"Our House Is a Very Very Fine House"

Happy memories for more than five years now.

There's the mango tree in our backyard. Well, that's not entirely true. Actually, that's our neighbor's. The ilang-ilang tree which is also the neighbor's.

I bought the initial forget me nots, 'G' grew the rest. There's also the bogainvilia trellis - ours, and which later on turned unwieldy.

There's the (yellow flowering)plants but I don't know its exact name. And the olive tree? But of course, the jack fruit tree is 'G's baby. I wonder if we will ever get to taste it's fruit? I have been trying to plead with the tree, 'please bear fruit already'. So far no result. Sigh!!

Ahhh but it's a happier story with the atis tree. We have so far eaten 5 large sweet and delicious fruits from the 3 feet tree.

I also have herbs. Or should I say used to. There's oregano. I had 3 different types of basil, along with rosemary, thyme, marjoram, and sage. Too bad for me. They were unable to withstand our backyards "infertile" soil. Among my herbs, its the oregano which is still gives me the pleasure. Sigh again!!

Our garden also is home to many insects. One is these centipede like crawlers, black and brown in color and about 1 1/2 inch long. They are all over the place -- under the dead leaves, near the plants, in my 'dirty' kitchen. There's also the spiders spinning their webs on top of the jackfruit and atis(sweet sop)trees. And the ants, aahh yes, the ants -- black and red. The red ants feast on my bitter gourd and squash.It seems there's no letting up.

And not to forget, the butterflies. One is yellow and the other is white. Day in and day out they go after the nectars of my yellow flowering plant.

There's also the aphids which suck out the white juice of my olive trees. Sigh for the 3rd time. :-)

And what could be worst than termites in your garden? Nuff said!!!