My daughter Monica took a lot of pictures of me at the farm. So now I have enough pictures to do one of those “A Day in the Life Of” features! Thanks for the pictures Mon!
Chores
We move back and forth between our main house in Alabang and the cottage at Rosario. When we’re away, the cottage is locked up and most of the furniture is covered in sheets. Apparently, there’s a lot that goes on inside the cottage even while it’s locked up and we’re away. Whenever I open up the windows, there are always all sorts of small dead bugs and debris on the windowsills that I need to wipe away. And that’s why the furniture is covered in sheets.
Surprises
I was asked before whether I bring movies to watch at night or other things for entertainment. Not necessary! Maybe it would be different if we lived here all the time. At this point, every day is different, unusual, and and interesting. Some days there are hordes of flies. Then the next week they’re gone and replaced by dragonflies. Monica says she’s a lucky charm because during her visit there were very few flies and lots of fireflies! And when we were opening up the house, we found this snake skin inside the kitchen. Yes, the kitchen was locked and all the windows were closed. No, I don’t know how it got in.
Good Eats and Drinks!
I thought Tonji would make a hobby out of making gourmet meals at the farm. Hahaha! The gourmet cooking bug hasn’t quite gotten him yet. We’ve been eating mostly cooked food that we bring from our house. So far, Tonji is good at cooking burgers, steaks, and barbecue. The pizza needs to be improved. The drinks are pretty good!
Arts and Crafts
After getting obsessed with crochet, then knitting, now it’s sketching! My goal is to be able to sit down and capture in a sketch whatever is in front of me. I’ve been trying to draw everyday in pen and ink. I look forward to my drawing sessions at the farm because I get to do landscapes from life. Yes, that’s a Bug-a-Salt beside me!
Horses
I thought this would be easier! These horses were already trained at MPL’s farm! I thought that Tonji and I would be riding around our farm by now. I thought wrong. Tonji has gotten on the horse once. He says he is waiting for me to become an expert, and THEN he will learn from me. My plan seemed sound: 1) buy good, trained horses 2) learn horse training via the Clinton Anderson DVD series 3) ride around and have fun. Then I got stuck in my training and asked for an arena, because I thought THAT was the cure for all my horse training woes. Ha! I just realized that there are gaps in what I thought I was supposed to be doing with the horses and what I was actually doing. Now to work on closing the gaps.
Dogs
I enjoy just hanging out with the dogs at the farm. They STILL get really, really excited when they see us packing up to go to the farm. I think maybe part of it is that they are happy to be able to go somewhere with us instead of being left at home. They are now quite good with the horses. I used to have to tie them up whenever I’d do horse training. But now, they just stay in the house by themselves. I need to teach them to leave the chickens alone though.
Others
I’m also trying to take more bird pictures!
Tonji and Sylvia's Wildlife Refuge 
Hope and pray little salagubangs won’t have an orgy in the house one night when you’re having dinner. Screen or now screen, they’ll get in and plop into your soup. The stench of their pheromones erases your appetite. And them buggers got into everything! Six months later, we were still finding little carcasses in nooks and crannies. Fortunately, it hasn’t happened again. whew!
Yikes Gina!! Crossing my fingers that doesn’t happen to me!
Interesting photo of snake skin! The snake must have felt so safe inside your cottage.
That’s what I thought too, it was looking for a safe place to shed!