Nature's Disaster Signal - Ants in Exodus

Nature's Disaster Signal - Ants in Exodus

Ants as a colony move to higher and safe ground at an impending typhoon or flood.  They can sense the coming of a disaster which old folks relied on since very early times. The workers carry the larvae and pupae, and food store, to the new place where the colony is re-established.  Mass evacuation is often mistaken for swarming. Swarming is a seasonal phenomenon when soldier and worker ants become sexually active, grow wings and take off into the air on one summer evening at the onset of the rainy season or monsoon, and mate with other members of other colonies, in a sort of orgy.  Pairing results, and new pairs move to new places where they start their own colonies.  

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature School on Blog 

Ants on the run carrying their eggs and young to seek shelter in a safe place is one of the biological warnings which helped our ancestors prepare for an incoming disaster like flood and typhoon. (Photos by the author on his backyard, QC) 

Ants in Exodus

I stand between bible and history,
fiction and true story;
satellite and pheromone, 
under the sun and the moon;
man's kingdom and nature's wisdom;
Solomon's army and column of ants,
in prosperity and many wants,
ignorance and knowledge
learned from field and college. ~

LESSON on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio 
738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

Bring Nature home on a mural - and invite the children

"We don’t inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." Native American proverb

We must teach our children to smell the earth, to taste the rain, to touch the wind, to see things grow, to hear the sun rise and night fall – to care. ~ John Cleal

Dr Abe V Rotor

Floor-to-wall mural by the author

at his residence San Vicente, Ilocos Sur 

                                  Encourage your kids to look for

nature everywhere you go.

It’s the weed breaking through the pavement,

It’s the leaves forming small

clumps along the side of the road. 

It’s the sky at any given time 

of the day or night. 

It’s the wind doing what it 

Likes to your hair. 

Look around, it won’t take long to find it.” 

~Penny Whitehouse

"Children the world over have a right to a childhood filled with beauty, joy, adventure, and companionship. They will grow toward ecological literacy if the soil they are nurtured in is rich with experience, love, and good examples. ”Alan Dyer

“As children observe, reflect, record, and share nature’s patterns and rhythms, they are participating in a process that promotes scientific and ecological awareness, problem solving, and creativity.” ~Deb Matthews Hensley

“As a child, one has that magical capacity to move among the many eras of the earth; to see the land as an animal does; to experience the sky from the perspective of a flower or a bee; to feel the earth quiver and breathe beneath us; to know a hundred different smells of mud and listen unselfconsciously to the soughing of the trees.” ~Valerie Andrews

"Children are born with a sense of wonder and an affinity for nature. Properly cultivated, these values can mature into ecological literacy, and eventually into sustainable patterns of living.” ~Zenobia Barlow

“Teach children to be kind to everything that lives.” ~Unknown

         

“Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life. ~John Muir

            

“Let Nature be your teacher.” ~ William Wordsworth

It’s a wondrous thing how the wild calms a child.”  Unknown

“If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder … he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it, rediscovering with him the joy, excitement, and mystery of the world we live in.” ~ Rachel Carson

“Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.” ~ John Muir

"The best education does not happen at a desk, but rather engaged in everyday living – hands on, exploring, in active relationship with life.” ~ Vince Gowman

“Anything you teach in an indoor classroom can be taught outdoors, often in ways that are more enjoyable for children.” ~ Cathy James

“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.” ~John Lubbock

“Passion is lifted from the earth itself by the muddy hands of the young; it travels along grass-stained sleeves to the heart. If we are going to save environmentalism and the environment, we must also save an endangered indicator species: the child in nature.” ~ Richard Louv

“Children have a natural affinity towards nature. Dirt, water, plants, and small animals attract and hold children’s attention for hours, days, even a lifetime.”~Robin C. Moore and Herb H Wong

Nature is a tool to get children to experience not just the wider world, but themselves.” ~ Stephen Moss

“A child’s world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood.” ~Rachel Carson

“Children are born naturalists. They explore the world with all of their senses, experiment in the environment, and communicate their discoveries to those around them.” ~The Audubon Nature Preschool

Acknowledgement

50 Inspirational Quotes About Children and Nature

By pawhitehouse (Internet)

Highest Waterfall in our Dream

Highest Waterfall

A waterfall the highest I've ever  seen,

not in the highest places I've been, 

the Cordillera, Mount Pulag, the Rockies,

 save in the imagination of artists.

But where is the sky, watershed, river, 

children lilting under its shower? 

complete and perfect it may all seem,  

where it lies in our sweet dream.

Dr Abe V Rotor

"Where cloud, fog and mist condense, falling, falling, falling..." 

glass painting in acrylic (approx 1.5' x 6') by AV Rotor, 2009 ~

A wall mural on Nature comes alive with children

A wall mural on Nature comes alive with children
- and grown-ups, too. 

