"Autumn" in the Philippines

(Started writing Friday, Oct. 14 about 11 a.m.  No telling when I may get it finished.)

I've been trying to keep the camera handy most of the time lately.  The result is nearly 80 "odds 'n' ends" photos from the last several weeks, with several "topic" or "project" series interrupted by other series as various things got photos taken a few days apart.  (EXAMPLE: The chair project seen below has its photos interwoven with scenery, errand, party, and other subjects.)  I'll try to sort them out as I go along, here.   Seems like this few weeks has had a lot of activity with small- to- medium sized projects, and several day-trips.  

We have NO "Autumn" or "Fall"  here!  Right now it's towards the end of "rainy" season - which THIS year was preceded by a l-o-n-g drier-than usual "drought" season.  Right now we are being deluged by rain almost every afternoon, with a few dry and sunny days, and looking at the arrival of Typhoon "Sarika"  which will give Luzon Island - north of us 300 to 500 miles - including the Manila area, a pretty thorough working-over in the next 2 to 3 days.
It will "miss" us, and WE WON'T MISS HAVING IT,  but quite likely we will have 3 to 5 days of pretty steady-to-heavy rain.

The rain has wreaked havoc on the rice harvest.  Some local crops have been knocked down by rain and wind, so they almost couldn't be harvested; and rainy days make threshing impossible - wet rice won't go through the machine properly.  Then when the rice is threshed, it needs a couple days of dry sunshine so that it can be dried for storage or further processing.   We were blessed to get something-like 75% of a "best crop" from our largest field.  This doesn't generate enough sale-cash to be very exciting, but it DOES offset the expense of buying our rice retail.  We will wait for the price-cycle to move upwards before we sell some of the crop.  (Rice blog #1)   (Rice blog #2)

On Tuesday, September 13, the Gaisano shopping mall at San Jose featured this:

"It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas."  I think this

Christmas decoration shop may be a LITTLE earlier than

USA retailers - - but maybe they have moved this early

before the Season.  "Santa" is motion activated, and sings

and dances.  Everything inside is artificial trees, wreaths,

and LED light strings.  

The sidewalks of Jan Jose:  Our provincial capitol has out-grown its downtown so that the few blocks of city-grid streets are a real challenge for vehicles and pedestrians. There is some discussion of solving the traffic problems by various means, and I have heard just a little about reforming the sidewalks.  Meanwhile I have "improved through much practise" at watching where I'm stepping and navigating around obstacles.

THERE IS NO MORE SPACE!  And, the officials can't really make any moves which take away from the livelihood of their constituency.  So, everybody just does the best he can (!)

This situation is fairly "tame," as the outdoor cafe- extension
leaves about a one-person width sidewalk remaining,

This HOLE in a newly-constructed sidewalk is about 2-feet 
deep, extending to where water could be seen below.  Later in the day I passed, and found that a somewhat better cover had been placed over this one.  

 Here, it is 5 steps up from the street- level to the sidewalk;  no access ramp.  The corner is pretty well blocked by a food-vending operation.

Lacking inside space, this store owner has extended an awning to create a permanent "parking lot sale," so the sidewalk becomes a mostly- obstructed aisle passing through the merchandising area.

Often, at this place, there is an awning extending out clear to the street-corner, and another stack of goods around the inside of the curb, so that anyone passing must either fight through a narrow aisle of goods and customers, or step off the sidewalk and walk in the street, to get around the corner. 

Here, the street was widened so the curb is even with the existing building.  THERE IS NO SIDEWALK at all!   When the building was built, the street was much narrower.  If the truck were parked close to the painted line, pedestrians would have to walk around the truck into the traffic lane to pass. 

 The vehicle driveway is no longer in use, but it remains - - just watch your step!  Further away, an awning-extension and merchandise displays appear to have the sidewalk completely obstructed.  Merchandise hanging from above will often mean having to "bow and scrape" in order to get through. 




 Goods are often stacked on the sidewalks, creating "narrows" for passers-by to navigate.

 

 And sometimes there is a utility pole which just can't  be moved.

The "rough places" where there are irregular steps, unfilled trenches, pipes running across the surface, etc., don't show well in photos - so I left a lot of them out.

