious metals though. 

   A lot of things fall into the canals that is why  I see children and even adults groping and feeling the black, dirty, septic water searching for coins or jewelry.  Their efforts are usually rewarded with a few pesos and even, but rarely, jewelry. 

   Aside from being a health hazard, it stinks up the street that is why me or my neighbors chase them away.

   LOCKDOWN- News of the lockdown extension are being floated around on social and readitonal media. I think this is inevitable and people's mind are being conditioned for it. 

   Lockdown is not the solution to Covid and everybody should know that. Quaeantine suppresses and slows down the transmission of the virus, but it will not get rid of it only a vaccine will.

   Expect another extension.

Day 36: Community Quarantine

    BORED- It's been 35 days. I am not going out that often anymore after learning we have one positive case here. I like being in the house, there are a lot of things I can do here and home is where I spend most of my time even before the quarantine. I'm a work and go home man.  

    But not being able to watch a movie, buy hardware stuffs for my projects, or at least walk anywhere whenever I feel like to is driving me nuts.

    Having nothing to do, I checked my trees if there is one that I can start working on to shape and train. 

   ALAGAW TAIWAN-This is an argao tree, an imported Taiwanese variety of alagaw from the premna family. A bonsai hobbyist friend gave me a few cuttings about two years back. I have since propagated a lot of them.  

    Actual age of the tree does not really matter in bonsai, it's all about the illusion of old age. It's all up to the presentation. 

      Besides, the only way you can really verify the age of the tree is by checking the rings of the trunk but it ends up killing it in the process.

    There is a bonsai style that can be applied to slender, young trees: literati.

   BONSAI TALK- Literati is minimalist. It shows the struggle of a tree for sunlight amidst the forest. That is why it has slender and most of the times snaking trunk and has few branches and leaves mostly at the top. 

     Argao is a good material, adapts well to being potted by adjusting the size of its leaves,  the leaves become small to avoid dehydration through transpiration from the leaves. Leaf size is important in bonsai. A small tree must have small leaves, a small tree with big leaves lacks proportion that is why most big leafed bonsai are exhibited in defoliated fall style i.e. without the leaves. 

   This is my rough argao literati. This will be in the shade for a few days so that the tree can recover from the operation.

Day 35: Community Quarantine

   PAPAYA- A papaya tree is starting to bloom. I am excited to see buds of fruits coming out but it is still too early, maybe a few more months.

    I have fifteen trees that I have transplanted from the saplings scattered around the lot. Many are still growing under the windows, where I throw the seeds after eating, but I don't have enough space to plant them.     

    The papaya trees are healthy and robust unlike what when they are not transplanted, wild they turned yellow and died. 

  I found out that the saplings have better chances of survival if they are transplanted at three quarter of the trunk's depth into the soil. 

   VEGES- I  don't really need to buy seeds. All I have to do is to look carefully around the lot and there are tomatoes, papayas, pumpkin, eggplants etc. seedlings growing everywhere.

   This is from the habit of throwing seeds out of the window. May take a long time but eventually many will germinate.

  

   LOCKDOWN, AGAIN?- I wake up early and go to Ricarte Market to avoid the crowd. Since the confirmation of a covid positive case here there are rumors that the street will be put on a lockdown (how many lockdowns are there?), another new curfew hours will be enforced (there is technically no more curfew since a lockdown is a 24 hour curfew) and a more restrictive enforcement of the quarantine is to be expected.

    There are covid task force volunteers at the entrance check point  of Ricarte. I also see that not everyone is wearing facemask especially some of the vendors when it is empathically announced on national TV that all must wear facemask especially when they are out in public places.

   No matter how many levels of lockdowns and curfews are enforced if simple rules like wearing a facemask and social distancing are not observed, all efforts are doomed to fail. Don't go blaming the government when people do not do their part. 

     The graded response to local covid transmission is like allowing a thief to escape from a lightly guarded jail, and when he is out,  the jailwarden put more guards on duty to prevent it from happening again. Frustrating.

    This is nothing but a rerun and it is getting nowhere.

DAY 34: Community Quarantine

    INEVITABLE- Ricarte Street now has one positive covid case. This is inevitable since many or most people here do not observe social distancing especially in areas where houses are literally only a plywood wall apart. There's just no space for people to give distance from each other even if they wanted to. 

   But from what I am reading on fb and hearing in the street, the positive case resides in one of the residential subdivisions here. I don't know if that's a good news or bad, but this is better because it is easier to enforce quarantine in a subdivision than in a slum area.

   I suspect that there are more undetected cases here. Give it a few more days and the numbers may climb. Heavens, this is very near to us.

    While buying food I heard vendors saying that they will be open up to 3 in the afternoon only.

     The graded response to covid is making it worse. Why is it that only when there are reported cases do the LGU enforce more restrictions in an area when a stricter enforcement of the lockdown should have prevented people from moving and having contact with positive cases in the first place.  