Composite Mural Painting and Quotations by Dr Abe V Rotor

"To a baby Nature is a beautiful world,

as pristine as he is innocent and pure."
  

"To the very young, 
Nature is a bud in spring 
that grows into a crown, 

and flowers to bejewel it." 

                              

"The age of make believe,

 is incongruous as it may appear,

with curiosity riding fantasy."

"Boys in a row all eager to discover the world,

give them not the computer, but a boat to row"

 

 "Adolescents at the boundary of childhood and  the real world -

one fashioned by man, the other, only by Nature." 

 "Closest to the heart is the will - 
will the prime mover of action -
action in pursuit of dream."

   "Girth is the measure of age of a tree, 

growing to the fullest 

with the least intervention of man

 - or none at all."

"Wonder the child, wonder the hornbill;

who have not really seen each other before."

"Living with nature by a wall mural builds memories -   

memories into archives if we fail to preserve nature."   

"However perfect an image is, it is but a piece of art;
 life has no replica in man's hand."

 

"Imagination is more powerful than reason, 

for it has wings that split light not into black and white, 

but into the beautiful colors of the rainbow." 

"There is no generation or diversity gap in nature; 

nature is one roof under which organisms - 

including man -  are knitted by their own life cycles

that form a dynamic order and network."

"A moment of rest by a stream on grass under the trees,

recharges a tired soul like a whole night's sleep." 

"From a cave opens a world of our ancestors;

beyond, their dreams - and the future of mankind."

"Love is primal, love is sweet;

and sweeter still with nature."

Therapy with Plants

Therapy with Plants 

Dr Abe V Rotor

Living with Nature - School on Blog

How many things plants give us, let us count the ways:
they provide leisure that breaks the monotony of living,
cool our surroundings and freshen the air we breath,
they provide shelter and company, they talk and sing.

Find time, go to the green world, the fields and mountains,
down the valley, along the stream, under a large tree,
unload your worries and cares, even for just a day,
free yourself and cease to be rue and unhappy.

Pick the fruits before they fall, wonder at the leaves, too
in autumn, just as you wonder at the buds in spring;
how they reach for the sky, their roots deep and spreading,
if they enjoy this freedom, what else are we missing?

 

                       Wonder on the secret of jackfruit or nangka, biggest fruit in 

                      the world, and one of the most prolific orchard trees.  

 Harvesting cowpea

                           

Propagating bamboo by cuttings   

On-the spot painting in a botanical garden; playing in a bamboo grove. 

                          

 Getting to know the Papyrus, material of the first paper in Ancient Egypt. 

                                   

 Measuring the girth of a big tree

          

Studying plants the scientific way. ~


UST Botanical Garden. On-the-spot painting in acrylic by the author, circa 2005

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday

Corona Virus Model

An artist's interpretation of the COVID-19 Nobel Corona Virus 

Like Frankenstein monster once craved

love and home its creator denied;

the monster today in our midst revived,

returning into a pandemic tide.

By Dr Abe V Rotor

Menacing thorns of cherry tree (Flacourtia jangomas) represent the deadly spikes of the  Nobel Corona Virus causing the current COVID-19 pandemic. (Table Model by AV Rotor).  

Top view of the table model  ~

New Home "Over the Rainbow" at Down Under

A LETTER OF VON VOYAGE  TO AUSTRALIA

 Family photo 2019

Hello Mackie! Hello Markus!

Your Lola and I wish you both, so with your Daddy and Mommy, “Happy Trip to Australia.” We wish you “Good Luck!” and pray to God to guide you in your new country and home.

Your dream-come-true is perhaps the biggest event in your life, individually and as a family. It is a challenge you have to face, and there is no turning back. The future is over the horizon, or shall we say, like in the song, “over the rainbow.”

Do the best you can with determination, perseverance, dedication, love and unity – and never give up. You are pioneers, and these words have guided pioneers before you succeed in realizing life’s goal, more so, its meaning. So too, with you – and the test is probably greater at this time the world is unprecedentedly changing with the current pandemic crisis, and its ramifications.

How we wish we are with you, as we have always been together. There have been many trials we have gone through, but this time the game is mainly yours, and we must say, it is not without a difficult test.

But we are confident you will succeed. We know that the foundation in life you built with us through the years is broad and strong. And you can build an edifice, if not a monument, that speaks of joy, success, glory. But these are measures often used in motherhood statements; they must be imbibed in growing up for you children, and in growing old for their guardians, including us your Lolo and Lola who regard each day a bonus in our old age.

We dream of travelling to Australia once you have settled down. Your Lola and I hope we’ll still be strong to travel and do some chores, and for me to write and paint. And we hope your cousins and other relatives could do the same. Life, people say, is more beautiful the second time around. Gleaming over the Internet your new home is promisingly a place of beauty, adventure and respite. Of course, akin to the many beautiful things in the Philippines, the home of your birth and early childhood.

