Blooming Bounties

Giant Russian Sunflower. Not as big as they should be, maybe due to lack of sunshine while growing and not enough fertiliser (lazy gardener!)

Sawi Menang flowering. I read in EjaMaria's blog that she has new seedlings from a sawi plant she let go to seed. So yeay for that.

Turkish Leopard Melon. Now it looks a bit yellowish, I fear it might be a bit sick. I have fertilised it and sprayed some organic pesticide on it. Hoping for the best.

Peria katak flowering and in need of more support! Though some of the newer tendrils have learnt to climb the wooden post by themselves...

Purple bunga telang. I was pretty sure they were single-petaled before.. now they seem double-petaled. On the left behind the grills is Miss Pongkey :-)

Snake/long bean, bush-type. Profusely flowering after addition of blended ikan patin guts as fertiliser. :-)

Sweetcorn Kelvedon Glory F1. These are barely up to my knee and already flowering? Oh nooo. I wonder what to do with them now, shall I leave them be? Or lob the flowering bit off? I was away for several days and did not ask the neighbours to water my plants, thinking that it rains almost everyday. Well, apparently not.

Some Monkey Business

Was it Lailatul Qadr last night? Everything seems still this morning, the weather quite overcast.

Well, except for some birds, which excited my cats, and caused some of them to do this:

Or have they been training with Spiderman?? Or are they inspired by the loofah gourd reaching up to the sky?

Following up from last week's post, here are how some of my plants are doing this week.

Turkish leopard melon, the smaller plant, is flowering profusely. Well, kind of profuse for such a small plant.

The Turkish leopard melon plant that appeared in an earlier post. It spread almost to 1 metre length, then showed signs of cucumber mosaic virus (crinkly new shoots with yellow spots) Tukang Kebun of Kebun Bahagia Bersama helped diagnosed this for me, arigatou. It broke my heart to have to chop off the diseased parts, but I guess it had to be done.

Clemson spineless okra, seed obtained from Kebun Bahagia Bersama. I sowed this about a week ago, and they now look almost ready to transplant. I am thinking perhaps share space with corn.

Green zebra tomato plants, with some lettuce in the same pot. They are soaked from last night's rainfall.

I think these are the Austrian heirloom lettuce, called forlenschluss. Red speckles.

I think these are yellow pear cherry tomatoes, but the colour hasn't showed up yet.

A Life Well-Lived

All gone now. The lettuce dried up under the unforgiving sun while I was away.

I have been mainly away for the past few weeks. Travelling, coming back for a few days, then travelling again had been my mode of existence. I became weary of the hotel rooms we inhabited, and busied myself visiting family and having friends come over to visit. So my garden was left to fend for itself, save for the kindness of my neighbour and a niece, who despite her busy schedule as a medical officer, not only managed to water my plants but also check on my cats. Speaking of which, my poor Yoruichi spent almost 2 weeks at the vet's during our absence, because she still needed daily care. Fortunately most of her stay was billed as 'boarding', which is markedly cheaper than 'warded', as she steadily grew stronger and required less specialised care. She came home a respectable weight of 2.51kg, a definite improvement from her sickly weight of 1.8 kg.

Today was the first day I had to myself after our return. I hit the laundry pile, and then started pottering about in the garden. There was a power trip while we were away, and we came back to a darkened house and warm fridge. Needless to say, I find myself inundated with rotting veggies. Some of them went into my compost pile. I think I am going to get some surprise seedlings from this lot: perhaps tomatoes, cucumbers or lime seedlings might spring up in the compost pile. The rotting coconut water I threw on the heap as well, and it was promptly licked by Yinkey Pet. I tell you that cat is definitely Paleo/Primal: she loves cheese, yoghurt, virgin coconut oil, lamb, and now, coconut water too. Or perhaps she thinks she is human. The particularly manky and slimy rotting veggies I buried in a veggie bed I am preparing. Perhaps these nitrogen-enriched beds can house the lettuce seedlings I have growing?

I took out the Small Sugar Pumpkin seeds I bought from Kebun Bahagia Bersama, filed the edges (to enable water to seep in, check this link here for more info), immersed in a cup of warm water, and planted into one of the sites I had prepared, pointy end down.

Can you tell the difference between the untouched pumpkin seed (above) and the filed one (below)?

I like days like these, when I can catch my breath and reorient myself. I guess I am a big fan of soltitude, although I do enjoy the company of others. I honestly wonder how do busy people cope with the demands on their time and their fast-paced lives? Perhaps they can multitask: be alone with their thoughts while a part of their brain is engaged at some mundane office task. Honestly that sounds a bit like a split personality to me. Creepy. How many of us tune out while faced with repetitious, dreary chores? Do their spirits take flights of fancy, while outwardly they seem to be focused on the job at hand?