   Anyway, LGU resources are overstretched and there's just not enough people to police the whole municipality or barangay. It's up to the people to take care of themselves. I think people are becoming numb to the situation.

  The lifting of the lockdown may not happen this month at all .

   TRELLIS- I have already started to put up a trellis for the string beans. I will be adding more wires to create grids. I plan to put the trellis on top of our perimeter walls, around the lot to create a green wall. The traditional overhead trellis will not do since the area below will be deprived of sunlight. 

   I tried to go to the agricultural store in Taytay to buy ampalaya, pechay, etc. seeds but the nearest store was closed. I attemtpted to go the other stores in Manila East but when I passed another checkpoint, my motorcycle was stopped. Though I had a pass, I did not reason out or make up a story, I turned around and went home.

  Myra cooked ampalaya  yesterday and when she opened opened the fruit, the seed pods lining was already red. This means the seeds are mature enough to germinate, I hope. I planted them yesterday and I am keeping my fingers crossed.

    I also found a patola seedling growing in the backyard. This is why I throw vegetables seeds around the lot instead of putting them in the trash. I will be transplanting it to a larger container and put it near the trellis for it to climb on.

   COVID- I am becoming a fatalist. Though I try to think otherwise, I have the feeling that this is becoming out of control especially in areas like ours. Seeing how dense the crowd of people are here, the seemingly growing carelessness of the people, I am just waiting for the disaster to come and knocking in our purok.

DAY 33: Community Lockdown

   DOGS: I think people who have dogs have  better time adjusting to the lockdown. 

   Being in the company of a dog is big psychological benefit to it's owner. But usually dogs in the Philippines dogs are not really pets,  they are more of a utility animal, a guard dog tied to near the doors or caged or loosed in the yard to warn of tresspasers or of coming visitors. So most of dogs are not treated the way most dog lovers that I see on foreign TV do e.g. sleeping with them, sharing food mouth to mouth, licking their owners faces, etc.  

    Though I cannot pet or play really close with my dogs because of my asthma,  just watching them race, fight, and do other funny things already releases some of the tensions for the day.  

    Unfortunately for Koko he is too big for the hammock now. When I let him in once when he was still a puppy, he  kept standing up and couldn't even keep his balance. He did not like the swinging, maybe felt dizzy. He clawed on my tummy, scratched my legs and arms.

   Koko is not a lap dog, he is more of a hunting or sporting dog or a wild animal.

   Instead this morning, he jumped on my chair first. I am forced to rub his neck and belly to get him out of it.

    Keeping dogs means including them in the budget. I buy a kilo of chicken feet or innards for them to last a week. These two eat more rice than the three of us humans. 

  LETTUCE AND STRINGBEANS- The lettuce and string beans that I planted a few days back have already sprouted. A few days more and I will have to transplant the lettuce to their individual plastic containers. I will be making trellis's for the string beans too. 

   SAMBONG- I collected sambong plant from hiway 2000 a few years back. Now I have to cut them down regularly or else they would overrun my other plants depriving them of sunlight. I also see sambong saplings growing everywhere and I uproot them or else our yard would become a sambong colony. I have already given away a lot of them to the neighbors.

     I am curious about how they propagate because I can't see any seeds on the platns and if the propagation is done by root branching, some of the saplings are too far away from any mother plants. Hmmmm...

   I read about the pharmacologic properties of sambong and it is a good natural diuretics and it helps with detox, UTI, lowering BP, anti inflammatory,etc. 

   I drink sambong tea once or twice a week.

DAY 32: Community Quarantine

    KOKO- I have two dogs and both are still puppies when I adopted them. Jaya is given to me by my brother's in laws because they cannot take care of her anymore while Koko is a gift from my grade six pupil 3 (or 4) years ago. 

   Jaya's personality (or dogsonality) is very laid back. She likes to be around me, jumps on my lap when I'm sitting, walks beside me when I am watering the plants, and loves to join me in the hammock. I have asthma so dogs are a no-no but Jaya loves to be with her human that she will not stop barking unless I give her a 10 minute time on my lap or in the hammock.

   Koko is another story. He does not pay attention to me unless I shout at him or when it's eating time. He sniffs around the place, pees in the most unexpected places like on the legs of the chair I am sitting on, loves to run around and step on my plants, fights with Jaya, jumps on me and scratches me with his long nails, nips me. I try to keep him from doing that but dogs are dogs.

   But when these two see a cat, they would stop fighting or whatever it is that they are doing and give chase. They never did manage to catch a cat but when they do corner one, they just play with it, barks at it but never gets near enough to get clawed or to hurt the cat.

   HW2K- I missed hiway 2000, the rice paddies,  the grass, the acacia trees. I think this the last open space in Taytay near downtown and a lot of people go here to walk, jog, and to sun. 

