Leaning Pisa Tree

Dr Abe V Rotor

Fire tree (Delonix regia,) Family Caesalpinaceae.

At first glance the road and tree are tilting toward each other - which only shows the extent of the "Living Pisa" phenomenon. The tree is found near the junction of Regalado and Fairview avenue going to SM Fairview in Quezon City.

Actually there are thousands of leaning trees in Metro Manila that are pruned to keep them from touching power lines and communication cables running overhead. These are actually the few survivors, but sooner or later they too, will give in to the consequences of deprivation and the law of gravity. ~

The Leaning Fire Tree

Fire tree, burn and speak with rage,
before your flowers become your wreath;
burn the whole day through to its edge,
but never die with the sunset. ~

NOTE: The tree was cut  down to give way to road expansion and MRT construction.

Musical Summer for Kids - and Grownups, too

"Summer is musical with the gusts of wind tamed into breeze by the trees, hissing, whispering, shaking the old ones to the ground into a pile of litter, inviting passersby to stop and rest in the tree shade." avr

Dr Abe V Rotor
Living with Nature - School on Blog

Piano recital in the home with relatives and guests

The violin, the soulful and classical instrument, perhaps the most admired, too.

It's a potpourri of notes this trio play with the violin and the uke.


Guitar and Ukulele offer the young enthusiast a choice.

It's the uke many children love to start with.


Summer is the shortest season for kids; they don't know when it starts and ends, and in between - there is never a dull moment, like marching too fast to go along, and too soon to reach the destination;

Summer is musical with the gusts of wind tamed into breeze by the trees, hissing, whispering, shaking the old ones to the ground into a pile of litter, inviting passersby to stop and rest in the tree shade;

Summer is musical with peals of thunder like distant drums and gongs, getting nearer and nearer each time, lighting flashing, and soon the sun is blocked, overcast reigns in a strange music of gloom;

Summer musical with children flying kites in lilting joy, kites soaring in crescendo and cantabile, string taut in notes and tunes, audible by the touch of the hand, receiving messages from up high;

Summer musical with kids learning to play the violin, the soulful instrument of all time - string, wind, percussion - and blending with any, or all of them, under the baton of a seasoned maestro;

Summer musical with kids abandoning for the time being the computer, the mall and loafing, learning the fundamentals of good music, and differentiating it from the postmodern noise-music version;

Summer musical with kids barely reaching the keyboard, hard at carrying and beating the drum, short of breath to reach the high notes, too thin a voice for modulation, yet wish they were on stage;

Summer musical is replaying classical musical movies like The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, Oliver, Noli the Musical, Les Miserables, The King and I, Mary Poppins, this time with keener perception and interest;

Summer musical is attending workshops, getting tutor lessons, qualifying for membership in a band or orchestra, performing live before select audiences, at the grassroots and in rural communities;

Summer musical is meditation with the sound of nature drowned in the city jungle, music that calms the heart from too much work and study, to appreciate the value of beauty and freedom, shared and enjoyed by all. ~   

Summer is Mad Dog Season. Take Heed.

Mad Dog!

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature - School on Blog

  (Note: This is scripted for this lesson.  Photograph of the author's pet, Niko, a Doberman, behind torn cage. Past his 15th year (centenarian if he were a human) he suffered of cataract and arthritis until his last year. An old dog may be mistaken by some people to be manifesting signs of a mad dog - which is, of course, not true.)

Mad dog!  Get out of its way.  Away from its reach. Take the children out of harm's way.

Here are signs to forewarn us. 

• The dog's tail is tucked underneath
• The animal is restless, biting at anything within its reach
• Froth is coming from its mouth
• It is unkempt
• Its breathing is heavy and rapid, showing signs of distress
• Its eyes are blank and threatening   
• It stealthily moves about without any apparent direction
• It dreads the presence of water (hydrophobia)
• The season of mad dogs is during hot days - summer, though they occur any season. 

Be keen; keep distance; notify others of danger; get help. 

And if someone is bitten by a dog - even if it's apparently a healthy dog, maybe our own pet - don't take chances.  Take the victim to the nearest doctor or hospital without delay.

Rudyard Kipling's "IF"

"Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it ...  
you'll be a Man, my Son." Rudyard Kipling

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog

There's one thing that summarizes the theme of Kipling's works in general. If you are a child and read Kipling, you are challenged to grow up into a responsible adult - full and ripe, responsible and true - perhaps ahead of your time and that of others. The poem, If, epitomizes a son becoming a man - or a daughter becoming a woman.

Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

If

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired of waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken 
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them, "Hold on!"

If can talk with crowds and keep your virtue
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, 
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you will be a man, my son!

Calamities continue to claim lives and properties, even as previous victims have not yet recovered. Typhoon Yolanda cut a swath of destruction and desolation unprecedented in Philippine history. 

War erupted recently on the Gaza Strip at the Israel-Palestine border.   Civil war threatens Libya and Egypt as they struggle for democracy after a long period of dictatorship. Racial and religious conflict rock Iraq and Sudan. 

Separatist movement in Ukraine aided by Russia may break into civil war. The conflict has claimed innocent civilians including the downing by missile a passing Malaysian commercial airplane that resulted in the death of 298 passengers and crew members. 

Terrorism in on the rise in many countries, including the Philippines, principally by the Abu Sayaff. The world is threatened by the breakdown of peace and order on one hand, and the decline of economy, exacerbated by man-induced disasters principally global warming and pollution.           

Hard times breeds the Man of the Hour. It awakens the child to become man.

• He is the Boy on the Dike who plugged a leak in the dike with his arm in order to save Holland from the engulfing sea. 
• He is the boy who carried an apple on his head which his father, William Tell, must hit with arrow in order to gain their freedom from the dictator Gessler. 
• He is the orphan Oliver in Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, who became a victim of a cruel and unjust society, but was able to rise from his woeful state. 

• He is the boy in Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island who found a treasure not only of gold and silver, but an immeasurable one - treasure of becoming into real man. 

• He is our own, an eighteen year old who saved two families before he lost his own life in Pasig during the flood. 
• They are the two teenagers led by a police officer who heroically ferried 130 victims to safety at the height of the flood in San Jacinto, Pangasinan. 
• He is the young Rizal, the young Bonifacio, Mabini, del Pilar et al destined to become heroes of their country. 

While Kipling glorified the common man - the common soldier in his works (Plain Tales from the Hills, and Soldiers Three), this Nobel Prize winner in Literature equally prodded children to become responsible, as clearly manifested in his Jungle Book, which became a children classic all over the world. His advocacy is also shown in Kim (1901), an adventure book in the Himalayas, which is perhaps his most felicitous work. Other works include The Second Jungle Book (1895), The Seven Seas (1896), Captains Courageous (1897).

What make a child to be a man to Rudyard Kipling are basically the same to Mark Twain, which are early freedom and love of adventure, coupled with discipline and virtuous grooming under a natural setting - Kipling, being the immanent- moralist; and Twain, the liberal sociologist. Twain's characters - Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and Mowgli in Kipling's The Jungle Book turned adventurism into heroism in their own right.

There are models of girls-turned-women ahead of their time.  

• Take the case of Joan of Arc who was then only 16 when she led the French army against the English invaders,
• the blind and deaf child who was able to overcome the world of darkness and silence and became one of the most famous women in the world - Helen Keller. 
• the orphan girl in The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett who rebuilt a forgotten garden into a "piece of Paradise," 
• the Railway Children by Edith Nesbit who carried on a responsible life while their father was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. 
• Lest we forget Heidi by Johanna Spyri, an all time favorite story for girls. Heidi rose from the circumstance of being unwanted to become the light and inspiration to many.

Millions of boys and girls all over the world, if given the same chance and test, are the characters to whom the poem, If of Kipling is addressed to - be it in times of extreme difficulties or peace.

This article is dedicated to the young people who crossed the bridge to adult life through deeds that proved themselves responsible citizens and children of God, heroes notwithstanding, during the calamities. ~

Old Man Living on the Summit of Mt Pulag

Old Man Living on the Summit of  Mt Pulag

r Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog

 Before I reached forty, and they say life begins at forty, I dared the challenge to conquer Mt Pulag, the third  highest mountain in the Philippines.  Which I did, but in a most unusual way.

The truth is, I got lost before reaching its summit, so that I would rather say, Mt Pulag conquered me. And this is the story.

It was a long trek from the dead end of a logging trail where we parked our Land Cruiser. Up we climbed, with backpacks full, twenty degrees at first, and increasing to something like forty. It was the growing fatigue that made the slope steeper. 

“It’s a long way to go,” our guide, a native of the place said, pointing up ahead. Our path was barely visible because of overgrown vegetation and low clouds that began to settle into fog.  He would walk ahead, trace the path and signal us to proceed. With a bolo he hacked through our way and warned us not to lose our foothold. It was a precipitous climb. I did not look down.   

