You never know what you might see, when travelling:
Travelling near (link) Barotok Nuevo in Iloilo Province 2 weeks
ago, my "sidekick" suddenly said"SNAKE!" I said, "Where?"
and reversed a few yards, to get out of the car to look at this
MONSTER.
For reference,the large stones are 3- feet from his head
(which has been crushed). This makes his total length
somewhere between 16- and 20- feet (= 4.5 - 6 meters).
His body diameter seems to be about 9- inches = 23 cm,
= about dinner plate size. He lived in an area of small
family compounds, where there are many small livestock
around, all the time. I tried to research how large a "prey"
such a snake could handle, but found nothing definitive.
I've watched NatGeo videos, and based on them it seems
pretty reasonable to say that chickens and small goats
(+ other KIDS?) would be pretty easy for him to swallow.
He had "the good life" and grew to be HUGE.
ago, my "sidekick" suddenly said"SNAKE!" I said, "Where?"
and reversed a few yards, to get out of the car to look at this
MONSTER.
For reference,the large stones are 3- feet from his head
(which has been crushed). This makes his total length
somewhere between 16- and 20- feet (= 4.5 - 6 meters).
His body diameter seems to be about 9- inches = 23 cm,
= about dinner plate size. He lived in an area of small
family compounds, where there are many small livestock
around, all the time. I tried to research how large a "prey"
such a snake could handle, but found nothing definitive.
I've watched NatGeo videos, and based on them it seems
pretty reasonable to say that chickens and small goats
(+ other KIDS?) would be pretty easy for him to swallow.
He had "the good life" and grew to be HUGE.
It 's been a while since I put up views of our Malibor neighborhood property. I was sitting in our roadway, across from the houses one morning and decided to try to make photos. The street is narrow, less than 16-feet wide, the 8- feet in the middle being paved with cement. SO, it is difficult to get away far enough for the camera to capture approx. 80- feet of front property line. The "fish-eye lens" gimmick wasn't any help, either. So 3 frames is the easiest.
Sitting in a chair facing the property, the "yellow house" to the left is mostly screened by foliage. This is the west side of the property (I'm facing north- ish) and this house was completed in 2013, within 8 months of our arrival in the Philippines. We "moved in"
on July 4th of that year.
Using the mahogany tree and cement sack for reference, directly in front of me is the small building currently under construction with its front windows visible through the foliage. This will eventually end up being 2-story with an "A- frame" roof and side-dormer windows (dormers maximize ceiling-space). The downstairs is mostly complete, enough to be functional; We think it will end up as a "parlor/ work room" with a small bedroom behind. Completion is not urgent, which is good, as everything happens in slow- motion here. This building is attached to the water-reservoir tower, and is the "replacement" for our bamboo-hut "parlor and sleeping space" built in Dec of 2012.
This link shows the project beginning last August, and there are several references
in more recent postings.
Panning a little to the right, (carport post for reference) shows the "blue house" which
was built in 2006 - 2007; this was the only building on the property when we arrived in November 2012. We have upgraded it, and built everything else, since then. (Including also a cottage about 2 miles away on our small farm at Alegre, + a storage room and large saw- shed on the detached "chicken yard" 30 feet beyond us at the rear.) The 16- by 16-foot space behind the car is our "outdoor patio-kitchen" referred to everywhere in the Philippines as a "dirty kitchen."
To my right about 50 yards is the school entrance gate at the end of the road (see last month's posting) and to the left about the same distance is the intersection with the
National Highway.
At a seminar- meeting in mid- February, the Suzuki car was parked in the only available shade, which these several young ladies happened to choose as a break-time venue. Not posed, they were just like this when I clicked the shutter.
A little while later they were occupied with washing the lunch
dishes, at the hand-pump just left of the car photo above.
Another attendee was wearing this T-shirt. I especially
liked the quote on the back.
NOT BAD, for a computer- science major!
The Suzuki gets a "cargo workout" from time to time.
We had a rice harvest soon after that meeting, and this is
half the proceeds, 14 sacks weighing a total of around 900
pounds. I can fairly easily move this amount of load, and
on this occasion since I would have to make 2 trips anyway
it made sense to divide the weight fairly equally instead of
loading heavier on one trip. Transporting only about a mile.