In case you haven't read it yet, do read this article in the New York Times on how and why we keep ourselves 'busy'. The author has articulated well what I have thought about for a long time and never had the eloquence nor self-confidence to express: some people who claim they are 'busy' for other things in life, actually enjoy the fact that they are needed by others. But in the end are we dancing to our own tune or are we foxtrotting to others', at the expense of our selves? To me the author, Tim Kreider, said it well:

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets. The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done. “Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do,” wrote Thomas Pynchon in his essay on sloth. Archimedes’ “Eureka” in the bath, Newton’s apple, Jekyll & Hyde and the benzene ring: history is full of stories of inspirations that come in idle moments and dreams. It almost makes you wonder whether loafers, goldbricks and no-accounts aren’t responsible for more of the world’s great ideas, inventions and masterpieces than the hardworking. 

 I think it is time for me to be more forthright about what I really think, provided of course I can avoid coming across as smug, or self-righteous, or patronising while still getting my ideas across with clarity. Sigh. I am still very much a work in progress. And I ought to spend less time on Facebook *wink*. Ironically, I probably wouldn't have found the above article were it not for Facebook. Which begs the question, am I using Facebook for my own ends, or is Facebook using me?

Adventures in Kitty Waste Composting

Picture from Do You Know? BlogNot good enough to compost, but good enough to drink, eh? :-)

Common wisdom (from trawling the internet) states that you shouldn't compost dog or cat faeces. Or if you do, make a separate composting system for it, make sure you compost is for more than 18 months, and even then, only use the compost for ornamental, not edible plants.

Common local wisdom (from speaking to nursery owners here) say they absolutely hate it when cats defecate or urinate on their plants/plant beds, as their waste is considered 'too heaty' and will make the plants die. Since my little bonsai pink frangipani did die after a rescued kitten pooped on it, I must somehow agree with that. But then again, that bonsai was the last of a long line of plants that I had successfully killed, so perhaps it wasn't healthy enough to survive the kitty assault. LOL.

But I came across these cat breeders, who claim they have successfully composted kitty litter for use on their potted plants and veggies (!) Man, those plants are thriving!

So, based on that, I stacked two 'bald' tyres I saved from my previous car tyre change, and started a compost heap. In the heap, I put:

• coconut husk
• cat poop
• cat litter waste (I used pine pellets, this was when I had the cats indoors)
• kitchen waste (veggie peelings, spent grated coconut, crushed egg shells)
• shredded paper (unbleached, used to wrap my veggie purchases)

Bubu on the runway.. er makeshift compost heap. She also uses it as a scratching post.

I turn the pile once in a while (once every few days). And since this heap is in the cat enclosure, some of my cats have helpfully started to poop there instead of in their outdoor kitty sandbox. I am not worrying too much about ratios here, since I figure our hot and humid climate will help anything decompose. Eventually. *grin* Since mosquito breeding is a problem here (dengue cases are frequent) I made sure to fill the inside edges of the tyres that might collect rainwater (and thus provide a breeding ground for mosquitos) with the ground coconut husk. The system has been in place for about two weeks now, and there seem to be no pools of mosquito-friendly still water with the tyres.

There are some worries that one might inadvertantly get some Toxoplasma gondii oocytes (which cause toxoplasmosis, a well-known disease from cats) from the kitty waste onto your leafy greens, and ultimately into your dinner plate. According to Fox (quoting Dubey, 1998) in 'The Mouse in Biomedical Diseases' in the section on the sterilising of mice bedding (because mice can get toxoplasmosis too), T. gondii oocytes lose infectivity at temperatures above 40 degrees Celcius. Now, since compost heap temperatures have been known to be between 40-70 degrees Celcius, I guess if I make sure the compost matures properly, at the right temperatures, toxoplasmosis should not be a problem.

Toshi looking for a good spot in the kitty sandbox. In the far corner is the wild 'bunga telang' plant.

The kitty sandbox measures roughly 3 by 3 feet, and is filled with sand. I also turn the contents with a shovel once in a while, and am going to add some compost I purchased on it to cut down on the stink. A plant has also started to grow in there, Clitoria ternatea, or commonly known in English as the butterfly pea. We call them 'bunga telang'. A neighbour gave me the dried pods a couple of years back, and since then they have taken over my garden in a weed-like fashion. I planted them for their pretty flowers, which can also be made to colour the rice blue (yeah, blue food~ imagine that!) in one of my favourite dishes, Nasi Kerabu. Hmm.. googling for more info on this plant let me know that the more tender, young pods are actually edible. I had masses of these plants cleared to make way for the cat enclosure a while back, and some of it is being composted right now.

Some bunga telang growing back. 2 weeks ago this area was cleared. Everything grows crazily in the Tropics.

Would I actually eat the peas from the plant growing in my kitty sandbox? I haven't actually decided yet, although I have heard the urban legend that mung bean sprouts are grown on sheets of woven sacks fertilised with human pee. And I have definitely eaten commercially grown bean sprouts and survived to tell the tale. Would I eat veggies fertilised with my kitty compost? I think I would. All manner of animals have pooped/peed in kitchen backyards for ages now, I think the composted version would be safe(er). But I will wash my veggies thoroughly though, just in case!