   There are also fruit vendors on the side of the road.

   In a few years residential homes will start popping up in the rice paddies and, sadly, the de facto park will become another concrete village. 

  It's time congress creates a law requiring a municipality or city to allot a small percentage of their land area into a nature and leisure park. It's criminal that most urban cities or municipalities have none.

    JOURNAL- I thought this journal will last for 15 days, the initial quarantine time frame. I was expecting something dramatic during the first few days of the lockdown like panic, looting, people dropping dead like flies, tanks moving in, soldiers armed and in haz-mat suits moving in to keep order...

    I was expecting a contagion of an apocalyptic proportion. Thank heavens none of that happened and I think the Filipinos, in general, have adapted well to the situation and though the things could get worse, at least as of now the country is still not overwhelmed by the number of cases, the lockdown is working.     

    That is, until yesterday when traffic became heavy again and some people with cars forgot about the extension which is supposed to be more restrictive.

DAY 31: Community Quarantine

    PLAY MISTY FOR ME-  I wake up at 4:30 to do the LIS update for my class, internet is fast at this hour.

   After, I put on my walking shoes and go to the old market to exercise and see how things are. 

    There are still no crowd so I enter the old market besides the Dolores Chapel but I am directed to Kalayaan Park, the new main entrance. I have second thoughts but since I have nothing to do, I lined up with the shoppers. 

   The move to Kalayaan park is good because it removes the queue off the sun, vehicles, and pedestrians into a well shaded and well ventilated area. 

    The taskforce people ask for two IDs. I am afraid that since I am still 20 kilos overweight and still have hair in the picture,  I may not be allowed entrance. The volunteers just looked at the IDs and let me in.

    I am curious about the misting tent, how it works. I enter the tent and get through it fast a couple of seconds. The water spray smells like tap water, must the chlorine. It is cool inside but I feel the mist did not even touch my skin.

   I don't know if a 3-5 second exposure to the mist is enough to kill viruses. I mean, doctors keep telling us to wash our hands with antibacterial soap for 20 seconds to ensure proper disinfection, and a mere 3-5 second pass through a misting tent is enough to do it whole body, I don't think so. 

   The DoH us even discouraging its use. I guess it's more for psychological benefit of than a cliinical one.

   SUMAN- I am craving for native sweets. The picture of Mayor Nieto giving away donated Aling Kika's bibingka triggered my sweet tooth. 

   I buy six pieces of cassava suman and three pairs of mag-asawang suman. This is enough to appease my, together with mygirls, cravings for the week or so. I hope.

   I avoid sugar, at least the obvious ones, as much as possible but I don't want to deprive myself and my girls the pleasure of having some as long as it is not frequent and with the right interval before the next ones.

    MONTH- It's been 31 days of community quarantine and 29 days of enhanced community quarantine. I am afraid the uncertainty is getting on people's nerves. Yesterday some of my neighbors are congregating besides our gate talking about the way relief goods are being distributed. 

    The system is confusing. They are informed that relief would be coming to their homes only to find out that they need to line up at the sitio hall.  

    They are also complaining that the volunteer barangay covid taskforce "frontliners" are also the frontliners when it comes to the distribution and they have suspicion that these volunteers may be getting more than their fair share of the food aid coming from the LGU. This is what I hear but I don't know if it is true.

   Personally, I have listed my name's to so many lists but no help came except that two that came last month.

   I am not complaining because we can still survive but sometimes I feel like I am cheated of my rights as a productive, tax paying, and law abiding citizen. 

   Just a feeling.

DAY 30: Community Quarantine

    LUMPIA WRAPPER- It was tedious work separating lumpia wrappers from each other. It took me almost an hour to do. It was a painfully slow process and I had to be very careful lest I tore up the thin waferlike sheets making them useless. 

    I was so into it that it started to mesmerize me. Time stopped, surrounding was frozen, no stimuli, I was isolated in a pocket universe of some sort, a state of transcendental meditation. Amazing! 

   That is until my saliva dripped out from my lower lip and dropped into the wrappers.

   Anyway, maybe this also happens to  vendors especially the ambulant ones when they are wrapping their toge, Shanghai, or turon.

   I mean not all of course, but it does make me think.

     PATUKA- I was buying pandesal when a guy stopped by the next stall. He looked at the display shelves and seeing it was empty of grains asked the attendant if there were feeds available. He got a negative shake of the head.

   I could see the concern on his face. 

   I don't generally like people who keep fighting cocks. I can't understand what pleasure they get in seeing the animal they spent time and money for getting hurt or killed in. 

   If they would only add up the feeds, vitamins, manhours of tending and protecting their animal (money and emotional investments) versus the few thousand pesos in winnings i.e. if they win,  they would still be in deficit.

   Again, to each his own. 