Soon we were in the thickest part of the forest. The rays of the setting sun peeped through the foliage and trunks creating three dimensional effects on the closely growing large pine trees. The forest floor was covered with thick litter of needle leaves that slowly fell off, a characteristic of evergreen.  It was so inviting, I thought we would be spending the night here.

But our mentor and team leader Dr Rudy del Rosario assured us there is a hut by the lake just before reaching the summit. This spurred us to get a second wind.

We emerged from the forest and found a clearing, actually the lower grassland of the mountain, the transition zone.  It is likened to the tree line as you go up to the North Pole.  

It is not that worst on Mt Pulag though.  But some similar ecological patterns are found here. For example, the trees growing just below the grassy summit make a grotesque scene appropriate for a horror movie or an alien landscape. Here the wind howls and momentarily silence reigns.  It is eerie and deafening. Then suddenly it comes again bringing in rain. I can only imagine what it must be during a typhoon.

We pitched our tent beside the hut of a hermit, an old man who has secluded himself for the last twenty years. It reminded me of old Rip Van Winkle who slept for twenty long years on the Catskill Mountain somewhere in old New York, a short story written by Washington Irving in the 18th century.

Lakay Indo is different.  He was like Henry David Thoreau who secluded himself by the Walden Pond, in a clearing in the middle of a forest.  Here Thoreau the philosopher wrote a treatise between man and society, that he concluded ultimately, man cannot live alone.  He cannot detach himself from his community. Although Thoreau abandoned his dwelling by the Walden Pond after a year of isolation, he was able to produce one of the greatest treatises ever written about man’s relationship with his fellowmen, with nature, and above all, with himself..

Lakay Indo is not a writer like Thoreau. He is not idle like Rip. Now and then he would go down to the nearest village to sell anything he hunted or gathered from the forest in exchange for his provisions. If he wrote like Irving and Thoreau, or the monks in Tibet and by the Red Sea, what would be have written?   

We pitched our tent on the shore of the lake near the hut of Lakay Indo.  We ate supper just before it was dark. Here you could see more stars than in any other place.  You can draw the waning face of the moon.      

Evening settled down gently. 

“You brought the good weather.” He said after greeting us. Then he turned religious, “And God is happy for all of you.”  He gazed at the starry sky and the cloud below.  We were nearly three kilometers above the sea, higher than the clouds.

“And He must be very happy for you in all these years.” Complimented Jun a teacher who, like the four of us, was taking up graduate studies. 

The kindly old man shifted his position to face us seated on the grassy slope of the lake in flickering light of a small bonfire.

I imagined a most beautiful scenario on the shores of Galilee more than two centuries ago.~
----------------
Mount Pulag (Filipino: Bundok Pulag) is Luzon's highest peak at 2,926 metres (9,600 ft) above sea level. The borders between the provinces of Benguet, Ifugao, and Nueva Vizcaya meet at the mountain's peak. It is the third highest mountain in the Philippines, next to Mount Apo and Mount Dulang-dulang.

A Hut by a Pond on Mt Pulag

A Hut by a Pond on Mt Pulag

Dr Abe V Rotor

Hut by a Pond. On-the-spot painting on Mt Pulag, Benguet by AVR (1985) inspired by Henry David Thoreau, 18th century American philosopher who left town and lived alone in a forest clearing for more than a year. Here he wrote Walden Pond, a treatise between man and his society.

This is an art lesson of freedom, peace and tranquility, and of unspoiled landscape; feeling of being on top of the world.

The title alone tells a story. It is picturesque. Here one imagines himself to be in a simple hut made of grass, wood and stone which shelters a woodsman and hunter on Mt. Pulag in Benguet, the second highest mountain in the Philippines after Mt. Apo.

There are no other buildings; no road, except a trail. The trees on the mountain side are small, gnarled and stunted by wind, nonetheless they make a green carpet on the whole mountain. Nearby trees display the season of autumn. Plants grow around the pond, but there are few large and floating ones, unlike in the lowlands. Instead, the water is rich in algae and small aquatic vegetation.

Stones cushions the shores of the pond, larger ones riprap the edge of the water. Fish abound - big and small - splashing and rippling. As gentle wind blows, waves gently lap on the shore in hushing sound.

The ambiance is therapeutic. Feel the cold wind that sends the ripening leaves to the ground. The ground is littered with fresh golden to red leaves. Feel the great comfort the hut gives you after a long day hike, and how soothing is the cool and clear water.

