Make Way

Went to the farm after office. I was just left in the car, as Doc Rey was viewing the concrete posts buried on the new area we were developing.

Still caught the last rays of the Sun, excitedly took out my camera to practice. It was after I was downloading to my "practice" album, that limited spaces and drought may have been captured subjects in some photos I took. Looking through the lens, the aim then was to get comfortable with my camera. The pictures taken, showed me a different focus :)

In this dry season, when you can't plant rice due to the fact that your water is dependent on irrigation that they cut off...you should have planned or at the very worst, be planning what to do. Problems are no reason to stop moving and working :)

We are based in Isabela, where I will say 90% of farming is Rice and Corn. So I will talk from my vantage point.

You know the passages in rice paddies? Pilapil...am not sure how they are called in English. It doesn't have to be just that...a passage or border. Put it into good use. Widen it and you can use it to plant vegetables, fruit trees...and yes, even use for ranging of Sunshines.

Want to raise Sunshine but no space?

If you have a fishpond, you may set part or the whole house on top of the pond, on stilts. The Sunshine's waste will go to the pond and the fishes may feed on them.

Okey, no fishpond...then just build the housing on the widened pilapil. Let them range there too. Of course, don't forget to plant fast shading trees. We did plant a lot of Sugarcane, Bamboo, Aratiles, Papaya etc.

Natural Gifts

I am no gift giver during events. Treats I give go when least expected, but surely those will be items I will want to keep or use for myself.

Christmas is no hurried time for me because the traffic and shopping frenzy doesn't engulf me :) This week is different! Nope, didn't catch the traffic stress.

From a riceland that didn't use chemicals nor pesticides, just organic fertilizers, there was a good harvest. That was sometime ago. There will be new sprouts and fruits from that field. See how some people go through harvested fields? Its like picking up the leftover.

What we got are not leftovers from the previous harvest. These are the ones that grew after! This crop didn't even get any fertilizing. Just the rain, the sun and fresh air. From there we got about three (3) sacks. One for my sister, one for my mother's bestfriend and one for me. The thought of giving came because I had a good product to give. It just dawned on me later that it was timely for Christmas.

For neighbors, think I will give fresh eggs from our grass fed Sunshines. Now. Why now and not on Christmas? So they have time to use it for their special flans.

What else? Fruits from our farm, we really give that to Manila friends....on regular days, when no ribbons go around beating red lights.

Reason To Smile

We are so happy that slowly, more and more rice farmers are converting to organic fertilizers. Now that they have seen that by just using a commerical bio-organic fertilizer, they have increased their yield from last cropping.

It is so hard to explain to farmers who got the bad ends of deals when buying so called organic fertilizers. You have to be an example and show your own yield.

The photo above, taken at Brgy Salvador, Santiago City Isabela, shows the fields that used plainly Durabloom Bio-Organic Fertilizers. Just that simple. They didn't even follow instructions well.

Computing yields last night showed that even without following instructions...and nature related disaster...the yield was better than last cropping.

Now, we can talk about asking them to attend Natural Farming seminar on rice production by Andry Lim. I was telling them last night about low farm inputs following the Korean principles.

Now they ask Where and When! Makes us smile....We hope to encourage more.

Oh yes, you can use the manure from your free ranging Sunshines.