ENDLESS DEVELOPMENTS

There does not seem to be stops at the farm. Everything is dynamic, most specially the weeds. Time passes by quickly and in a few days, areas deweeded just recently demand for attention once again. The newly planted crops are flowering, flowering turns into harvestables, and harvestables need to be taken off the plants and marketed. The sun shines and it sets again on the same day, and the following day so it comes around again. Plans have to be made for the next cropping season, for the other areas, while the chickens continue to roost and lay eggs, the pigs gain weights and ready to heat, and the goats become pregnant and heavy with child. There are needs to be fulfilled, from planting more legumes and napiers, to reworking the fields of the last harvest for the next plantings, endless marcotting of calamansis and cropping of the bamboo.

Time is not a luxury here, and one can sense it in the rising and falling of the day's sun. The sunshine is most welcome most after the heavy rains, but the rains too are asked for in prayers after long hot spells of the dry days. One can see the plants begging to be watered, the banana leaves turning from green to yellow and later to deep brown. Yet when the rains come, the banana leaves are so verdant and the pseudo stems full of heavy waters one would think they have drank much too many. Pruning the dead leaves one can be surprised by the sudden burst of water from a fully loaded newly-cut  banana trunk, the pressure built up after prolonged heavy rains of the nights before. It is a wonder how the bananas can bring out their flowers, so heavy and thick, just after the rains in magical splendor. When the skins of the flowers begin to fall and expose the new fingers of the banana fruits in their juvenile forms, my heart skips a beat as I view the majesty of creation unfolding right there before my eyes.

Indeed the farm is a magical place of yore. The napiers are greener as the madre de aguas spread their leaves upwards reaching for the rays of the yellow golden sunshine. The madre cacaos pushes their green buds off the hard cover of the trunks, and the Ipil-ipils magically show off those tiny leaves, one could hardly associate with a hardwood tree such as the Ipil-ipil.

By 4 pm when the sun begins to hide its wonderful glory among the hills around, and the surrounding airs embrace the farmers with the cold winds from the hills, the shadows of trees heralding the onset of dusk, cicadas loudly proclaiming their calls to their mates, it is the time to slow down and prepare for the night. The respite brings to fore another end of the day, and the rest for the day has come.

Magical, entertaining, relaxing and thoroughly special.