Careful, There’s a Cat There

The color gray has never been lovelier. (pic: London Media/ The Daily Mail)

This post in the Daily Mail has a great photo selection of cats camouflaging themselves in their surroundings. But I was totally bowled over by the beauty of this image.

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Who’s the Leader?

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The Companionship of Trees

It was fun to see the shape of the trunk and two small eyes of a baby elephant face on the cotton piece on the left.

The park was quiet. The walk, especially looking at the trees, was invigorating to both body and mind.

I gazed at the cotton tree, and the cotton looked like white gloves.
Then on the one on the left, a baby elephant face emerged. Can you see it, too?

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Resolution in March

March marches in with an invisible tempo of energy. March makes one feel that the serious business of the year has really begun.

The daffodils have already burst with color. The birds have returned.

Should I still be meandering, “germinating” ideas instead of buckling down and really working?

Soon the cold will no longer be an excuse. I need to march along with March.

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A Bright Day Break

Sun shines bright

We leave the cold

behind,

Enjoying nature’s gifts

of blue and gold.

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Ribbons of Happy Colors

Seeing a rainbow brings out the child in everyone.

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Time Out

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Season’s Markers

Plumeria blooms at this time of year…redolent of the scents and colors of the tropics.

Seashells mark the passage of time and nature ever-present…another year of trips to the beach, and the healing breeze of the sea.

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To See a Flower….

 

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The Slender King of the Trees

In the tropics, the coconut tree has often been called “king of the trees”. The tree, known in Malay as pokok kelapa, not only provides shade, but also has different uses at different stages of its growth.

People of the tropics know that the juice of the young coconut makes a refreshing drink. It also has a medicinal use. When given to a child afflicted with chicken pox, it is  believed to lessen the ‘heatiness’ of the body.

When the coconut ripens, the flesh is grated, mixed with water, and squeezed to obtain its milk called santan in Malay. Santan is to the Malay cook what soy sauce is to his Chinese counterpart.  It is a base for cooking different types of curries and gravies, as well as for desserts, usually sweetened with palm sugar.

After the coconut gratings were squuezed for santan, we fed them to the family hens.

- excepted from my book Kampung Memories, a semi-memoir of childhood memories and Malay culture.

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