A Day With Nature

After the rain...

Visited the National Park with a good friend, KT and his son, KH who came over from KL for a few days. KH recently graduated and the dad wanted to spend some quality time with him before KH starts work in January. This is KH's first trip to the Island of Borneo. We thought our park is a must. I was apprehensive about staying in the National Park itself because the last time when we were there, nothing worked, bathroom's taps leaking, cabin was filthy and whole park looked like it was falling apart. Then recently Sutera Resorts took over the park management.

So what awaited us this trip at the park was a very pleasant surprise.

The cabin was very clean, the beds were 5 starred and bathroom fully renovated but I suspect the taps and bathwares were retained from the old which was rather puzzling considering the availability of very cheap and modern wares from China. Anyhow, the place was still 100% better than before. A very substantial breakfast spread (comprised of nasi lemak, two choices of porridge, fried noodles, sausages, an egg station, bread station, beverages...) was provided at the Balsam, the oldest restaurant at the park. We could see a lot of maintenance work going on at the park. Keep up the good work, Sutera Resorts.

Didn't encounter any blog worthy food on the trip but had a feast of the eyes with nature, my next favorite things to shoot. KH was also armed with a D40x Nikon and we went trigger happy...

Hope you had as much fun going through the pictures as I had taking them. Don't ask me to name them as I don't know most of them except the golden needles and the chrysanthemum which are both edible.

I love fire places and the scent of burning firewood. The cabin we stayed in came with this...

And KH was a master at 'fire-starting' (?). 

Thank you, KH, for your 'chi kung' but most of all, your thoughtfulness. It was the highlight of the trip for me, sitting in front of the roaring flame, talking about everything and nothing at all.

Yoko Farm

One fine Sunday, crawled out of bed at 5:30 am to participated in a home-farming workshop to learn about compost making and to learn to appreciate and communicate with nature. 

The 40 odd participants, young and old, made it to the small farm with eager enthusiasm. It was refreshingly pleasant to get up and out at that hour. The air so cool and fresh it took the lungs a while to acclimatize. 

The tiny farm greeted us with such beautiful and vibrant flowers, plants and veggies. I was controlling  myself from shooting everything in sight but later gave in and went completely trigger-happy and ended up with more than 500 shot! 

Took me more than a week just to edit and sort.  Imagine if I had to use films and to develop the shots into hard copies...

Here is a chronology of the day's activities:

1. Be one with nature

Everyone was asked to place their palms onto the soil and close their eyes..

Feel the soil...

Communicate with it...

Pondering on the preciousness of our soil...

Now, what do we do with these soiled hands?

Then we were told... 'and now, please rub your face with your palms.'

What?! Do we really have to do that??

2. Tune in with nature

He was communicating intensely with these lovely bunch of kai choi and all I could think of was how good this would be as ham choi (salted veg) ;-p

3. Be healthy in body 

A most energetic Sharon led the workout.

4. A lesson on how to eat 

Be mindful of the food we are eating (no more TV dinners).

Each of us was given a banana (that's all for b'fast??). We were told not to gobble 

(the hungry look on our faces must have been so obvious) down the fruit but to follow Toni's instruction. 

 

Close eyes again. Feel the skin of banana, inhale the fragrant of the fruit and slowly peel it. 

 

When taken the first mouthful, chew slowly and  let the sweetness of the fruit lingers in the mouth for a while, resist the urge to gulp down. Taste the food with all your senses, appreciate and give thanks.

5. The real breakfast

Bread pudding with apple, raisins, nuts, carrot(?), milk and eggs - a power-packed meal.

We, Malaysians, will always have to have our national breakfast, nasi lemak!

Thanks to TSH, we had a very sumptuous breakfast with tuna sandwich, whole-meal bread with gaya + cashew nuts spread (yumz) beside the nasi lemak and pudding.

After breakfast, the participants were divided into groups and were assigned different tasks.

Before proceeding with the tasks we had a few speakers to share with us various topic :

TSH let us into a secret about this wonderful tree of life called the Drumstick tree. Anyone heard of this tree before? Well, now I have and know that it can be eaten, full of vitamins and best of all, easily grown.   

This is an experiment done by an earlier workshop. They were given two containers with compost and were given some seeds to plant in them. Both were looked after in exactly the same condition except for one difference - one of the containers of growing plants was talked to with kind, encouraging words whilst the other being talked to with very harsh and negative words. The results of the experiment showed very clearly why it is so important for us to use encouraging words all the time especially with our growing children!

6. Compost Making

 

Instructions on composting given to this group by Robert.

The banana skins collected to be used for the compost too.  

Recipe for compost making:

A thick layer of cut grass or any plant materials followed by a thin layer of chicken dung then a sprinkling of rice bran.

Water generously. 

Second layer of grass goes in and take note of the few young girls waiting anxiously at the right hand corner.

This is what they were waiting for, the highlight of this excises, to dance on top of the compost heap. This is to compact the heap so that more layers can be added on. 

When the compacted pile reach up to a height of about 4 feet ( about 1 1/2 meter), cover it up with plastic sheet and leave for 2 weeks to decompose.  

It will look like this after a month or so...

It needs to be turn over every 2-4 weeks as this form of composting requires oxygen to work. In 3 months, it will turn to black peaty soil which will be ready to use for the plants and veggies. 

7. Harvesting

These lucky few were assigned to harvest the Kai Choi. See what they managed to reap...

 

He got what he was eyeing.

This uncle was harvesting some wild raspberries with a trail of eager beavers holding up teacups waiting to collect from him.

With the harvesting going on these few lasses were busy preparing lunch (main masak masak).

8. Lunch!!

Mrs. Loh did make ham choi with the kai choi and cook them with sardine (a first for me). Unlikely combination but so, so delicious.

Alma cooked these leaves from the tree of life cooked with pumpkin and santan fragrant with lemongrass. Delicious.

Eggplants from the farm cooked with spicy sambal udang. A favorite from Margaret. 

Jenny's tasty soy sauce chicken was sold out. 

Another delicious home-cooked dish, chick-peas Indian style also from Margaret. 

Really don't mind waking up so early on a Sunday morning with so many yummy fares awaiting ;-p.  

A big 'thank you' from the bottom of our well-pampered stomach to all the ladies who had to wake up even earlier to prepare all these for us. 

In between sessions, I sneaked away to capture these lovelies and crawlies in their natural habitat which we rudely intruded for a day to learn.