Reasons I love the Bahay Kubo (Nipa Hut)

Bahay Kubo is an enduring symbol of food self-sufficiency, indigenous biodiversity, simplicity and quaintness of living and natural beauty.Dr Abe V Rotor 

 Bahay Kubo interpreted in painting by the author

Bahay Kubo (My Nipa Hut) is one of the most loved traditional songs. All kids in my generation learned it by heart in the elementary.  Not so many kids today are familiar with it.  It is good to rediscover the beauty and lesson of the song.   

Bahay kubo, kahit munti,
ang halaman duon ay sari-sari.
Singkamas at talong,
Sigarilyas at mani.
Sitaw, bataw, patani.
Kundol, patola, upo't kalabasa.
At saka meron pa,
Labanos, mustasa.
Sibuyas, kamatis,
Bawang at luya.
Sa paligid-ligid ay puno ng linga.

These are main features of the song.

·         There are eighteen (18) plants, which are indigenous, mostly native varieties. (biodiversity)

·         Many of the plants have medicinal values and are effective home remedies for common ailments (luya, sibuyas, bawang).

·         The four kinds of vegetables are represented: leafy (mustasa), fruit (kamatis, talong, kalabasa), root (labanos, singkamas), seed (linga, patani, mani).

·         Spices and condiments are included in the list (linga, luya, bawang)

·         The plants have different planting and harvesting schedules, thus enhancing whole year round supply of vegetables, and the use of resources and family labor.

·         The plants have different growing types or habits which means they occupy specific places and have space allocations. (viny, herb, bush).

·         Nutrition-wise they provide the basic requirements for growing up and good health.

·         The ambiance projected by the scene is green, tranquil, clean, shady and cool (environment-friendly).

·         The garden exudes a feeling of self-sufficiency and offers a potential for livelihood.

·         Simplicity is the key to a contented life (with least energy consumption, and amenities).

 Cozy native home in Floridablanca Pampanga

·         Such a scene expands the imagination to include a backyard fishpond, chicken coop, orchard trees and ornamental plants, among others – all of these contribute to the enrichment of the Bahay Kubo, without modifying its basic concept and structure. 

Folk wisdom tells us how good it is to live simply and naturally, eat properly, stay young, healthy and active, save and earn money, depend less on energy and imported goods, and enjoy being at home with the family. Bahay Kubo takes us closer to nature, to appreciate our culture, and leads us to the inner calling for peace, quiet and joy.~ 
 

 

Types of Bahay Kubo  

Wild Vegetables in Times of Hunger

The rainy season guarantees ample supply of fruits and vegetables, including wild food plants which spontaneously grow virtually anywhere, so that it is safe to say no one should die of hunger even in extreme condition.  
Dr Abe V Rotor

Edible Fern (Pako') - Athyrium esculentum)

Dampalit (Sesuvium portulacastrum)

Gulasiman or ngalog (Portulaca)

Himba-ba-o or alokong (Alleanthus luzonicus)

Papait (Mollogo oppositifolia)

Male flowers of squash (Cucurbita maxima) and saluyot tops (Corchorus olitorius)

Top, clockwise: Lima beans or patani (Phaseolus lunatus), wild amargoso or ampalaya (Momordica charantia), wild eggplant (Solanum melongena), and male flowers of him-baba-o or alokong (Allaeanthus luzonicus)

Unopened flowers of bagbagkong (dagger shaped vegetable)

Other wild vegetables:

1. Young leaves of cassava or kamoteng kahoy (Manihot utilissima)
2. Petals of Gumamela (Hibiscus rosasinensis)
3. Young leaves of kamkamote (Ipomea triloba)
4. Amaranth or spinach (Amaranthus spinosus) - seedling stage
5. Flowers of madre de cacao or kakawate (Gliricida sepium)
6. Corm of banana (Musa sapientum)
7. Ubod or pith of maguey (Agave cantala)
8. Talinum (Talinum quadriculoare)
9. Flower of katuray (Sesbania grandiflora)
10. Corm of Palawan gabi (Colocasia sp)

Often referred to as wild food plants or hunger crops, these and many others, perhaps hundreds, provide an alternative source of food and nutrition on the grassroots in times of poor harvest and calamities like drought. Being native or indigenous they survive extreme conditions of the environment, they need very little care, if at all. Ethnobotany, the study of plants and their uses in primitive societies, is gaining recognition in the light of economic crisis. It offers a solution to poverty and malnutrition. Culinary delight comes in various food preparations from native vegetables. Photos by Abe V Rotor.

