Care vs Indifference

A few days ago, I was at the Indian Mamak shop packing food.


The queue was long and the space was tight.


After getting my rice, I wanted to backtrack to get some vegetables, so, I request for the young man to excuse me, while I needed some standing space. He was kind enough to let me through. While I was taking the stuff, which will total 5-10 seconds, the Restaurant Waiter gave an impatient remark because I was kinda in the way.


I was busy trying to hurry, so, I neither heard his remark or saw his face reaction.


But.


I heard the young man clearly rebuking him to be patient, for it will only take awhile.


I paused for a second and did not know how to react to this young man, standing up for a stranger, like me.


I was touched.


I went up to him and thank him for standing up for me and he gave me a very gracious, "Its OK".


Another scenario:


We were having family lunch at the same shop and have been trying to order something from the waiter for quite awhile. Then, a waiter stopped at the table next to ours. I kept waving to him but he did not take notice.


Strange.


The couple sitting on that table heard us clearly and even turned to give an indifferent stare. After looking at us a few seconds, knowing clearly that we were trying to get the attention of the waiter who was still standing next to their table, they returned to whatever they were doing.


I was shocked.


Such indifference.


The waiter walked away.


Now, I have a big question in my head.


Why the indifference or care. What causes someone to take the trouble to stand up for a stranger and another to totally ignore.

The Garden: Privacy Fence

Few weeks ago, I posted about The Garden.


There was this and that plan.


A privacy fence was one of the idea. The reason is to block and separate the back portion of the house from the front.


The Resak Wood was purchased from the local hardware store. The sizes of wood was 2 x 4", 4 x 4" and 1 x 4"

4 x 4" pillars as foundation

4 holes of about 1 feet wide and 1.5 inch deep was dugged. Instead of digging up the hole in a day, bit by bit was dug up over a period of few days. Just as I was ready to mix the cement to put the foundational pillars, the Indonesian worker was available to assist for the next few days. Hooray! So, he helped to fix the foundational pillars.

2 x 4" was fixed on by Joel and I, when he was off from
school during the recent Public Holiday

The foundation was allowed to dry for about 2-3 days. Then, I solicited Joel's help. Both of us took the late morning and most of the afternoon to cut the 1 x 4" plants to exactly 5 feet length with the circular saw. Then we measured and cut to appropriate lengths, the 2 x 4". That was hard work. Galvanized bolt of 3" was used to fasten the 2 x 4 " to the 4 x 4". We used the drill to make the holes.


Apparently (after everything was done), according to Hubby (who is the actual Engineer and Expert), we used the wrong drill bit size. It should have been smaller hole. Never mind, a learning process. That day, I used the drill for the 1st time in my life. Not bad.

The privacy fence and there is a plan to make a Pergola
using the same pillars

The next day, Joel had to go to school. So, I was left alone to do up the fence. All geared up and gung ho, I proceeded to fix the fence. How hard can it be? After all, I have researched in youtube and internet.


After taking 1 hour to fix 2 planks and realised that the bolts were not aligned and the drill holes were too big... As a result, the bolts was not strong and the plank begins to fall when knocked. The Engineer and Expert stumbled upon me, the Gung Ho, youtube educated Fence Installer.


A quick lesson ensued.


Oh.. I see. That's how its done.


Eventually when Joel came back from school, all of us fixed the fence together and I must say, it turned out beautifully!


It was great fun for me... I am a Handy-Woman... by accident.

Tree House - Part 1

The Tree House is up and running!


After talking for about 1 year, planning for a few months, its finally been realised. Watch the youtube movie.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlCGa_02xpA


Will update as and when more stuffs are added to the Tree House.

Organic Garden: What's growing?

The organic garden is coming along.


I have planted some seeds which are growing.

Left: Tomato

Right: Mulberry shoots

Left: French beans
Right: Seeds are placed on the window grills to get proper sun and
easy for me to monitor

Plant on the right is Passion Fruit. Mum bought a plant for me at RM5. I am also
using some seeds to grow. So far, no signs of growth yet. I loveeeee Passion Fruit

My new compost bin.

Let me share a little about my new compost bin.


It was just by mere coincidence I discovered this product when I met up with a Malaysian friend who was visiting from Bangkok. He is currently marketing an amazing product. I am just so excited!