All of the above is not to ridicule San Jose, only to show one very REAL aspect of the problems which they deal with there.  Be VERY GLAD if your area was able to anticipate its growth and accommodate pedestrians and vehicles more adequately.

We try to keep our San Jose errands to ONE per month - just to take care of banking and to shop for items which are more expensive or not available in our area.  But I've had two trips this month to Pandan - 40 miles NORTH from here - for day-conferences.

  

As we arrived at our conference center near Culasi one morning,

these flowering  bushes were rampant in the front yard, and

covered with thousands of blooms.  The young lady is about

5-feet tall.

The flowers themselves are small and delicate-looking, each

one about 2- inches in diameter.  They seem to be a type 
of miniature rose.

This "minimalist" motorcycle caught my eye as we passed

by.   A stainless-steel "Thermos" is adapted for a fuel tank.
What probably started as a "poverty" thing here, has quite
definitely become a "style- fad," maybe something like the
"Mexican street rod" cars in the USA.  I think I would

find the un-padded seat a little too minimal.  I call these
"skeleton bikes," and people seem to know what I mean.

 I used to hear the figure of speech, "A pillar of the community-"
or, "- of the church."  These literal pillars supplement the steel
truss material above them.  This occasion was a "teach by
storytelling"  seminar which caught the imagination of the
group, and they kept avidly involved through the day.


Sometimes I will have a small "flash of inspiration" which proves useful.

This calendar had flopped its way several months BACK in TIME  and was at June, because the pages kept tearing from around the nail it hangs on.  Just a few minutes with a scrap of wood, a coping
saw, and sandpaper, and I now see the correct month. 

There are nearly always several small things in-progress here.  I've been trying unsuccessfully, so far, to find a way to make the "smoke hood" in our new PATIO more effective.   So far, I can't get enough upward draft to positively move the smoke UP and OUT.

This exhaust fan was the first first attempt to create a 
stronger updraft and draw smoke upwards and out
exit vent at the top.  It proved too weak to create a
positive suction effect in the direction needed. 

Attempt "number 2" was to build a duct work to give the air
flow more positive direction.   Several hours of tinkering 
with this also proved ineffective.  There needs to be a
fairly strong air-current ("venturi" is the engineering name
I think).  BUT I also think that whatever type of blower
motor is used should not be directly in the smoky air,
which would quickly destroy it.   So I'm stumped for the
moment.  The new fan will be used somewhere else.


We put several things "on hold" for a couple days, to prepare
for an "Octoberfest" on October 9, in honor of a few calendar
anniversaries which occur all near the same time.   This
chocolate cake is derived from "aunt Bertha's recipe" which
we used constantly in growing-up years.  


The new sheltered car port and outside kitchen area provide
plenty of space for guests to relax and enjoy.


There's very little waste, here!  The day after the "fest," a
fairly thick mat of overcooked and slightly scorched rice gets
saved out of the cooking pot, destined towards the poultry
and other animals.   (All of them especially like stuff left-
over for a few days, which often ferments somewhat.)

 Meanwhile, the table-saw frame, which has been "topless"

 since we built it in April of 2015, has at last gotten its

table-top,  Two thicknesses of hard wood are laminated

to make a piece which we hope will not shrink, crack,

warp, or bow.   Alex has the patience and skill to carefully

line things up so that the top can be trimmed accurately

and "square" to the blade.  We had to "give up" on the

blade-height adjustment feature  which I had designed

into the saw-frame.  It proved beyond our precision

abilities to make it work without tilting and "yawing" as

it moved up and down in its slide-tracks.  The saw shaft

is now fixed and bolted at full height. 

But before we have time enough to "design and fabricate" a

built-in guide fence and other precision features, another

long-awaited project comes forward to occupy us.  These

are two of the mahogany tree-slabs which will become a

set of six chairs for the inside dining table.  For a lot of years,

this table has been served by well-made 4- legged stools

(lower left in photo).  Chairs will be a big improvement!  But

lots of wood must be "sawn"  before those chairs are "seen." 
(Plastic chairs in the background were "rented" for the festival.)