Take a break, have some "religious" wit and humor

The lighter side of the Ten Commandments
Researched by Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog

Rewrite the Ten Commandments 
     The editor of the local paper queried the new applicant for the job of rewrite man."Well," said the editor,"are you good?"
    "Sure was the reply.
    "All right, then fix this,and cut it short," instructed the editor, handing him a list of the Ten Commandment.
    The applicant gave a glance and seemed a little nonplussed.  But then he stepped over to the desk, quickly marked the copy, and handed it to the surprised editor, who studied the paper for only a moment before saying. "You are hired!"
     The rewrite on the paper was,"Don't."



Breakable mail
There was a very gracious lady who was mailing an old family friend Bible to her brother in another part of the country.
     "Is there anything breakable in here?" asked the postal clerk.
     "Only the Ten Commandments." answered the lady.

Identify Yourself
The young army recruit was a victim of so many practical jokes that he doubted all men and their motives.  One night while he was on guard duty, the figure of one of the officers loomed up in the darkness.
     "Who goes there?" the recruit challenged.
     :"Major Moses," was the reply
     The young recruit scented the joke.  "Glad to meet you, Moses," he said cheerfully,  "Advance and give me the Ten Commandments."

 Statement of Costs
The painter was required to render an itemized bill for his repairs on various pictures in the church.  The statement was as follows:

1. Corrected and renewed the Ten Commandments $50 

2. Embellished Pontius Pilate and put a new ribbon on his bonnet 60
3. Put a new tail on the rooster of St.Peter and mended his bill 45
4. Put a new nose on St John the Baptist and straightened his eyes 25
5. Replumed and gilded thee left wing of the Guardian Angel 65

6. Washed the servant of the High Priest &; put carmine on his cheeks 25
7. Renewed heaven, adjusted ten stars, gilded the sun, cleaned the moon 85
8. Reanimated the flames of Purgatory and restored some souls 45
9. Revived the flames of Hell, put a new tail on the Devil and mended his left hoof,and did several odd jobs for the damned 65
10. Put new spatter-dashes on the son of Tobias and dressing on his sack 30

11. Rebordered the robe of Herod and readjusted his wig 45
12. Cleaned the ears of Balaam's ass, and shod him 35
13. 2Put earrings in the ears of Sarah 70
14. Put a new stone in David's sling, enlarged Goliath's hand and extended his legs 30
15. Decorated Noah's Ark 20
16. Mended the shirt of the Prodigal Son, and cleaned his pigs 15

 Total $710

Acknowledgement: Jokes, Quotes and One-liners for Public Speakers bu HV Prochnow and HV Prochnow Jr

Building sandcastles, building dreams

"Build sandcastles, while in tender years;

        grownups who did, live up in good cheers." avr

Building sandcastles, building dreams
Dr Abe V Rotor

 Building Sandcastles on Morong Beach, Bataan

Build sandcastles, they bring back the past,

when you were young and never ceased to ask;

Build sandcastles, they make dreams come true,

on a flying magic carpet’s view;

Build sandcastles and copy the cloud,

faces of creatures behind the shroud;

Build sandcastles and meet the Martians,

the Aztecs, the cowboys and Indians.

Build sandcastles, poet Milton long aimed:

Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained;

Build sandcastles along the river,

playground of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer;

Build sandcastles, and meet Peter Pan,

Casper, Nemo, in the world of fun;

Build sandcastles and hunt for treasure

at the Pyramids, the Aegean shore;

Build sandcastles for pleasure and pain

in Great Expectations by Mark Twain;

Build sandcastles, indestructible to doom,

big enough for victims in their dome.