When everything is still the water reflects the sky. Sometimes a breeze comes along, followed by drizzle, then everything is quiet. Enjoy stillness. It is a rare experience to one who has been living in the city, to one who has been busy in school or office.

Draw first the mountain top, then the pond and hut. Fog plays hide-and-seek with the sun. Now and then it casts light and shadow in different patterns on the landscape, and makes a prism on the water, and a rainbow in the sky. Each view is momentary, the whole mountainscape is ever changing, colors are kaleidoscopic, now and then the world stands still.

Take time; this is independence and freedom, meditation and reflection.

Selections from the sound track of The Sound of Music provide an ideal musical background. Try indigenous music of the Cordilleras. Follow the instructions earlier presented in the other two exercises. Enjoy your travelogue on Mt. Pulag.

x x x

10 Strange Natural Cases

Dr Abe V Rotor

Lightning fixes atmospheric Nitrogen into Nitrate, so with other 

elements into their oxide compounds, vital to the plants, fungi 

and many other organisms.

1. Thunder and lightning spawn mushrooms.
In the province, it is a tradition to go hunting for mushrooms in bamboo groves, on anthills, under rice hay and banana stalks during the monsoon season, specifically after a period of heavy thunder and lightning. And what do we know? Old folks are right as they show you the prize - baskets full of Volvariella (rice hay or banana mushroom), Plerotus (abalone mushroom), Auricularia (tainga ng daga), and a host of other wild mushroom species.

Where did the mushrooms come from? When lightning strikes, nitrogen, which comprise 78 percent of the air combines with oxygen (21 percent of the air) forming nitrate (NO3). Scientists call this process, nitrogen fixation or nitrification. Nitrate, which is soluble in water, is washed down by rain. Electrical discharge also aids in the fixation of other elements such as sulfur, phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium into soluble compounds.

Lightning occurs every second in any place of the earth, maintaining the earth’s supply of these and other life-giving compounds. Not only green plants benefit from these natural fertilizers, but also phytoplankton (microscopic one-celled plants) - and the lowly mushroom whose vegetative stage is but some cottony mass of mycelia enmeshed in decomposing media such as plant residues. With nitrate and other nutrients now available, coupled with favorable conditions of the environment, the saprophyte transforms into its reproductive phase. This is the mushroom we are familiar with – umbrella-like and fleshy. In all its luxuriance and plenty, it is not unusual to discover clusters or hills of mushrooms in just a single spot.

2. Aligning plants along the sun’s path improves harvest.
Actually this principle of arranging the rows of plants on an east-to-west orientation allows better and longer sunlight exposure which enhance photosynthesis. There is less overshadowing among plants compared to north-to-south, or any direction, especially when intercropping is practiced (e.g. corn with peanut, sugarcane with mungbeans, and coconut and coffee).

3. “Eyes” of Cavendish banana sucker are removed to enhance survival.
Now this is a paradox, for how can a blind creature have a better chance to survive? But this traditional practice is not to be taken literally. Actually the eyes being referred to are the developing buds on the sucker which is the equivalence of tiller. The scientific explanation is that, these young buds grow fast and compete with the transplanted sucker, drawing out the nutrients it needs. Thus “blinding” is actually aborting the buds, which appear like eyes on closer look. (Note: This practice is done only to Cavendish (bongolan or tumok variety, and not to other banana varieties.)

4. Farm animals grow faster with music, so with certain plants.
In a holding pen in Lipa, Batangas, where newly arrived heifers from Australia were kept, the head rancher related to us, his guests, the role of music in calming the animals. “We have to acclimatize them first before dispersing them to the pasture and feedlot.” He pointed at the sound system playing melodious music. In the duration of touring the place I was able to pick up the music of Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven and Bach. It is like being in a high rise office in Makati where pipe-in music is played to add to pleasant ambiance of working. Scientists believe that the effect of music on humans has some similarity to animals, and most probably to plants.

Which brings us to the observation of a winemaker in Vienna. A certain Carlo Cagnozzi has been piping Mozart music to his grapevines for the last five years. He claims that playing round the clock to his grapes has a dramatic effect. “It ripens them faster,” he said, adding that it also keeps away parasites and birds. Scientists are now studying this claim to enlarge the very limited knowledge on the physiological and psychological effects of music.

Once I asked a poultry raiser in Teresa, Rizal, who also believes in music therapy. “The birds grow faster and more eggs are produced,” he said. “In fact music has stopped cannibalism.” I got the same positive response from cattle raisers where the animals are tied to their quarters until they are ready for market. “They just doze off, even when they are munching,” he said, adding that tension and unnecessary movement drain the animals, wasting feeds that would otherwise improve daily weight gain. In a report from one of the educational TV programs, loud metallic noise stimulates termites to eat faster, and therefore create more havoc.