Using guides clamped to the edges (no screws to mar the new

top- surface!)  Alex has shown lots of ingenuity in making

sliding-jigs and other guides for a number of precision

repeat-cutting operations.   With this particular simple guide,

we were pleased to get nearly 3- inch cutting depth through

the hard mahogany.   This wood is from a large tree which

was downed by Typhoon Yolanda about 3 years ago.   

This 2- track "jig" allows accurate cross-cutting of multiple

pieces.   The basic principle gets modified for other needed

operations, later.  

Here, an angled piece attached to the top of the "slider" 

allows accurate diagonals to be cut off the main "spine"

pieces which will become the back legs of the chairs.

A taller set of slide-guides makes it possible to do depth-

controlled cuts, and create "L" shaped slots (rabbets)

for jointing various parts of the chair.

This pile of back-pieces have been jointed and partially
carved using various saw-cuts.  Much faster and more
accurate than hand-work.

This proto-type chair was made of various "reject pieces"
which have flaws.  After some comments from several
"test-sitters," the design was finalized, and Alex made
the jigs seen above (and others!) and as of Day 4 the
pieces are mostly cut and he is finishing the "hand-
work"  and beginning to assemble the chairs.  We will
end up with 7 chairs instead of 6, counting this one.
Seems quite true, HERE, that "chair-ity begins at home."

I don't have an exact count but it seems like I'm probably up to my usual number-range for photos this time.    I have been more aware recently of the prettiness of this place, when I'm moving around on errands.  But probably, I miss a lot.  Even people who live on and drive on Hwy. 1 Pacific Coast Highway (spectacular!) probably become a little too used to the beauty which surrounds them.   These last two photos give a little idea of how it can be:

Sometimes all I see is the fried-chicken vendor waiting to

make her left turn, with a dump truck slowing down behind her.

But there's joy in pausing long enough to see the surroundings,

after the traffic is gone.

Quite a few of those 80 or so photos remain.  I'll perhaps use some of the more interesting ones in a later posting.   

For now, we wish you joy in seeing all the interesting and lovely things around you;  that you will have the ability to appreciate all the wonderful things in life which sometimes get shuffled behind the humdrum day- to- day.

TJ and Bernadette Larson,

Antique Province, Panay Island, Philippines

Our location in the Philippines

When Dinosaurs Crash

What happens when dinosaurs crash?
   (There are Tyrannosaurus Wrecks.)

We had an "interesting" and rare sort of a wreck nearby, a few weeks ago.  VERY LARGE trucks are not common here, as the roads are just too narrow and certain curves are pretty tight,  perhaps less than 10 mph for a really BIG truck.  BUT LATELY in the last few months we have occasionally been seeing long flatbed trailer-trucks pass by.  IN GENERAL,  the trucks here are straight non-trailer trucks not much more than 30 feet long.

This unfortunate fella  just didn't make it around a sharp curve

sometime before daylight one morning.  HE IS A "rare bird" here

being a 40- foot flatbed trailer (fortunately, no load) with a USA 

made FREIGHTLINER tractor (almost never seen, Japanese

trucks predominate here).  Looks to me like he actually "ditched"

at 25 mph or less.  Very little damage all-in-all.

It wouldn't have been his fault.   He would have been driving for about 3 hours from the ferry- dock 80 or so miles from here. (And it's nearly 24 hours on-ferry from Manila.)   IN DARKNESS (before 5 a.m.) his sensible speed would have been 35 to 40 mph, "hogging" the center line of a 20- foot wide road (almost zero overnight traffic here).    The road curves here nearly ALL have ( "<"  "<"  and ">"  ">") arrow marker signs but NO real indication of HOW SHARP.  His "reaction time"  approaching this curve would probably have been about 3 seconds and he just couldn't slow down quite fast enough.

It's  hard to show in a photo, just how sharp this curve is.  To

give an idea, I can go around it  in my small car,

in daylight, at about 25 - 30 mph and stay in my lane.

In "record time" 3 days later this huge boom-crane truck 
showed up from Manila  (IZUSU made).  This big boy would
have a pretty easy time pulling that empty truck "up and out."
I was interested to note that both the wrecked truck and the
boom-truck had  "Heavylift.com" company decals on them. So
it was an in-company rescue.   The wreck sat there beside the
road for about 2 weeks afterward,  and it looked like they were
working on steering or front-suspension damage.  PARTS for a
USA- truck might have been quite a challenge to get.