   But the guy had my sympathy, his animal should not go hungry.

    COFFEE- I am running out of ground coffee. The Baguio coffee given by my dear sister will last at least a week. Before the lockdown, I ordered a kilo of robusta from lazada but the order never came.

   But I am not complaining, it is just coffee. I could live without it. I should be thankful I have food, health, etc.. It's just that...

    EXTENDED- Tomorrow should have been the last day of quarantine but it was extended. I don't see it ending on April 30. 

   Firstly, the mass testing has not happened yet.

   Secondly, the figures are still low, it has not reached the top of the curve yet.

   Thirdly, the undetected and unreported cases could be (or is) higher than the actual reported figure.

   I don't see freedom until there's a vaccine.

DAY 29- Community Quarantine

    HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE- It was drizzling and the air was cool. I was reflecting about Easter, thinking about it's message, it's significance to believers of all colors and flavors when my train of thought was interrupted by my neighbor's over amplified sound system blaring out jukebox hits from my childhood days. Poof, my theological reflections was replaced by the desire to do something unholy for the occasion. 

    But it's Easter, the day when Jesus rose from the dead so that those who believe in him shall not perish but have an everlasting life. (Jn 3:16). So, love one another, including neighbors with bad stereos. 

    GLASSES- I didn't notice that the right nose pad of my glasses was missing.  The screw must have rusted and got loose. 

   I do not check my glasses, I just put them on first thing in the morning. It was only yesterday, when I felt a stinging sensation on the bridge of my nose that I realized that the pad stand was already biting into the skin. 

   It's uncomfortable and it's starting to itch, so I went to the optical shop to have my glasses fixed. Unfortunately the shop was closed for the duration of the lockdown according to the by stander sitting on the shop's step.

  Luckily my wife had old glasses that she kept. I cannibalized the nose pad and had it installed on my glasses. The only thing was, it's of different size and color, but it's unnoticeable and aesthetics was the last thing on my mind.

   I don't know how people with broken, missing, or with lenses that needs replacing could cope with their daily activities since optical shops are closed. 

   It's difficult for me since I am only 50- short of being legally visually disabled.

   Blurred as hell.

    COFFEE GROUND- I am adding used ground coffee in my soil mixture. One thing I noticed about ground coffee is that it is susceptible to molds which can be dangerous to the roots of the plants.  

    POBLACION TO SCHOOL- Since I was already out, I took the time to ride around the poblacion. As usual, the lines going into the old public market is still getting longer. Though continually reminded by the LGUs covid task force personnels, people are oblivious. I think it's time for Taytay to arm it's enforcers with sticks and baton and adapt the Indian method, hit them on the legs.  

Passed by the school and it's on lockdown too.

DAY 28: Community Quarantine

    HOW LONG, HOW LONG!

    MANGOES- I harvested Indian mangoes. The fruits are starting to turn yellow so I hooked two clumps of them. These mangoes are best eaten when the flesh is just starting to ripen.

    I like them ripe too at but when overriped they taste like medicine, vitamin c or orange flavored paracetamol or something like that.

    I expected a yellowish flesh based on the fruits' skin but when pared, they are very raw but not very sour, sour with just a little bit of  sweetness that does not make the face cringe and it's very crunchy too.

   I guess the fruits' yellowish skin are from  sun burn.

    LEAVES- I have a new motto with my diet which is from the father of medicine Hippocrates, "Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food." This makes sense because what is killing most people today are lifestyle diseases which stems from eating the wrong food and lack of physical exercise. If food can make you sick, the same thing goes backward. (a+b=c, c=b+a) 

   (Really, what's with the algebra? I hate math.)

   I have been eating more leaves and other plant based food about 80 percent and very little to no rice at all. I eat rice maybe once or twice a week but not regularly. I have conditioned my mind into thinking that rice is sugar. Of course, I don't think that eating right can make me live longer for people die healthy or sick, what I am preventing is dependence on maintenance medicines.

   Anyways, I am now harvesting top leaves from the sweet potatoes I planted when the lockdown started. I also have a daily supply of alugbati and saluyot leaves. 

  One thing about saluyot, it is not long lived. I cut them to encourage the production of new stems leaves, they do but eventually they run out of energy and die. Good thing they produce a lot of seed pods. 

    I have transplanted the seedlings around the yard and it would take months before they are ready for harvest.

    SORE HANDS- I woke up with a painful right hand. I could barely grip anything. It feels like rheumatism but usually my rheumatism attacked the knee or the ankle. I do experience some pain in the hands but it's from playing the guitar (the reason, maybe another post).

   Then I remember I sawed off water bottles using a hacksaw blade. It took me an hour of continuous and repetitive motions. 

   Gripping the blade must have over used the muscles in my right hand resulting in the built up of lactic acid or what ever it is that causes soreness and pain to over used muscles.

