PinoyEcoFarmer

“If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.” – Eleonora Duse

Nothing beats the delight of watching the children play and relish the simple joys that go with our stay in the farm. The farm has become a big playground for them. I remember a friend telling me that what we are really giving our children by letting them enjoy these experiences are priceless gifts that will last a lifetime. As for the adults, staying in the farm is bliss and exercise.

December at PinoyEcoFarm was yet another merry mix of more work and more fun. The petsay sprouts were planted on plots along with the other sprouts of vegetables. The unknown vegetables were from the seeds shared by Derry Exconde (a fellow part-time farmer). These were brought home from his workplace in China. The description were in Chinese so we had no way of exactly  knowing them. We also had a few harvest of corn and radishes. More fruit trees (seedlings) were planted. Among them are the Thai sampalok, lansones, rambutan and atis.

A month passing by without visitors will be an aberration from what we have been used to. Henry and Kite’s church group together with their pastors (a priest and a deacon) visited the farm for their end year party. My sister (Nene) who is based in Sorsogon also came to visit bringing along with her the entire family members (Roel, Kim, Dingo, Jorel, Juliana and Denjo). Den, Dorie and their two kids (Gabe and Mai) together with Mama completed the mini family reunion. It was a day of stories, swimming, playing and bonding. We feasted on food prepared in the farm’s makeshift dirty kitchen. A potful of beef kare-kare and buko juice were likewise perfect for a hearty lunch.

It was indeed a month of breakthroughs for us. The groundbreaking for the Arceo farm home commenced which will be hopefully done by February. We finally had a more decent dirty kitchen that will fit our cooking needs. Counting among the other significant beginnings were the first drops of reliable supply of water that we tapped from the barangay water system. We likewise had the electric power system and the wiring connection inside the farm to provide us with the magical light that we longed for during the dark nights spent camping in the farm. It is somewhat surreal to feel like this because as urban dwellers we just take these comforts for granted. Now we have come to appreciate them.

As we ended our first year in the farm, we excitedly look forward to a more productive year ahead in 2012. As for the usual fun, it will still be ours for the taking.

We did not expect to see any macapuno in one of our coconut harvests but were pleasantly surprised when we found two nuts among the heap of coconuts that we gathered. Pinpointing the tree though would be a really big challenge as we have no idea where those specifically came from and there is a great chance that not all the nuts coming from that specific tree would be macapuno.

I guess we just have to rely on luck and just enjoy the little vat of sweetened macapuno for now. Who knows nature may give us more.

November was fun at PinoyEcoFarm. We had small harvests of peanuts and stringbeans from the first trial plantings. We also organized and put more worms (African Night Crawlers) in our vermibed to help us compost the kitchen refuse and all the farm trimmings.  One of the hens that we brought did lay her  first eggs but unfortunately she died of unknown circumstances so we just ate her eggs.

The farm has become our second home and on some nights we even went overnight camping using our reliable tent. Camping under the full-moon and enjoying the bonfire was indeed something to remember.  Family and friends were likewise hosted. Partaking in simple prepared lunches while enjoying the cool breeze. All came home with smiles on their faces. The usual favorite spot is the river and flowing spring below the property. Wanda our chocolate labrador provided extra entertainment with her fetch antics. She likes swimming in the river so much and can spend all afternoon there.

The farm needs more work to be done but it is fast taking shape as planned. Impatiently excited as always.

We brought in our trusted farmhelp Benjie on July 17, 2011 to start working with us after the green light was given by the sellers that we can start developing the farm. We were all excited. We are fortunate because there is a small concrete house with the basic amenities in it just beside our property. It was generously offered to us by the sellers as temporary  shelter for our farmhelp. It has a power connection, kitchen and a toilet. We just provided a folding bed, bedding and a mosquito net. Our arrangements with Benjie is to pay him a regular monthly salary and a meal allowance for his subsistence which leaves him enough cash to send to his family in the province.

The farm was practically a jungle when we moved in. It was really a challenge transforming it to what we have in mind. We sometimes felt overwhelmed by the volume of work  but we just had to start somewhere. We decided to  proceed with small steps and reassess every so often if we were going into the right direction. The first month was spent mostly on clearing the vines and overgrowth that has taken over the trees. We knew that we needed to cut some trees to let the sunlight through. First to go were the softwood trees. We then decided to take out some santol trees, kakawates and tibig to thin out the crowding but we did not want to sacrifice the diversity of what we already have so the more mature ones were left as is.

We knew that it will take a while to do the clearing with just one farmworker so getting some outside help was the next best thing to do. A local with two helpers were hired to cut the trees and clear the stumps. It costed us about P3000 extra just for the clearing  operations but without them work will proceed in a snail’s pace and we were just too excited to wait.

To get a head-start, I bought some banana (latundan and lakatan) plantings so we can already plant along the sloping sides while doing the laborious task of mowing the weeds and clearing the trees.

I had the cut wood stacked in piles sorted according to future use. The big ones were reserved for lumber and the softwood were used as landfill in some slopes. Some were chopped into smaller sizes as firewood.

I know we still have a long way to go but every journey starts with a step. With the way things are progressing, I can definitely say that we even moved steps ahead than what we have expected.

My son often teases me that if I really want to be a farmer then I should start farming.  A recent meet with fellow farming practitioners and enthusiasts further inspired me to go for it. So I hatched a little plan and I am taking the challenge. I know that this will pale in comparison to what my farmer friends have but it is a start.

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