Well, the product promises to de-compose my Compost Bin in 3 days. What???!!! Three days? That is some amazing product. I was hoping to be able to use my compose in 4 months or so (at the rate its going). Not only it de-compose waste like these but its actually for industrial purposes. The other amazing thing is, it kills salmonella, E-coli and other bacterias which normal composting are not able to kill.


These microbs was a result of a 15 years research by a Thai Scientist. So brilliant!


I had some samples from him and have just started trying it out yesterday. Its going to be liquid fertilizer, which is the best form of fertilizer because it gets absorbed almost immediately.


So, let's just see how it turns out.

Organic Vegetable Patch

For the longest time, I have wanted to plant my own vegetable.


You might ask, "why?".


Well, nothing gives me more joy than to be able to go to my garden and be able to pluck some fresh vegetables to serve to my family. Healthy, organic and readily available.


Even better if someone would plant it for me and I just harvest it. I know, I live in this bubble of fantasy.


Anyways.


I seize the opportunity, now that I have space for a vegetable patch, time AND interest. I have gone into Youtube.com and have researched extensively on how to plant an organic vegetable patch. So interesting! So much of information!


Now that I am packed with all theory about planting, the practical should follow soon.


So, I have started a compost bin. Its all about recycling and creating healthy soil for my organic vegetables. All the banana peels, apple cores, pineapple skin and cut grass goes into the bin.

My recycle bin before it goes into the Compost Bin

The Compost Bin. Its chicken wire (3 feet high x 9 feet long) which I bought from the hardware
shop for RM2.50 per feet (Total RM22.50). According to the youtube.com instruction... its one layer of brown (dried leaves) and one layer of green (household rubbish e.g. banana peels & etc) or green grass/leaves freshly cut

Contents of the Compost Bin

I thought it will be smelly but surprisingly, no smell. Apparently, the chicken wire gives a lot of ventilation, so it will not smell. So far, so good.


The Garden is not done yet, so, its difficult to have a permanent location for the vegetable patch. But still, I have a make-shift location for the next few weeks, till The Garden is completed.

Make-shift Organic Vegetable Patch

Honey Dew plant



Chili plant

Baby Aloe Vera. I bought a pot for RM4 which has 6-7 baby plants in them. So, I transplanted
it onto the ground. I think I will move it later when The Garden is completed, not sure, yet.

I have a serious obsession with aloe vera

Jack fruit tree. The only plant left from previous owner

I think I will have to go through this with trial and error, since I have not had a successful garden patch before.

The Garden

Eventhough I titled this post as "The Garden"... actually it should be "What Garden?".


It was basically a disgraceful heap of mess. A real eye-sore to the inhabitant of the home-dwellers.


Therefore, no one was invited over to our new house, unless they insisted to invite themselves (No one will be named here).

In April 2010, it was a heap of mess. About 4 cars of dump was needed to
get rid of all this mess

View of the rubbish from another view

In May 2010, it was getting better but works were still going on here and there.

So, it was impossible to totally get rid of the mess. Please note that
by then, we had moved in (For info, the One Big Mess in white shirt and
black shorts, above, is still around. Don't think I will be able to rid of him for the next 30 years or so ;-))

Then "The Garden" was just there.


Yes.


Just there.


Mess and all.


The initial plan was to plant grass for the whole 2000 sq ft. Then, it was stalled.


Did I want to spend RM5,000.00 to plant, just grass? The guy was charging RM2.50 per sq ft. Its probably reasonable. It would have been more worth it (according to me) if it was lettuces or pak choy or kai lan. But then again, no one actually ask a grass planter to plant vegetables instead of grass on their lawn. Also, the kids might have difficulty walking on it.


So, I sat on the idea.


And sat.


And sat.


Then suddenly.... Yes. Suddenly.


... I was finished "sitting on the idea"!


(I can hear the family members screaming from the background, "Its about time!!!")


So.


1 week ago, I got 2 workers to clear all the mess and filled a whole load of dump truck with all kinds of rubbish from The Garden.



... The Garden is *drum roll*



Cleared!!!


No more Rubbish!!!

See, I told you... clean... desert...

Full... of rubbish

I will let you know what we are going to do with "The Garden". Its going to be a family project. Its a DIY thing. I am so excited! Just thinking about it (makes me tired), er, I mean adrenaline rush.


Stay tuned.