    The sawed off bottles are for my lettuce seedlings.

DAY 27: Community Quarantine

    SENAKULO- This is my first time to wake up on a good Friday morning with no drumbeats, no costumed crucifixion characters, no horses and chariots and no crowd in Ricarte Street.

    Last Good Friday at this early hour, the street was already teeming with people especially children eagerly waiting for the start of the passion of Christ. Barabbas, who used to chase children and scare the hell out of me when I was young, would already be in his chains snarling at by-standers and grabbing children, but not today.  

   Not even a pabasa to be heard.

   BONSAI- I did bonsai maintenance yesterday. I cultivated the soil to check if the roots still have space to grow into and I guess I still have two to three years before repotting and root trimming.

   After cultivating the soil, I put a crude pot extension and added soil to snuff out weeds and for the roots to have more, space, nutrients and to  prevent dehydration especially since the sun has been beating down hard on plant leaves, burning them. Once the soil got settled and weeds started to grow, the extension will be unnecessary.

   FISH- This is the first time we will be eating fish since the start of the lockdown. It's mostly veges, and fruits. 

   I don't know why. Hmmmm....

  TWICE A DAY- I was surprised when a covid task force volunteer ask for my name and put it on the list. I thought I would be given the 5-8k application form or maybe for a relief goods distribution, but I was wrong. I was told that from now on our q-pass would be checked at the gates and we would only be allowed to go out twice a day, in the morning and in the afternoon. They put score after the names.

    This is ok for me but again this is a bit too late. This should have been done in the first weeks of the lockdown. It seems that for every extension an additional precaution is added. 

   Why not tightened the noose from the start, the result would have been different.

   Anyway, this is the first time we have experienced a pandemic and we are groping in the dark with the government caught unprepared. 

   After covid19, experts and lawmakers will have formulated laws and  protocols to address another pandemic and other health related crisis on a national and global level.

   The late  Senator Santiago tried to but nobody took it seriously.

DAY 26: Community Quarantine

      LOZARTAN: I haven't ridden on my motorcycle since the lockdown began. It needed exercise to circulate the fuel and oil.

    I rode to downtown Taytay to stock up on lozartan for my blood pressure. My BP has normalized since I lost weight and reached my ideal BMI. I tried weaning off the tablets but my blood pressure shot up to 140/90. I guess I need to reach 110/70 before I could do that, slowly of course. 

   There was an article floating around facebook that said lozartan may help resist NCOV 19. I am not an expert with medicine so I don't know if it is true or not, but it's a highly technical article which is hieroglyphics to me, but I sure hope it does help.

   SOCIAL UNDISTANCING- I had a look around the poblacion and saw people lined up going into the old public market, drug stores, and groceries and it's already late in the morning, around 9 or so.

   Though there were police and covid task force personnels who reminded Taytayenos about social distancing, it seemed that the people were not taking them seriously.

    Riders were still being flagged down for riding in tandem but the back rider simply got off, walked past the check point, then rode again. 

     It's the people who are not following the lock down procedures inspite of the LGUs efforts to enforce. Unless vehicles are impounded or arrests are made, the lockdown will just be a suggestion to the community.

    ALCOHOL-  I noticed a small grocery store where there were few people lining up. I tried my luck.    

    There few customers because the shelves were empty and the merchandisers were just beginning to fill them up. 

    I had a look around and was surprised to see that there were bottles of alcohol, fresh from the boxes and recently shelved. Two bottle per customer limit per customer, the sign said. I bought two. I saw two girls, siblings, bend the rule by pretending that they are from different households. They got away with buying four bottles. Clever.

     CIRCADIAN EXHILATION- I have been sleeping late and waking up late. My biological clock has been getting off a little each day. Unnoticeable until I noticed it. 

    I am reminded of the sci-fi short story "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang. It's about a race of mechanical beings who lives on air pressure. Their body's mechanistic metabolism is based on air pressure and they are immortal unless killed off or by suicide. 

  One day they noticed that their clock are getting faster and they cannot explain it. Time is moving faster by an hour a year this, and by their calculations it is progressing at a slow but steady rate. Theories were formulated to explain and even downplay the phenomenon.

     The protagonist, unsatisfied with the theories,  has his own theory and to prove his this he operated on his own brain, examined each components, how they function, etc. 

     He came to the conclusion that the clocks or time is not getting faster. It is their brain that is getting slower. 

     Thhe air pressure is balancing out in their world. Without pressure, there's no energy, no motive force to power them up. They are dying a very slow and steady death. They have about a millenium until it all ends.

    They got busy preventing it. Every machine imaginable was invented to create air pressure and they did create pocket pressures but in general these machines only ate up more pressure than they can produce. These machines are ultimately speeding up the process. They cannot stop the deficit. 

    It is inevitable. Everything will come to an equal pressure where the ability to do work cease.