Build sandcastles for today's modern toy,

with skills to invent, not to destroy.

Build sandcastles as tall as the Eiffel,

'til the sun sets and the winds chill;

Build sandcastles, while in tender years;

grownups who did, live up in good cheers;

Build sandcastles and reach out to sea,

to the unknown and risk to be free;

Build sandcastles, fairy tale or true,

for life is but a passing review. ~

Through the Window of an Old House

Dr Abe V Rotor

Also visit my other Blogs:
[avrotor.blogspot.com]
[Living with Nature]
[naturalism - the eighth sense] 

Through the Window of an Old House. Vigan, Ilocos Sur 

Time overtakes all,

structures crumble,

dreams dim;

acceptance its kindness;

forgetting its end.~

“Farming is a way of living,”

In Memory of Dean Felix D Maramba, author of Farm Management in the Philippines 

The children who are brought up in close contact with nature develop appreciation of the manifestations of the Creator through living things and their order. 

Dr Abe V Rotor

“Farming is a way of living,” says the dean of farm management in the Philippines, Dean Felix D. Maramba, quoting Eugene Devenport who said that 

Farm Life mural by AVRotor.  Courtesy of Carlito Rabang Family

farming is not only a business, but a mode of life. “Sometimes the business is the prominent feature, so successful that life seems to run on one long sweet song. Sometimes the business runs so low that life is a bitter struggle.”

The farm and the family home is intertwined; in fact they are one. Anything that affects the farm as a business also directly affects as a home. The farm operator is the head of the household and the bulk of the farm work is done by the members of the family. The farmer is the farmer 24 hours a days, on weekdays as well as on Sundays and Holidays.

The children are brought up in close contact with nature. They develop an appreciation of the manifestations of the Creator through living things and their order. The farm boy does not have to wait until he is grown up before he can work and share family responsibilities. He is brought up early in the family business. In this way he will learn the value of industry and a sense of proprietorship early in life. The work habits and resourcefulness developed by farm children are kept throughout their lives.

This old school of Dean Maramba may not be the model progressive farmers are looking for today, but definitely the better farmer is the entrepreneur who grew up with farming and pursued training in technology and farm management, and has gain the confidence and skills in transforming the traditional concept of a farm into an agribusiness and therefore, he has a better chance in dealing with the complexities of world of the agriculture and business.

Make the correct decisions in farming.

Farming is no easy task. It is full of decisions - decisions based on socio-economic principles, and guided by rules of conduct and natural laws and of society. These are 10 guidelines in decision making.

1. Surplus labor resources of typically large rural families should be directed to labor-intensive projects, such as integrated farming.

2. Hillside or upland agriculture requires the cultivation of permanent crops, preferably through mixed cropping, such as intercropping of coconuts with orchard trees and annual crops.

3. Coastal and river swamplands should be preserved as wildlife sanctuaries, and should be managed as an ecosystem, rather than an agricultural venture.

4. Wastes can be recycled and converted into raw materials of another enterprise. Farm wastes and byproducts of processing can be processed biologically into methane, organic fertilizer, and biomass for vermiculture.

5. Productivity of small farms can be increased through pyramidal or storey farming. Batangas and Cavite farmers are well known for storied multiple cropping.

6. Poor soils can be rehabilitated through natural farming, such as green manuring, crop rotation and use of organic fertilizers, all integrated in the farming system. Corn-peanut, rice-mungo are popular models of crop rotations.

7. Cottage industries are built on agriculture, guided by profitability and practical technology. It is time to look at the many agro-industries, from food processing to handicrafts.

8. ri-commodity farming maximizes utilization of resources, such as having an orchard, planting field crops, and raising fish and livestock on one farm.

9. Cooperative farming is the solution to economics of scale, these to include multipurpose and marketing cooperatives of farmers and entrepreneurs.
10. Since the number of days devoted to farming is only one-­third of the whole year, livelihood outside of farming should be developed. Like a sari-sari store, a small farm cannot afford to have too many hands. Other opportunities should be tapped outside of farming by other members of the family.

