They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. — Andy Warhol
I am terribly unsure of what lies ahead of me!
I used to prudent, so meticulous of what I should be doing in life, but right now, it's just a mess, I don't know what to do, and it is frustrating me.
Yes, you're reading the right post, this is just a long backstory.
As the world moves forward, I just lay restless and directionless, but maybe not. Maybe, I am just overwhelmed with fear of living my dreams. Maybe I am just in disbelief of the reality that I am facing in. I wonder how many people are in the same situation as me, or even tougher, how do they resolve their perspective every morning when they wake up?
The pandemic left me without a job, again. Having no salary, no income, basically, I am an unregistered farmer. Yes, farmers are expected to register for certain reasons that I still unaware of. I get up in the morning, eat breakfast, take a bath, prepare, and spend the day at the orchard doing my gardening chores.
I have left the farm since I landed a job in the academe and while I was studying for my masteral degree—it was too far from our house to juggle farm chores and other responsibilities. In order to satiate my thirst for gardening, I built a new garden at the orchard, every weekend or during the holidays, I spent my time making the raised-beds, trellises, and planting herbs and other crops.
Currently, I'm doing a fulltime job watering the vegetables and landscaping the garden. Even the bugs are taking their share of my unrealized profit—or is it break-even, or sold at a loss?
Seemingly, the verdant fields and mountains, gives me a breath of fresh air, figuratively. The dusty mudpath, the sullen river, and the dragonflies that disperse so merrily as I walk through the grasses is so relieving. As if I forgot the bills awaiting at the end of the month—or my upcoming tution and the expenses at home. I am just so ready to say, I give up, then forget about my dues, but, no, I am human too, and to be human is to pay for the wants that I went after in life.
I would stare on the tendrils of the little cucumber plant and say, "hold tight son", sometimes I can be so domineering, so I halt and just give them, the plants, some compost and more love. It's the only thing that I have right now, not really, but you get the point.
On the 26th of December 2021, I had some fish scraps from the foods that we served to our relatives who visited us. It would be a sin to throw away such things, even the food scraps I turn it to compost now. I have gone full gear towards sustainability, just the baby steps, but I am getting there. Luckily, my Mama still have molasses kept in the house, but to compensate with the insufficiency, I did a 2:1:1 ratio of fish scraps, molasses, and brown sugar with just enough water to dissolve the sugar.
I kept it inside the shelves and let it ferment for about three weeks, then when the time was ripe, I prepared myself for the stinky situation. It's gonna stink for sure, but I was shocked, amazed, stunned, when I opened the opaque jar where I fermented the mixture. It was a bit floral and even savoury! Surely, it was icky, so I needed to strain the bits that should be non-existent if I only homogenized it in the food processor before fermenting it.
There were empty amber (blue) bottles with medicine droppers at the house, so I used it to get some of the Fish emulsion or Fish Amino Acid (FAA) as an easy tincture when watering the plants at the garden. I recall it was 1:1000 ratio, so given the setup, it would just be a drop (1mL) per liter of water.
It hasn't rained for about a week already and the ground is rock-hard already. I am grateful to have learned about doing raised-bed, mulching, and no-till gardening methods as it was the perfect solution to the resource-hungry conventional farming.
Even though the dry season has kicked in, I am still able to grow crops now. Though it has been a routine to collect water from the nearby faucet, it is a decades-old water line directly tapped from the mountain river (Suba) and is different from the water supplied to the homes which is chlorinated for compliance. Though we have a brook and a river, it is currently the pesticide season of our rice farmer neighbors, and those leak into the river—very unsafe for gardening.
Today, I'm seeing more flowers blooming and crops already maturing. I am still readying a new and larger raised-bed for February time, I needed more area for the summer crops. This may not be profitable, for now, but these small steps into sustainability will benefit me mentally, physically, and even financially because of being able to grow harvest crops that I can share with my family without spending on overpriced and compromised vegetables and fruits.
So many plans ahead, I hope for my safety and protection amidst this crisis looming. How about you, what is your pandemic story?
PINNED POST
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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 Leyte, PH. He grew up in a rural area with a close-knit community and a simple lifestyle, he is often visiting his father's orchards during summer and weekends, which has a great impact on his works. |
© 2022 Onie Maniego and Loy Bukid
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