    It is a good illustration of the second law of thermodynamics and  entropy. 

   Good read.

DAY 25: Community Quarantine

      HEAD: I felt something behind my head. It was itchy and a bit sore, not painful but tender. I tried to recall where I bumped behind my head, or whether I fell from the sofa, but nothing.

     Since I had a back ache from gardening,  I don't do anything but water the plants. Not anything that would cause this bump.

    I am thinking bee sting or infected mosquitoes bite, but not that I could remember.

    Boil? Not likely.

    Then I realized that I have been lying down on the bamboo sofa and the sore spot was where the armrest, which was the headrest when I'm lying down, and my head was in contact most of the time. Even with the pillow, I think the hardness went through.

    I am developing a head sore from lying down too much.

    BANANA- When the rumors, or fake news, started floating around that bananas could cure covid, the price per kilo of the fruit doubled . A kilo of latundan that was 40-50 pesos a kilo before now sells to a hundred.

    I don't see how that many people buying the fruit and many are already turning overripe yet the price still does not change. The spike in the price is not demand driven, it is fake news driven.

    EXTENDED- It's official, as what is expected, the lockdown is extended. Based on the Chinese experience, it took them almost three months to flatten the curve and I expect it will not be that far with us. 

    China is an authoritarian state while the Philippines is an over democratized country where people not only enjoy too much freedom, but they also enjoy taunting the rules and holding rallies to exercise their rights or simply  the fun and the funds of it.

    Unless pinoys cooperate, this will extended for more weeks to come.

    It's time to stop blaming government and start blaming ourselves.

     GROCERY- Went to the grocery yesterday not because of the lockdown. 

     I think with the number of lockdowns declared, I have become immune to it and it's a wonder why everyone is not.

DAY 24. : Community Quarantine

     HOLY WEEK PABASA- It's Holy Wednesday and I have not heard any pabasa yet. Usually it starts on Holy Monday, but there may not be any at all because of the health crisis.

     I am not a Catholic but I do see the religious as well as cultural significance of the pabasa.  It is one way for the ordinary people to know the suffering of Christ especially for the non church goer and the nominal Christians.  

    There is traditonal melody that I have been hearing as long as I can remember, but most of the time the melody is made up along the way and the timing is free. 

    Lately, I have been hearing the pabasa sang using the melodies of pop songs and there were a few times I heard children rapping it.

     Singing about the central doctrine of Christianity using pop or modern melodies sends confusing messages, one of holiness and the other of the hedonism of pop culture.

   I like traditions and I think preserving it is important. Singing the pabasa using the traditional melody brings back a lot of memories when we were still Catholics, times when holy week was observed with solemnity. 

    I remember as children we were told to stay inside the house by adults especially the Lolo's and the Lola's in the neighborhood. Playing and making loud noises were not allowed. We were told to be careful and not to injure ourselves for God the healer is dead. We were quarantined.

    Now it is different. It became the opposite. It is now the time to party, to drink, to have a good time especially for the young. 

   No rest for the spirit even for a while to reflect on the significance of the cross.

    Anyway, to each his own.

   SINGKAMAS-  The presence of singkamas in the market is the signal that summer is officially here. When we were kids we used eat this all the time with bagoong. It was cheap. 

   It was abundant then because there were still farmers in Taytay and Cainta that cultivate the root crop. That was before every areable acre was converted into subdivisions. 

    Singkamas is one of the main ingredients, together with camote, for lumpia, a staple food for the devotees reading the pasyon.

   Now, it is expensive. It is of the same level as oranges or apples, imported.

    EGGS AND MEAT- I am now begining to suffer from repetitive repetitions. I mean, every day I go to the market, see the same people, same food, same things, over and over again. It's Groundhog day!

    I don't know, maybe it's psychological. But in reality, nothing much has changed. This is my lifestyle, half monk, half hedonist. I don't go out much, I don't socialize unless necessary, I do bonsai, garden, etc. 

    I guess it is the little breaks from the routine like walking, attending church, eating out in the mall, enjoying ice cream, watching movies, jamming with fellow frustrated rockstars, going on little vacations, etc.

    The contrast to the monotony.

   Hmmmmm ....

    EXTENSION- I don't see the ECQ ending next week. Cases are still going up and the testing are still on going. And I don't think the threat will go away even with a whole year ECQ that is until there's a vaccine. The only defense we have is evasion: quarantine and social distancing. 

    As to the way things are before, not gonna happen until there's a cure because the cases may flat line but the virus could go dormant or worse evolve and flare ups occur,  then we are back to day 1.

DAY 23: Community Lockdown

     LOCKDOWN AGAIN- The Rizal Provincial Government declared its own lockdown effective April 6, Monday, today. 

    As what has become the norm whenever lockdown is declared, or even just the threat of it, there are rumors  that groceries, public markets and stores will be closed resulting to panic buying.

