Harvesting Coconuts for the Family Celebrations

Rather go to bed without dinner than to rise in debt. — Benjamin Franklin

Recently, I have been slowly indulging in laziness.

We have this hammock at home and it feels comfortable at times just being there for a few hours.

Unlike when the year had just started where I was spending hours in the field, weightlifting tree debris and moving garden soil to expand the permaculture garden.

That time we had typhoons and floods, so the garden was a wreck. I would spend the whole day in the orchard and rest at the cottage when the sun becomes unbearable.

As the year progressed, specifically starting October, I had been losing my daily streak into gardening and is often stuck on my laptop doing a lot of coding and with irregular sleeping schedules.

Sometimes, I'd ask myself if I am happy... and, yes, I am—but frankly, I am not satisfied with my situation, though growth is not instant. Starting in 2021, I kept having rejections and some failures, and it just piled up.

Although I have accepted and resolved my situation to a certain degree, the emotional effects still haunt me with worries about the future, though I shouldn't be worrying about such stuff. It will be 2023 soon, will it be the same?

Anyway, on the brighter side of life, the orchard is more alive than ever. We have been lucky to have a very "normal" weather for the remaining months of the year, the extended dry season had been a subtle trial to most farmers even if the irrigation project had eased its ill effects.

To continue in making the orchard productive and sustainable, I keep myself motivated by visiting it and bringing in composting materials, seeds, cuttings, and other planting materials.

Today, I brought another variety of sweet potato which is usually sold as a leaf vegetable in the local markets. Growing a variety of sweet potatoes allows diversity while also adding more color to the verdant understory.

I also took some Basil cuttings from my sister's home garden and luckily it already had some baby roots, and maybe it can grow faster versus using the young stems. During special occasions, my family uses it to make pesto and sometimes on spaghetti.

I did plan on contributing to the family dinner tonight, but I ended up using the money to pay for milling a few sacks of rice. We're very lucky that the government had subsidized a portion of our operation expenses, both in cash and in kind, at the farm a few months after the President sat down last June. It was very helpful, we no longer had to buy sacks of rice with markup because we have rice in storage until the next rice harvest.

I ended up being resourceful again and harvested a bunch of young coconuts to make a fruit salad. When I cook food, I don't follow everything in the recipe. I enjoy a bit of creativity in my experiments in the kitchen.

The ten coconuts were just too heavy to carry back home, so I needed to spill all of its juice instead, though I drank two sets of buko juice as I was very thirsty already.

At home, I needed to scrape the young coconut meat to make some "noodles" for the fruit salad. My father had some ripe mulberries from his home garden, so I mixed them together with the storebought apples, grapes, and oranges. I added cream and bits of cheese before chilling it for a few hours.

Coconut is very abundant in our region as it has replaced a considerable area of the original forests aside from the growing residential spaces. It is low maintenance and can be profitable at times, though it posts a risk to erosion and landslide. It's a love-hate relationship, but growing trees alongside coconuts might make it more sustainable for farmers, the community, and the future generations.

Since my paternal genes has a high risk for Diabetes, table sugar is not part of our pantry and when making juices and drinks, we drink in torture until we finally came to love sugar-less drinks and infusions.

With the food served at the dinner table, I ended up dining alone tonight.

Weather Forecast

^{NOAA: HIMAWARI-8 West Pacific Weather Satellite SOURCE}

2022-12-24 3PM
Light Rain
24°C / 92% H
W 17 km/h NNE
P 85% 4mm
UVi 3

Weather Forecast provided by Weather Atlas.

---

PINNED POSTS

---

Explore Communities

^{Logos are owned by its respective community and/or its owner/s.}

---

About Me

@oniemaniego is a software developer, but outside work, he experiments in the kitchen, writes poetry and fiction, paints his heart out, or toils under the hot sun.

	Onie Maniego / Loy Bukid was born in rural Leyte. He often visits his family orchards during the summers and weekends, which greatly influenced his works.

Follow on Instagram

---

Support with Crypto

Bitcoin 34hdQNHHFUodqegi2wwNeNw2p35ewvnaXQ
Ethereum 0xd36126ab2463c3404cca1c97d8f3337917dfd113

---

© 2022 Onie Maniego and Loy Bukid

---

Don't forget to vote, comment, and follow me.
Not yet on Hive? Earn while blogging.
Sign up with PeakD | Ecency