There is one warning posed by the proponents of music therapy. Rough and blaring music agitates the adrenalin in the same way rock music could bring down the house.

5. Corn yield increases by decapitating the standing crop. (detasseling)
Detasseling or removal of the male flower of the standing corn plant reduces the chances of corn borers (Pyrausta nobilales and Heliothes armigera) infestation by almost one-half. Detasseling is done when one-half to three-fourths of the tassel has emerged. Pulling out the tassel or cutting it at the base of the peduncle does it. This technique has been found effective when performed to 75 percent of the plants or in three to every four corn rows. This means that only one-fourth of the corn population is needed to complete pollination, thus detasseling at this level does not significantly affect pollination, on the other hand, it increases yield.

Farmers know plant physiology, a major subject in botany and agriculture.

6. Jackfruit or nangka may bear fruits under the ground.
Olfactory sense leads one to a nangka tree (Artocarpus integra) in search of the characteristic aroma, and finding none on its trunk and branches, he thinks the spirits must be playing tricks on him. But wait. What is beneath the bulging earth at the base of the tree?

What a discovery – an underground fruit! It is sweeter than the normal fruit. This is a rare example of a metamorphosed root – a root capable of producing flowers and subsequent fruits, which is indeed a rare botanical phenomenon.

7. Leaves of madre de cacao or kakawate hasten the ripening of fruits.
Old folks use fresh leaves of Gliricida sepium to ripen banana, papaya, mango, chico, guyabano, atis, avocado, and others. The fruits are placed in an earthen jar lined with kakawate leaves. The jar is closed or inverted in order to trap the ethylene gas that catalyses the softening of pectin and the conversion of complex to simple sugar that results in ripening which takes around three days. Unlike the commercial method of using carbide (carburo), kakawate ripened fruits, as long as they were picked at proper maturity, develop natural taste, color and aroma as if they were ripened on the tree.

8. Mungo seeds that remain hard even after cooking are attributed to bad spirits.
You may have already experienced this situation. While enjoying your favorite dish of “mungo with pork and ampalaya leaves,” all of a sudden you find yourself grimacing with pain after biting a stone-hard mungo seed!

Blame it to no one, but the lazy canny farmer who, instead of harvesting only the mature mungo pods, uprooted the whole plant. The hardened seeds come from immature pods mixed with the mature seeds. The starch in the immature pod has been locked up and hardened during drying, making it difficult to soften even under prolonged cooking.

As a matter of information, mungo or mungbean (Phaseolus radiatus) is the counterpart of soybean in the tropics for its high nutritive value and many uses. It can be made into flour, sotanghon (noodles), lumpia, togue (sprouts), hopia, curds, and many more products.

9. Catch a monkey with young coconut (buko).
Bore a small hole into a young coconut (buko), about an inch in diameter, or just enough for the monkey to insert its hands with outstretched fingers into the nut. Hang the nut among the trees where monkeys abound. A monkey comes around, inserts its hand into the hole. Once its hand reaches the inside of the nut, it scoops the flesh into a tight fist. By so doing its hand gets stuck inside the nut. The monkey will not release his hold so as to be able escape. Now it is the trapper’s move. It is also one for the fable.

10. It’s the male seahorse that gets pregnant.
Many have not actually seen a seahorse. Well, a seahorse or Hippocampus (sea-monster horse) is a fish sheathed in tough parchment-like cuirass of bony plate. During courtship the bride transfers the eggs she has created into her husband’s brood pouch, up to 250 to 300 brick-red eggs, each one fertilized at the instant of transfer. With her marital duties over, she swims away free from care.

Alone the father seahorse nourishes the nestling for approximately 45 days in his steadily swelling incubator chamber making him appear pregnant. At the end of the period it ejects a ball containing the tiny colts which dart out from it in all directions.

It may be for this reason that the Chinese believe in the aphrodisiac power of the seahorse. In ancient times seahorse steeped in wine was regarded as a violent poison, but the ashes of a seahorse taken with honeyed vinegar, according to Pliny, was used to cure baldness, hot flashes, skin eruptions, and regarded as powerful antidote of poisons and bite of mad dog. ~

INVITATION: If you have Strange But True Cases in Nature, kindly share them with us through the Comments of this Post. Thank you. AVR. ~