Always go for natural food

The rule of thumb is that, it is always preferred to eat foods grown under natural conditions than those grown with the use of chemicals. These are criteria to know if a food is natural?

·It must be fresh, or freshly packed
·It must be free from pests and diseases
·There are no harmful chemicals and artificial additives, including antibiotics residues.
·Food must not be tainted with radiation
·Natural food excludes the so-called junk food.
·It has been processed by natural means such as blast freezing, sun drying and the like.
·Packaging materials are safe to human health, animals and the environment.
·It meets standard organoloeptic test (taste test) and nutritional value requirements.

There are many kinds of vegetables you can choose for backyard and homelot gardening.

Pahiyas 

A festival of fruits and vegetables, Lucban, Quezon (Pahiyas May 15)

There are many vegetables to choose from: leafy – malungay, talbos (kalabasa, kamote, sayote), kangkong,; Stem – asparagus, bamboo shoot; flower– katuray, squash flower, cauliflower, broccoli, himbaba-o (alokong); fruit – ampalaya, squash, cucumber, green corn, sayote, tomato, eggplant, green papaya, pepper; root – Gabi, kamote, ube, tugui, ginger, onion, garlic, carrot, radish; seed – patani, sitao, white bean, black bean, cowpea, green pea, chick pea, pigeon pea, peanut, linga (sesame), paminta (black pepper) 

Malunggay is the most popular tree vegetable in the tropic. In the province no home is without this small tree at the backyard or in a vacant lot. The leaves, flowers, juvenile pods and young fruits of Moringa oleifera (Family Moringaceae) go well with fish, meat, shrimp, mushroom, and the like. It is one plant that does not need agronomic attention, not even weeding and fertilization, much less chemical spraying. You simply plant an arms length cutting or two, in some corner or along the fence and there it grows into a tree that can give you a ready supply of vegetables yearound. What nutrients do we get from malunggay?

Pineapple farm, Silang Cavite 
Here is a comparison of the food value of the fresh leaves and young fruits, respectively, in percent. (Marañon and Hermano, Useful Plants of the Philippines)

· Proteins 7.30 7.29
· Carbohydrates 11.04 2.61
· Fats 1.10 0.16
· Crude Fiber 1.75 0.76
· Phosphorus (P2 O 5) 0.24 0.19
· Calcium (CaO) 0.72 0.01
· Iron (Fe2O3) 0.108 0.0005

Owing to these properties and other uses, rural folks regard malunggay a “miracle tree.” Take for other uses. The root has a taste somewhat like that of horse-radish, and in India it is eaten as a substitute to it. Ben oil extracted from the seed is used for salad and culinary purposes, and also as illuminant. Mature seeds have antibacterial and flocculants properties that render drinking water safe and clear.

From these data, it is no wonder malunggay is highly recommended by doctors and nutritionists for both children and adults, particularly to nursing mothers and the convalescents.

Get the best from your favorite fruits

1. Be keen with the appearance, smell, feel – and even sound – of the fruit before harvesting or buying it. There’s no substitute to taste test.though. Develop your skills on these fruits: mango, musk melon, soursop or guyabano and its relative, sugar apple or atis. Also try on caimito, chico, siniguelas, and such rare fruit as sapote.
2. To ripen fruits, rub table salt on the cut stem (peduncle). Salt does not only facilitate ripening, it also protects the fruit from fungi and bacteria that cause it to rot. You can use the rice box-dispenser to ripen chico, caimito, avocado, tomato, and the like. Wrap the fruits loosely with two or three layers of newspaper before placing them inside the box. As the fruits ripen they exude ethylene gas that hastens ripening.

3. Bigger fruits are always generally preferred. Not always. Native chico is sweeter and more aromatic than the ponderosa chico. Big lanzones have large seeds. Bicol or Formosa pineapple, although not juicier, is sweeter than the Hawaiian variety. Of course we always pick up the biggest mango, nangka, caimito, watermelon, cantaloupe, atis, guyabano, and the like.