     (My conspiracy theorizing evil twin sometimes think that it is the grocery owners who float these rumors around on social media to benefit from the rush sale.)

    But no matter how the authorities explain that no stores will be closed, falls on deaf ears.

   How many lockdowns have we had:

      1. NCR Community Quarantine

      2. Luzon wide CQ

      3. Luzon Enhanced CQ, two days after LCQ

      4. Municipal ECQ

      5. Barangay ECQ

      6. Provincial ECQ

     (To a pusoy player, this order of things is called a pao. The player loses by default.)

     I wonder why it is only now that the province declared its own lockdown.

     Since there's already a  Luzon wide ECQ, and each municipalities has declared its own ECQ down to the barangay level, and each unit already has mechanisms and people working on the ground, what are the additional restrictions that can be put on top of what is already in place? Are there additonal help coming from the provincial government that comes along with the declaration?

      Or is the provincial lockdown superfluous? 

      RAZOR SHARP- It was my wife who helped with shaving my head. I borrowed my brother's electric razor. But since we didn't know how it's done, and things did not go well as what I expected it to be, we gave up and asked our hair cutter neighbor to finish it up by shaving my head. Quarantine protocols observed, of course.

     BUCIDA ESPINOZA- I bought this bucida or dwarf olive for 50 pesos about 5 years ago. It is about 4 inches tall then. It's a good bonsai material because it has naturally small leaves. Most trees have big leaves but produced small ones when confined in a pot. 

     I wired the trunk to cascade style. One thing to keep in mind with a cascade bonsai is to keep trimming the upper branches to direct the energy and nutrients going down to the cascading trunk and branches.

    Once the top branches are allowed to go uncontrolled, the energy and nutrients naturally go up to help the tree grow tall and catch the most sun. The cascading branches will be deprived and eventually die. 

     Cascading trunks naturally happen when the tree is planted on the moutain side and gravity wins over the natural tendency to grow upward

This is what cascading bonsai is imitating. 

     Unfortunately, bucida roots are sensitive and do not like to be exposed when repotting. I have killed two because of this ignorance.

     So, to be safe, I broke the trainer pot.

DAY 22 (Community Quarantine)

      BACK ACHE- I think I may have overdone my gardening. Pulling weeds, moving pots, removing rocks, squatting on hours for almost three weeks have taken its toll on my back. It hurts.

      I am not young anymore and an overnight sleep is not enough to recover from the sore muscles and to rest the bones. 

    It is not that bad. I do not feel it when I am standing up or laying down, it only hurts when I am sitting down. 

   I need two to three days of rest.

    PROCRASTINATION- I have been planning to do the paper works for my students' school files since the start of the lock down but I never got around it. Whenever I sit down to face it, I think of the  free days still ahead, I think of plants, I think of a lot of things but not the school forms. 

     It is still a week before the lock down ends, though I suspect there will be an extension or there will be an easing up fro industry workers so that manufacturing can get back on gears. But with the cases still going up, it may still be up a month or so.

     It is a good thing that I had the foresight to bring home the papers before the lockdown because teachers are now forbidden to return to school due to covid. I can do the work at home.

     I am taking a break from my plants and will be focusing my energy to the task, which I do not like by the way  

     It is time to finalize my pupils' grades, fill up the student permanent records (f137), check and recheck, etc.. 

    I write for fifteen minutes, lie down for a while to rest my back, then return to work. 

     LETTUCE- Most of the lettuce, all of them actually, I buy are wilted. I guess it's the distance and hours  the vegetable travel from up north to down here in Cainta that saps the crunchiness out of them.

     One of the things I do to bring back a little life into the leaves is I wash the leaves without drying. Then I put it in an airtight container or a plastic bag to refrigerate.      

      I keep them in the ref from seven in the morning until lunch or dinner, so I do not know the exact duration before the leaves regain a bit of life, maybe, at least an hour or longer (maybe even less). 

    Then I take it out, wash it again and serve. It is greener and somewhat fresher than when I bought it.

     MANGO- It's mango season. Our mango tree is fruiting and I can see clusters of little fruits but they are too high for me to climb or to hook the fruits. Bats eat them so the little ones are falling to the ground, aborted little mangoes.

    I am thinking of cutting the tree down to lower it and at the same time to thicken the trunk. But I am having second thoughts because this tree is a grafted one and from reading, grafted trees are not as tough as the naturally matured ones. It may not survive the operation.

     NORMAL- Nothing has not changed in the border. It still easier to get into Taytay than into Cainta.

     Still not used to seeing few vehicles in an otherwise very busy thoroughfare. I can only imagine the rush, the noise, and the smoke when the quarantine is over.

    Chaos.