HINDSIGHT, I think it would have been a lot cheaper for them to have had someone in a small car driving about 1 minute ahead of the truck, for a "pilot."  The "pilot" would stop at the curve and turn on 4-way flashers or whatever, to alert the truck to slow down.

BY THE WAY on that same highway, about 3 miles further, there are two sets of "double 90-degree"  "dog-leg"  curves (4 sharp corners in all, fairly close together).  If he hadn't "parked" where he did,  I think fairly likely he would have ended up in the rice fields down there.   Not to mention that a few hours later he would have been in the mountain area  between San Jose and Iloilo City - - but at least THAT would have been daylight.

These vehicle-mounted rice polishing mills are common around
here.  NOTE that the placard shows registration#/ license# from
Department of Ag. or whatever equivalent is here.  For several
weeks, rainy weather plus mechanical troubles had kept us
from seeing one around our neighborhood, and we were getting
low on ready-to-cook rice.  (We store it in sacks in  "palay" form,
with inner- husks intact, and have 1 or 2 sacks polished as needed.)
Rice blog 1:    Rice Blog 2

So we found ourselves making a visit to a local rice-merchant's 
mill.  The large expanse of cement pavement is used to sun-
dry large quantities of freshly harvested rice.   It's all spread
out by hand from sacks, and raked and turned by hand, and
swept up and re-bagged each afternoon late.  In HOT constant
sunshine, it can take just one day, but 2 days is usually better
to be sure it gets thoroughly dry before storage.

 Inside the mill is pretty similar to the portable mills. Note that
even the power source is a vehicle engine and transmission (look
between stair treads at right).  Rice dumped down a chute from
above is "scuffed" between drum-rollers and fixed- edge blades,
to knock off all the husks, and also 90% of the nutritional value
(which we feed to poultry). This yields the nearly- all- starch pearly
white rice most humans seem to prefer.

"Meanwhile, back at the ranch - -"   a few handfuls of palm
leaves can quickly be woven into a chicken nesting- basket
if we have too many hens brooding at the same time.

"LET it Rot" is the title of a book about organic gardening,  I think referring to the practise of simply throwing any organic waste material out onto the top of the garden bed, for it to naturally compost itself into the soil.

"LET it Wrought" was my idea for a gallery of photos about decorative iron- work which I see much more prominently here, it seems, than I remember seeing in the USA.  (Expensive!)   No organized gallery of such photos yet, So maybe I'll just put them up as I find them in my files, with no particular "topical" organization.

I saw this place when we stopped briefly on a driving trip
a few weeks ago.  The ornate design and overall proportions
"took my eye" so I grabbed the camera.   (SAD FACT, in this
climate/ or whatever/ it seems nearly impossible to keep ANY
painted surface looking decent for more than a couple years at 
a time - - note "mold" or "moss" growing on the fancy post).

Even the pre-fab cast cement railing panels and the nicely
made window security bars all just seem to "fit in."

Things don't happen very quickly, here.   I just found this photo (below) from January, 2014; two- and- a- half years ago, showing the girders of the new Tibiao River Bridge about halfway installed.  (Center-upper part of photo, the new girders show above the existing bridge rail.)  At that time, the bridge had been under construction for at least two years already, it seemed -  -  the digging, forming and pouring of the pilings or supports (about 20 large towers underneath the bridge.)

.

The photo shows the present bridge, narrower and about 5- feet
lower.  The span is something more than 200 yards.

This photo, taken within the last few weeks, shows the new bridge

with its decking finished and railings installed (every bit done

with hand-work)  and the south-approach retaining wall finished

and nearly filled with material, waiting for the approach road

to be built.   Seems like the overall time for the new bridge

project will exceed 4 years and get close to five years, before

"grand opening." NEW BRIDGES HERE are now mostly built

using engineered pre-fabricated concrete girders, brought in by truck.

