It is often my job to gather ingredients for the meal from our garden. Our ginger has lately done well enough to allow some occasional harvesting. Considering we use it in virtually every meal I doubt we’ll ever be self-sufficient but it’s nice to eat from your own land when you can.

Living in Malaysia and not making bonsai is like living in Minnesota and not snowmobiling. You’re just not taking advantage of what is on offer. With a 12-month growing season, plenty of sunlight and rainfall throughout the year, the slow, slow pleasures of bonsai come just a little bit quicker.
It took me years to come around. I thought bonsai was for people who can’t appreciate the natural beauty of the plants growing all around them, that it was cruelty to trees, that it was …

It’s a fact. According to the FAO, Americans waste as much food at the table as South/SE Asians lose in their entire supply chain from farm to table! Put another way, individual Americans throw away 10-15 times more food than South/SE Asians. And that wastage is one driver for the global rise in food prices. Reading articles like The New Geopolitics of Food, you find a lot of concern over for instance the masses of Chinese who want to give their children a taste of milk, …

Winds are changing, rain falls harder, durians are appearing at the roadside, and the Malay Spiral Ginger is flowering again.

An article about Three Roods Farm by Garrison Benson.

When Dr. Greg uses the verb “observe” (which is often), he means a willful action, not a passively received effect. Once, for instance, we delivered a cartload of dead leaves to the adolescent chickens, to “stimulate their instincts,” and Dr. Greg suggested that we observe them. We sat in silence for ten minutes (that’s a third of a TV show, for most of us) watching the chickens stand still and nervously eye the leaves. “Well,” he said eventually, “We can come back …

Cicak, Cicak, di dinding
Diam, diam, merayap
Datang seekor nyamuk
Hap! Hap! Lalu di tangkap!
***
Translation and more after the jump.

Among the more dramatic trees in the settled landscapes of Malaysia is the Kekabu or Kapok Tree (Ceiba pentandra), a gargantuan tropical version of the common large-for-Michigan Cottonwood Tree (Populus deltoides) of my youth. A truly massive tree, it grows to easily 100 feet high, with thick strong lateral branches radiating out in whorls at nearly 90 degrees from the trunk. The most striking feature is at ground level: the muscular buttress roots that rise 8, 9, 10 feet out of the ground to join the …

Honey is a blessed food, mentioned in the Quran and praised often by Nabi Muhammad (saws) for its healing properties. Not to mention, it tastes great too! My mother keeps bees on her farm, and the raw honey she produces has such a fantastic flavor. Whenever my family visits, I beg then to bring along a few bottles that vanish almost as soon as they leave.
In the long interim periods, I used to make do with whatever was on the supermarket shelf. Priced out …

An excerpt from Three Roods Charm, a short story by Michael Short set on my mom and dad’s farm:
“Did David Bowie bother you at sunrise?” Greg asked.
“Huh?” I said.
“What I meant was how did you sleep?”
“Oh. Wonderful,” I said. This was my first morning at Three Roods Farm, and I made sure to sound cheery and willing. I hadn’t a clue what chores might await me.
“I’m sorry, but did you say David Bowie?” I asked.
“Yes, but never mind for now.” Greg seemed pleased about something. He was the kind of …

The earliest plants I have any memory of are my neighbor’s mulberry tree, and the frangipani in our front courtyard. The courtyard was of cement or maybe stone except for where the tree grew, against the high wall. What I remember most clearly is how the flowers looked after they had fallen from the tree and littered the courtyard floor. Being closer to the ground back then – I was only four or five – I would pick them up and examine them. The frangipani is a …

No, I don’t mean Malaysian Borneo, I mean rural Michigan. Travel + Leisure Magazine proves that exotic is purely a matter of perspective when it sends a reporter to my Mom and Dad’s farm! Read the article and then hurry to volunteer before Three Roods Farm starts charging you for the privilege.
By the way: that stylish colorful shirt my mother is wearing? Straight outta Sarawak.

What’s a rainforest minus the rain?  We’ve been finding out over here.  It’s been over two weeks without a drop of rain, and things are as dry as a bone.  The dry season here in Sarawak corresponds with a change in winds which bring our weather in from the south and west.  Because of the dryness, fires set to clear land in Indonesia burn hotter and get out of control more.  Because of the change in winds, all the smoke from those forest fires blows over the border right to …