Suzuki has had a series of issues with performance (fuel
mixture) and keeping the brakes in adjustment (aggravation,
not a safety issue, fortunately) plus other minor nagging-
little-items which were never quite "right." Here, we are
close to finding the "magic solution" with replacement of
the power-brake booster unit, which by leaking under
some conditions (intermittent?) has affected several things
that all seemed unrelated. It is quite BURIED under the
dash-board, and in fact I never knew it was there.
"Vehicle mechanics" (not motorcycle) are scarce around
our immediate area, and parts are sometimes hard to track
down. In San Jose (45 miles away) or certainly in Iloilo (110
miles away) this lengthy process of fix- then- re-diagnose
would have been much shorter than the many months it
has taken. We live where we live!
Some signs just "look weird" to me. "Barber Shop" + a word
that suggests "Italian artist/ gigolo," + "Elephant's Nook."
THIS sign might have been OK, except that it was immediately
next door to the Barber Shop sign.
Our daughter Thea and husband Joseph are having this house
built 200 yards from where we live, hoping it will be finished in
the next few weeks. THIS view interested me because there
would typically be THREE roof-trusses. Lumber is VERY hard
to get here, NOW, given a building boom and the reconstructions
since the typhoon 5 years ago. THIS innovation should work -
using angled braces to connect ONE truss at the center to the
adjacent rafter-sets to pick up the load; but I've suggested that
they continue trying to get enough material to complete 3 sets.
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Just passing through Kalibo recently, I saw a bamboo-vendor with
THESE pieces in bins nearly side-by-side. Same outside diameter,
but the stuff on the left is immature and will soon rot out in any
structural use. The mature pieces on the right are about 5-years
growth (I hear) and will last for about 5 years in a structure. BUYER
BEWARE when buying the pre-fab gazebos, etc. widely sold here.
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There is considerable Talabahan activity in some places
that we go, especially around restaurants and market-
places. I don't suppose it could be considered sharialistic;
Muslims mostly don't eat shell-fish.
End of jest: the word
Talibahan means "clam" in the local language. I have
sampled steamed clams here, and they are about as I
remember them from childhood (when we lived 2 years
in a beach area) - taste OK, kind of "mushroom + meat-
like," and rubbery-chewy so it's hardy worth the bother.
Here, the price-per-weight is quite high, and the weight
turns out to be 95% shell, but lots of people like them
well enough to pay the premium price, apparently.
The Tibiao municipal festival is officially in the last
weekend of February each year. Schools and other
groups practice for weeks to participate in parade,
local beauty pageant, and cultural dancing contests -
among other activities. Streets around the plaza are
blocked with vendor and game booths for 2 to 3 weeks.
We went there the next-to-last day, just to look around.
Most of the vendors had "moved on" to the next adjacent
municipality about 15 miles away, whose festival was just
beginning. Daughter Thea bought a balloon for Timmie
from the first vendor we found - - and later discovered that
he had nearly doubled the price, apparently since she had
been walking with a foreigner (ME!) I occasionally run into
this phenomenon, and refer to it as the "'Cano disount."
(Abbreviated americano "'cano" can refer to any foreigner,
more-or-less "European- looking.")
lush, scenic places within a few minutes anytime I want to.
This is the road about 200 yards from our Alegre "farm."
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We expect to get pretty busy in the next few weeks. There will be several camp- sessions at Batonan where we meet on Sundays, so there's some preparation to do for those, and we also anticipate a trip to Nasidman Island for our semi-annual business meeting.
This road-trip of nearly 200 miles has proven in the past to take nearly 7 hours
of actual rolling-time to accomplish. There are no east- west roads through
the mountainous interior of Panay Island, so we will go from upper-left Tibiao
area to Nasidman Island area (flagged) passing around the south through San
Jose and Iloilo City. My passengers will stay the night before at our house,
as we will need to get away around 3 a.m.
favorite "effects" taken perhaps three years ago.
We hope that all of you are having an agreeable 2019, with only enough challenges to make life a little interesting.
TJ and Bernadette Larson
Tibiao, Antique Province, Philippines