At our provincial capital San Jose, this blue building is the

extremely BUSY Land Transportation Office (Dept. of Motor

Vehicles).  It is situated at this dead-end unpaved clearing,

accessed by a barely- one- lane- wide elongated collection of

muddy holes.  Since EVERY vehicle must have its ID

numbers visually confirmed by the inspectors each year

in order to be registered, it gets pretty interesting to see

  larger trucks and jeepneys try to jockey past each other

getting in and out of there.  While we were there recently,

the clearing was mostly jammed with enough vehicles to

 make this shot a little unusual. It took us about 2 hours to

renew the car registration in early August.  Not bad, I guess.

(Will they ever re-locate?  I kind of HOPE SO!!!)

Projects IN GENERAL here are slow-moving and hard-finished.  This is mostly because so much of the work is hand- work.   A $100,000.00 piece of construction  equipment is just  NOT all that common here (and that is kind of cheap,  for heavy equipment; it's a NUMBER I'm using for comparison).  But $100,000 will hire about 20 people for about 2- and- a- half YEARS. Not MANY big bulldozers around here, just bunches of guys with shovels.

 UPDATE on the drainage culvert project I featured briefly last time.
This shows better, how ROUGH the cut side of a cement pipe can be
after it is hacked in half by hand.  Too heavy to move in one piece.

And here are a few of the guys with their rope- pulley crane.

2,000 pounds hanging on THAT thing would be plenty of

challenge.  I'm impressed (you can tell)!  AND I'm really

GLAD  I'm NOT one of them!

This hand-made machete ("bolo") blade is really high quality

long-lasting steel (it is "forged" but not "fake!")  Alex has just

fitted it with a new handle - who knows how many, before?

Around here, you're almost more likely to see a man walking

around without pants on, than without a "bolo."

A couple weeks ago, we got some brackets made and installed
above where the car is parked, so we can quickly unload and
store the top- carrier.  The carrier isn't real heavy, just awkward
to wrestle up and down.  This solution also gets it out of the way
when not in use.

We were pleased after several months of effort to acquire a
couple margarine- containers from a local bakery.  Note the
coffee mug for size-reference; these contained about 90- 
pounds of commercial-grade margarine, and they hold 20-
or- 25 gallons volume.  Their twist-seal lids and heavy 
construction provide varmint resistant storage.   YES, some
plastic "Rubbermaid-type" totes are available here but 
they aren't as strong and are pretty pricey. 


"HOME ALONE?"  No, Bernadette just happened to have the 
camera handy when grandson Timmie got a taste of kalamansi,
a small citrus fruit that is almost exactly like a key-lime. 

Seems like he recovered from the "SOUR" ok, but I don't think 

he volunteered to have any seconds.

One thing I notice here, and I don't remember in the USA so

much, is the amount of physical contact among the kids passing

by.  It's real common to see them from pre-school to high-school

age, walking along with arms- on- shoulders.   It's their culture. 

Bernadette found some really nice medium peppers at the

market a few weeks ago.  About 4 inches long, carrot- shaped

(NOT pencil-thin like a lot of small peppers here) so they're

easy to open and prepare;  and medium- flavor, not too hot.

Here, a number of the seeds have sprouted nicely, so we

hope for  a nice row of pepper plants.  TINY super-hot

("Tabasco") are pretty available here;  very small bell peppers

(tennis ball and smaller);  and "string bean" sized peppers that

you never know until you TRY, their flavor (and TEDIOUS to

prepare).  So we hope to encourage this NICE variety to multiply!

Well, that's a fair wrap-up of the last several weeks here.  For those of you who had heard I was sick,  that lasted for a couple weeks and I'm nearly one week on the "recovery" side now.  It was basically like a really persistent achy- 'flu.  I'm glad it's over.

We're getting ready today and tomorrow to have some "guests" for our "LABOR DAY a week late"  on Saturday Sep. 10. We will do several "special" items (I'm trying to make homemade BRATWURST sausage).  Looking forward to a good time - I'll let you know how it comes out.

Also I'm anticipating a couple short road-trips - - hopefully a few little interesting or "odd" things will show up, and I'll have the wits-about-me to take photos.  Plus, a couple rice-crops to harvest (but THEY all pretty much look the same) and I'll just have to see what else pops up.

We hope that you're having a nice "entry into Autumn" and that you enjoyed your 3-day weekend.    Have a great day!

Tim and Bernadette Larson,  

Tibiao,   Antique Province,

Philippines