4. There are vegetables that are eaten as fruit or prepared into juice. Examples are carrot, tomato, green corn, and sweet green pea. Asparagus juice, anyone? Try a variety of ways in serving your favorite fruits. nangka ice cream, fruit cocktail in pineapple boat, avocado cake, guava wine. Enjoy the abundance of your favorite fruits, consult the fruit season calendar.

Engage in cottage industries, such as home made coconut virgin oil.

The price of this “miracle cure” has soared and there is now a proliferation of commercial brands of virgin coconut oil in the market. The old folks show have been doing this for a long time. One such person is Mrs. Gloria Reyes of Candelaria (Quezon) who makes virgin coconut oil. This is the step-by-step process.

1. Get twenty (20) husked, healthy, and mature nuts. They should not show any sign of spoilage or germination. Shake each nut and listen to the distinct sound of its water splashing. If you can hear it, discard the particular nut.

2. Split each nut with a bolo, gathering the water in the process. Discard any nut at the slightest sign of defect, such as those with cracked shell and oily water, discolored meat, presence of a developing endosperm (para). Rely on a keen sense of smell.

3. With the use of an electric-driven grating machine, grate the only the white part of the meat. Do not include the dark outer layer of the meat.

4. Squeeze the grated meat using muslin cloth or linen to separate the milk (gata) from the meal (sapal). Gather the milk in wide-mouth bottles (liter or gallon size).

5. Cover the jars with dry linen and keep them undisturbed for 3 to 5 hours in a dry, dark and cool corner.

6. Carefully remove the floating froth, then harvest the layer of oil and place it in a new glass jar. Discard the water at the bottom. It may be used as feed ingredient for chicken and animals.

7. Repeat the operation three to four times, until the oil obtained is crystal clear. Now this is the final product – home made virgin coconut oil.

Virgin coconut oil is a product of cold process of oil extraction, as compared with the traditional method of using heat. In the latter coconut milk is brought to boiling, evaporating the water content in the process, and obtaining a crusty by-product called latik. The products of both processes have many uses, from ointment and lubrication to cooking and food additive. There is one difference though, virgin coconut oil is richer with vitamins and enzymes - which are otherwise minimized or lost in the traditional method.

Get rid of waste by utilizing them. Agricultural byproducts make good animal feeds, as follows:

· Rice straw, corn stovers and sugarcane tops, the most common crop residues in the tropics, contain high digestible nutrients, and provide 50% of the total ration of cattle and carabaos.

· Rice bran and corn bran are the most abundant general purpose feed that provides 80 percent of nutritional needs of poultry, hogs and livestock, especially when mixed with copra meal which is richer in protein than imported wheat bran (pollard).

· Cane molasses is high in calorie value. Alternative supplemental feeds are kamote vines for hogs and pineapple pulp and leaves for cattle.

Here is a simple feed formula for cattle: Copra meal 56.5 kg; rice bran (kiskisan or second class cono bran) 25kg; molasses 15kg; Urea (commercial fertilizer grade, 45%N) 2.0kg; salt 1.0kg; and bone meal 0.5kg. Weight gain of a two-year old Batangas cattle breed fed with this formulation is 0.56 kg on the average,

These are byproducts which have potential feed value: These are byproducts or wastes in the processing of oil, starch, fish, meat, fruit and vegetables. The abundance of agricultural by-products offers ready and cheap feed substitutes with these advantages.

It cut down on feed costs,
reduces the volume on imported feed materials,
provides cheaper source of animal protein,
provides employment and livelihood, and
keeps the environment clean and in proper balance.

Protect nature through environment-friendly technology.

Organic farming using Farm residues like rice hull. 

One example is the use of rice hull ash to protects mungbeans from bean weevil. Burnt rice hull (ipa) contains silica crystals that are microscopic glass shards capable of penetrating into the conjunctiva of the bean weevil, Callosobruchus maculatus. Once lodged, the crystal causes more damage as the insect moves and struggles, resulting in infection and desiccation, and ultimately death.