DAY 21 (Community Quarantine)

     HAPPY BIRTHDAY-My daughter turned 21 today. Time flies so fast it seems like yesterday I was playing bass guitar with my kumpares in a birthday drinking session when my brother-in-law told me that my wife was already in labor and was going to the lying-in clinic. The show must go on, as the saying goes. We finished the song. My mother was fuming, so she personally went to fetch me. (Thanks mother)

    When I got home my wife  was already in the lying in clinic. I still reek of Ginebra San Miguel Gin when I met the doctor. 

     I thank God for having a wonderful and hard working daughter. (And a wonderful mother and wife, too) 

    By the way, stressed by the news about covid, Jesse deleted her FB app.

  

   TIME RELATIVITY- Why is it that when we get older time seems to go faster? 

    It's because we don't think of time linearly and as we get older, we think of time in proportion to how long we have been alive.  

     To a five year old girl who cannot wait to go outside on her own, a year is a fifth of her life. A ten year old boy who is excited about the next school year, year is tenth of his life.

     For adults who have passed their thirty, a year is is what? It's a day in a calendar. 

    And when you are in your forty's or fifty's, year is about a minute in an hour. 

    Time flows becomes faster as we grow older, always flowing into the past. 

    We cannot catch it.  

    Always live for the moment, the present.and enjoy it.   

     Stop wasting time ruing about the past or spoiling the present by thinking about things in the future that stressed the hell out of us, negative things that have not happened yet or may not happen at all.

    The past is behind. 

     Nothing can be changed. We are continually travelling to the future a millisecond at a time.

    There, we are all time travellers.

     TRELISS - I eat alugbati leaves fresh. I just pick, wash, and dip them in mayo or in bagoong. It's crunchy and not as slimy compared to cooked or steamed leaves. 

     I noticed that the vines are starting to creep on the ground. I don't use pesticides and one of the things I am concerned about are nematodes or worm larva that may find its way to the leaves from the soil, into the stomach.

    Of course, I wash them well and let stay in tap water for half an hour or so and with the amount of chlorine present in our tap that can actually kill gold fish (yes, I am a fish keeper and from experience this is true that is why there are  neutralizers on the market), I don't think any larvae could survive. 

      Also, the intense sun is drying and maturing the leaves early which lessens the probability of any slimy creatures surviving on it.

     But to make sure, I made treliss for them to keep them above ground, away from the soil.

DAY 20: Community Quarantine

    DOGS- Ten days more to go. Dogs are wonderful company. 

   One thing I like about Jaya, my dog, is that she does not jump on me and scratch me, she is not like Koko.

    Koko has a different temperament, likes to run, jump, bite, scratch, anything that would attract attention. Of course, he does not know that he is hurting me.

    Jaya is nice. She sits or stand besides me, relaxed and chilled but beware she will attack anyone who tries to get near me especially Koko.

    EARTHWORMS- I have been practicing trash segregation in our household for years now but it is not as strict as it should be especially when I am busy. But despite that I have a compost pit. Ideally, composting needs lot of ingredients to speed up the process, like rice hull, or wood dust, mixture of green and dry biodegradable material, water, soil l, etc. But I do not do that, I just throw leaves, food stuffs, papers, etc, into the pit and leave it there. 

    The water coming from the sink keeps the area damp and wet which promotes decomposition.

    When I need soil, I scrape the bottom of the pit. An ideal soil, has to be loamy and not compact, different grades, right pH etc. Complicated based on what I see on you tube or read about it. Some even have testing kits for it.

    But I have one surefire way of telling whether soil is good for plants or not, earthworms.

   If there are earthworms in the soil, it's good.   

    DRY SEASON AND COVID- Will the dry season in the Philippines help contain COVID? There are posts about this a few weeks back saying that the onset of the dry season in the Philippines will stop or contain the spread of SARS-Cov-2 (the virus that causes covid). 

    I for one believe that this is so since most of the countries with the worst infection and mortality rate are countries in the temperate zone. It's it too early to tell here in the Philippines but compared to France with 50k + cases and 4k+ death  vs. a population of around 66 M, ours is still small relatively. 

    Of course it can be argued that we are not testing as aggressively as France and other countries in Europe. Granted, but let's use the realtively small number of deaths at 100+ with a mortality rate of 3-4 percent vs. a population of 100 M, it still small, as of this time compared to Europe.

    Anyway, Here is an excerpt from a research paper on High Temperature vs. COVID:

    " Rough observations of outbreaks of COVID-19 outside China show a noteworthy 

phenomenon. In the early dates of the outbreak, countries with relatively lower air 

temperature and lower humidity (e.g. Korea, Japan and Iran) see severe outbreaks than 

warmer and more humid countries (e.g. Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand) do. 

Considering the natural log of the average number of cases per day from February 8 to 

29 as a rough measure of the severity of the COVID-19 outbreaks"

      This is the link to the paper.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3551767