January 21, 2011

• litchees, litchis, lychees…

  The litchis in the front are finally turning red, which has caused minor excitement in our house. Now often when Josh gets home from work the boys and him will sit out under the tree and try pulling the redder fruit off with a long bamboo stick to enjoy. Asher likes them so much that throughout the day he’ll point up at the tree and grunt until someone fetches one for him. haha. It’s his first litchi season and he seems to be following in his brother’s footsteps for loving them.

  

  

  

  

  
  (M&R: you can see in this pic that they painted the litchi tree white at the bottom to deter ants… i dont see that it’s helped much. i think they just painted in all the ants that lived in the tree. ha).

  
  check out that whispy hair. soon it’ll be time for the buzz cut i reckon.

  

  

  Last night (after some pretty amazing BBQ chicken pizza made by Josh on his day off, YUM!) we had rain for the first time in a long time. And it poured like a huge faucet for most of the night. Thank you Lord! What we really need is that kind of thing every night now for the next few months*. What better way to fall asleep than to listen to the rain thundering on the tin roof and smell the fresh rain fall on thirsty earth through the open windows. <sigh>
  

  If you haven’t already seen it, there is a marvelous article on Madagascar’s Pierced Heart in the September 2010 issue of National Geographic. Stellar photos. And very accurate depiction of the goings on here just now what with the political nonsense and blatant land-rape that’s going on. Alas. (Just perusing the NG websites i came across this blog entry about the photographer who who took the photos for the magazine article. It seems as though the pilot that flew the photographer could be the pilot that died this last April in a helicopter accident, does anyone know if that’s the same guy? Tanja?) Funnily enough, it’s the Canadian Flyers living in #5 beside us who are flying the Canadian miners to and from the coast… ahem. So, any finger pointing in this regard will be pointing three fingers back at us (ie. Canadians), as it were.

  *I hear from the Flyers the other day that some people living near Tomasina think that the rain shortage is due to their airplane flying in and out… They’ve thus been the victims of some attempts at bullying.  I’d say the rain shortage is more due to the slashing and burning going on that demolishes rain-bringing forest, but what do i know. The article also does take somewhat of an environmentalist-campaign slant by portraying the miners and timber barons as the biggest threats to the rain-forest, whereas what I’ve heard is that it’s the people’s propensity to slash and burn acres of forest to a) induce rain via the smoke [that's superstitious thinking for you], and b) make more room for rice fields.

  • 2:09 am
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