My Furry Bunch Part 2

These two gorgeous girls are Yuyu's legacy: Hakusho (right) & Jimmy. Hakusho is named after a Japanese anime called Yu-Yu Hakusho, and Jimmy is named after a friend of ours. Too late we discovered Jimmy is a girl, so I guess she is Jimmy short for Jemima, or something.

In this picture we were taking a photo of Hakusho, when suddenly Jimmy jumped onto the chair so we could take her pic too. As a tiny kitty, Jimmy fell down and injured her brain. At one time, she couldn't walk forwards, she just kept moving in circles, with her head nodding at an alarming rate. Alhamdulillah she was cured. Yuyu was a first-time mum, and so didn't realise she had given birth to two live kitties; she was feeding Hakusho but not Jimmy in the first few moments after birth. So Jimmy to this day is a very nervy and jumpy kitty. She hates any change, and is totally dependant on her sister Hakusho for companionship. Hakusho has always been a confident kitty, and will get the both of them into trouble. Although their mum is a semi-long haired cat, both of them are short hairs, but their coats are extra thick than the usual strays. Their dad was an orange stray whom Yuyu ran away from home to rendezvous with. Luckily we found her that night, amid rain and thunder. The second time she escaped we never found her.




Here are 3 little kitties I found a few months back in a drain near my home. I had driven a little ways from my house, when I remembered I had left something at home. So I parked by the kerb a few houses away from mine, and was walking home when I heard loud mewing. The owner of the loud voice is the solid creamy-orange cat above, whom we named Ichigo. A few feet away, lying on her side was a pretty little calico, now named Yoruichi, and yet further away, in a very weakened state was Toshirou, the white and orange van. I immediately got a box, scooped them all up and went to the vet's to get them checked out. They still smelled of milk, and were still wobbly on their feet.

We got them soft food, and set up a cage so that they won't be bullied by the other, bigger cats. To my relief they were pretty much ok, just dehydrated. The other cats weren't too happy at first, but gradually came around. As they grew older, 2 of them turned out to be semi-long hairs.

Ichigo is the most affectionate of the lot. He just flops in my arms whenever I hold him, and nuzzles my hand, feet, skirt... you get the idea. Those big soft eyes are just full of love. He sometimes likes to spend time outdoors, but whenever I appear at the door, he runs up asking to be let in.

Toshirou had me worried for a while, because he seemed to be rather weak. But he soon caught up to the others, and is now a happy, rambunctious little cat. He loves to carry things and leave them all over the house. Thank goodness he's no Klepto-Kitty!

Yoruichi is such a girly little kitty. She loves lounging around in pretty little poses. She hates being outdoors too long, and enjoys her little creature comforts: my pillow, my duvet, my clothes.. you get the idea. We call her our little Cindy Crawford for her beauty mark on the top of her mouth. Her demeanour and expressions remind us a lot of Yuyu, leading us to speculate that these kitties are either hers, or her grandchildren. Sigh.

So there you have it, 9 little kitties (10 if you count the missing Yuyu) altogether. They occasionally hiss and spit at each other, but so far no serious scrapes. Jang Jang Boy is the one who holds the peace, for some reason all the other cats love and respect him. I suspect it is the same reason why the cats next door disappear whenever he comes out into the garden. I am trying to integrate them all into their new cat enclosure, where they have plenty of room to run and play.

My Furry Bunch

Okay UmmS, these are for you! :-)
First up is Bubu with.. hmm.. I think it is Rodimus Prime in car form. She loves air-conditioning and is a camera hog. She can be quite standoffish at times, but quite affectionate when she feels like it.




Next with big ears and gorgeous heartfelt eyes is a rescue we found on the second day of Eid, Chunky Lafungga. She is deeply possessive and has been known to use the human loo. Her favourite spot to nap is next to my computer monitor. She has abandonment issues, and refuses to stay in the cat enclosure, insisting on staying indoors with us.




Below her, hugging a pole is handsome Jang Jang Boy. We suspect he is part Norwegian Forest. He is very friendly and loves the outdoors. Good thing too, coz he sheds a LOT. He once placed second in a cat show, and won enough cat food for 3 months. He loves fish, especially salmon (the canned variety of course! on occasion)




Pongkey and Lulu (but we call her Yuyu) are hanging out in the cat carrier. Yuyu has been missing for the past 2 years :'-(. She is my hubby's favourite, and is also sister to Jang Jang & Bubu. She is a true queenly cat, and keeps all the other cats in order. Miss her loads.





The pretty calico with the smiling face is Pongkey. She is the eldest of our cats, the last surviving kitten out of a litter of 5. She can climb coconut trees, is also deeply jealous and is currently very tubby. She once caught a frog and tried to gift it to me. Yikes!







In other developments, our cat enclosure is finally built. But there is still lots to do.. I am still planting trees in it, and am trying to compost the poo. I am looking for sweet-smelling flowers to plant all round to cover any unpleasant smell wafting to the neighbours'. Bushes for them to play hide and seek in would be fun. So far there is the camellia and breadflower, and limes. Maybe some ginger too. Lemon grass I fear might have sharp edges... perhaps when it is all prettied up I will post some pictures.

Link to Part 2 of My Furry Bunch. Yes. I have more cats!