This is the finding of Ethel Niña Catahan in her masteral thesis in biology at the University of Santo Tomas. Catahan tested two types of rice hull ash, One is partly carbonized (black ash) and the other oven-burned (white ash). Both were applied independently in very small amount as either mixed with the beans or as protectant placed at the mouth of the container. In both preparations and methods, mungbeans – and other beans and cereals, for that matter – can be stored for as long as six months without being destroyed by this Coleopterous insect.

The bean weevil is a cosmopolitan insect whose grub lives inside the bean, eating the whole content and leaving only the seed cover at the end of its life cycle. When it is about to emerge the female lays eggs for the next generation. Whole stocks of beans may be rendered unfit not only for human consumption, but for animal feeds as well. It is because the insect leaves a characteristic odor that comes from the insect’s droppings and due to fungal growth that accompanies infestation.

Rice is substitute, and a better one, to wheat flour.

Of all alternative flour products to substitute wheat flour, it is rice flour that is acclaimed to be the best for the following reasons:

· Rice has many indigenous uses from suman to bihon (local noodle), aside from its being a staple food of Filipinos and most Asians.

· In making leavened products, rice can be compared with wheat, with today’s leavening agents and techniques.

· Rice is more digestible than wheat. Gluten in wheat is hard to digest and can cause a degenerative disease which is common to Americans and Europeans.

· Rice is affordable and available everywhere, principally on the farm and in households.

Other alternative flour substitutes are those from native crops which are made into various preparations - corn starch (maja), ube (halaya), gabi (binagol), and tugui’ (ginatan), cassava (cassava cake and sago).

Lastly, the local rice industry is the mainstay of our agriculture. Patronizing it is the greatest incentive to production and it saves the country of precious dollar that would otherwise be spent on imported wheat. 


Let’s aim at unifying agriculture and ecology into agro-ecology. This is what practical farming is all about. x x x

Conversation with Nature

"... a big heart for all creation,
I learned from school and my religion.”

Mural and Verses by Dr Abe V Rotor

 

“I know you only in books and on TV screen,

you talk my language in cartoon;

may I ask where on earth have you been?

that I may trace  your lonely zone.”

“Heaven’s sake! Let me and my shrinking flock,

live incognito, away from human,

who fancy my strange call and my color black,

just I thank you, li’l young man. “  

  “A seashore in the city, how we wish it so,

to hear the sea, a shell on our ear,

fancy on canned nature in parks and show  

In our domicile with least stir.”   

“Then you miss creation in its fullest, freest,

the Maker’s greatest masterpiece;

Foolish Homo sapiens, will you ever realize

you’ve been an orphan eversince?” 

 

“Don’t be afraid, I am your friend,
neither have I a bow and arrow nor gun
but a big heart for all creation,
I learned from school and my religion.”

“Your gospel of truth and kindness,
of the Good Shepherd’s caring
a lost lamb in danger and darkness,
woe to us in the wilderness,”

Nature's Emissaries of Good News

Dr Abe V Rotor

 1. Roosters are Nature’s alarm clock.

Notice that roosters crow almost at the same time as dawn approaches. Some crow at midnight though. They are fairly accurate in telling us time, but at the height of Mt.Pinatubo’s eruption, roosters in Australia and China were behaving differently. The pyroclastic materials drifting in the atmosphere temporarily took away their sense of time. It was not unusual to hear them crow at anytime of the day or night until the drift settled months after the eruption.

Close up view of a crowing rooster- handsome fellow! The best alarm clock around!www.pinterest.com236 × 358Search by image

With our changing lifestyle, this natural rouser is likewise changing, especially the gamecock. But in the farm where I live, the roosters still crow with a message –

“Early to bed and early to rise,

Makes a person healthy and wise.”

2. Cicada sings for rain.

When you hear the shrilling song of cicada (kuliglig), it means the rains have finally arrived. From here we expect the rains to intensify throughout the southeast monsoon or habagat then tapers off in October. The cicada spends its immature or nymph stage in the ground feeding on roots of plants. 

(Right panel) Cicadas come in many species from the seasonal or one-year old cicada, to the 17-year old cicada often referred to as 17-year old locust. UPLB Museum of Natural History

There are species that complete their life cycle in one year (annual cicada which is most common), two years, and seventeen years (often called seventeen-year old locust). Whatever is the species, the emergence of cicada is at the onset of the rainy season, usually in April or May in most part of the country.

Rain softens the soil and signals the full-grown nymph to get out of its cell. It then climbs to the nearest tree and at some distance from the ground, it metamorphoses into an adult. It is the male cicada that “sings”, which is actually a continuous rapid high-pitched sound - tick-tack-tick-tack… produced by a pair of drums attached on its abdomen. Imagine the lid of a tin can pressed and released in rapid succession. On the other hand, the female cicada is totally mute and her response to a love call is to get near a Romeo whose song pleases her.

3. Cat grooming at the doorway tells of the coming of visitors.
Cats are fastidious clean creatures. Like birds at rest preening, cats lick their paws and fur clean especially after eating. But what has this to do with their alleged ability to forecast? Well, let’s look at it this way. It is customary in the province to cook something especially for our guests. And fond that we are with cats, we let them have their fill while we are cooking.

4. Emergence of the June beetle ushers the start of rainy season. Sometimes in comes out in May, hence also called May beetle.

This beetle, Leucopholis irrorata, resides under the soil for about a year as grub subsisting on roots of plants. It soon develops into pupa, and consequently adult towards the rainy season, remaining in its chamber until the first heavy rain comes. The beetle emerges and looks for food and mate. In a few days it dies, the female having laid dozens of eggs in the soil for the next generation.

What triggers metamorphosis is dictated by a biological clock pre-set by mature in the species. However, differential emergence among members of the population within the same species within a span of three months (April to June) is not fully understood.

5. Hovering dragonflies indicates a coming rain.
Old folks can tell if it’s going to rain early or late in the day just by observing the dragonflies. 

Common red dragonfly at rest

Dragonflies or tutubi' (Odonata) come in horde and hover over our heads in the meadow, farms, football field, or any place where they swoop upon their prey – small insects such as leafhoppers, gnats and midges (gamu-gamu) that escape from their abode to find shelter elsewhere. But how do they sense an oncoming rain? These insects are endowed with sensitive antennae and tactile body hairs, and can detect the changes of temperature and relative humidity that characterize an approaching rain.

The more dragonflies hovering, and the closer they get to the ground, the heavier is the coming rain, the old folks warn. By the way, it is the dragonfly’s predatory habit that has earned them a place in the heart of farmers.

6. If you see birds in the open sea, there must be land nearby.
Christopher Columbus knew there was land nearby when he saw sea birds in the sky. This convinced his disheartened crew who was at the verge of mutiny. The ship followed the birds leading to the discovery of America.

Birds migrating to the south when it is winter in the north guide seafarers. In spring and summer the birds return. It is a long route covering a distance of three thousand miles. 
Sea birds, one with a piece of plastic fishing net stuck around its neck. 20 miles off the coast of Mauritania. www.greenpeace.org800 × 532Search by image
Many of the birds fail to complete the route, and may discover new habitats and interbreed with local birds. Butterflies like the flamboyant monarch butterflies also migrate over long distances, such as the route from North America to Mexico. It is not a wonder to find butterflies not only on land but also at sea.

7. When house lizards (butiki) are noisy, there is a guest coming.
My father used to tell me when I was a child, that if house lizards make loud and crispy calls, it’s likely that a visitor is coming.

How do lizards know? Some people attribute this to the house lizard’s habit of “kissing” the ground at dusk. But this has nothing to do with predicting a guest’s arrival. But we know that when a person is anticipating a guest he is extraordinarily keen, and thus become aware of anything happening in his surroundings – including the mating calls of lizards.

House lizards take a drink on the ground and return to their dwellings on top of trees, on ceilings and roofs where water is scarce. By the way lizards are present where there is a lot of insects they feed on, such as areas around fluorescent lamps and streetlights.


Monarch butterfly migrates southward in enormous population to escape winter in the north.