Someday you will visit us, too, especially in our ancestral home in San Vicente, and in Lagro where you grew up. We shall continue to improve and maintain them. They are still your “home, sweet home” and the simple comfort and amenities will be there awaiting your visit – or vacation which we missed earlier this year.

Indeed, the world is a village. The world has virtually shrunk and wired all around, and it seems to be moving on its two feet – one of travel and the other, communication. Both are precursors of the good life brought by progress in which we became vulnerable and obliging victims to this crisis. Now we have reached a crossroad. The world is on a standstill on the adage, “Stop, look and listen.” This is where humanity and the whole world are presently trapped.

You’ll understand more of life as you grow up. Be optimistic and take things positively, however difficult they may seem. You may not be able to change the world, as in Evan Almighty. God in that film said to Evan, “Yes, you did. You have a happy family, and you gave a lost dog a home.”

We wish you the best of everything. ~

Lolo Abe and Lola Cecille

A Glimpse on Family Life of Dr AV Rotor, with children and grandchildren

(Inset: Ulirang Ama Awarding ceremony, June 19, 2019)  ~

Living with Nature Garden plants in their common and scientific names and families

Living with Nature Garden

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur

Partial List of plants in their common and scientific names 

and family to which each plant species or variety belongs. 

Not alphabetically arranged and classified as to type of 

growth and other botanical characteristics, June 12, 2023

Dr Abe V Rotor

University of Northern Philippines students visit the LWN Garden

1.  Achiote or Annatto – Bixa orellana - Bixaceae

2.     Alagaw – Premna odorata - Lamiaceae

3.     Anahao -  Saribus rotundifolius - Caryophyllaceae

4.     Apatot – Morinda littoralis/citrifolia - Rubiaceae

5.     Arios – Podocarpus costalis - Gymnospermae

6.     Balete - Ficus benjamina - Moraceae

7.     Bird’s Nest fern – Asplenium nidus - Aspleniaceae

8.     Bougainvillea – Bougainvillea spectabilis Nyctaginaceae

9.     Bromeliad – Portea   spp - Bromeliaceae

10. Caballero plant – Caesalpinia pulcherrima - Fabaceae

11. Caimito – Crysophyllum cainito - Sapotaceeae    

12. Calamansi – Citrus macrocarpa - Rutaceae

13. Chico – Achras (Sapodilla) zapota - Sapotaceae

14. Chinese Bamboo – Bambusa multiplex - Poaceae

15. Coconut – Cocos nucifera - Arecaceae

16. Creeping Fig – Ficus pumila - Moraceae 

17. Cyperus – C. papyrus Cyperaceae

18. Dalandan – Citrus decumana - Rutaceae

19.  Duhat – Syzygium cumini – Myrtaceae

20.  False Bird of Paradise – Heliconia psittacorum – Heliconiaceae

21. Giant Bamboo – Dedrocalamus giganteus - Poaceae

22. Giant Thorny Bamboo – Bambusa bambos Poaceae

23. Aplas - Ficus hawili - Moraceae

24. Kalachuchi – Plumeria rubra/ P alba   Apocynaceae

25. Ilang-ilang – Cananga odorata - Annonaceae

26. Makopa – Eugenia jambalana - Myrtaceae

27.  Mayana - Coleus blumei - Lamiaceae

28.  Red Anthurium – A. andraeanum - Araceae   

29.  Sanggumay – Dendrobium anosmum Orchidaceae

30.  Bromeliad – Guzmania spp. Bromeliaceae

31.  Gumamela – Hibiscus rosa-sinensis Malvaceae

32.  Maguey – Agave cantala – Asparagaceae (sub-F Agavoideae)

33.    Mahogany - Swietinia macrophylla - Meliaceae

34. Strangler’s Fig (balete) Ficus benjamina - Moraceae

35. Molave – Vitex parviflora  - Verbenaceae

36. Narra – Pterocarpus indicus - Dipterocarpaceae

37. White Lauan – Shorea contorta - Dipterocarpaceae

38. Bitaog - Calophyllum inophyllum– Calophyllaceae

39.   Bikal Bamboo – Schizostachyum dielsianum - Poaceae

40.   Staghorn Fern – Platycerium bifurcatum - Polypodiaceae

41. Oak fern – Gymnocarpium dryopteris - Cystopteridaceae

42. Balimbing – Averrhoa bilimbi -Oxalidaceae  

43.   Tubang Bakod – Jatropha curcas - Euphorbiaceae

44. Jatropha (coral plant) – Jatropha podagrica/multifida - Euphorbiaceae

45. Castor bean – Ricinus communis - Euphorbiacae  

46. Calamansi – Citrus microcarpa - Rutaceae

47. Sampalok – Tamarindus indica – Ceasalpiniaceae

48. Banaba – Lagerstroemia speciosa - Lythraceae

49. Golden Shower – Cassia fistula - Fabaceae

50. Lobster’s Claw plant – Heliconia rostata - Heliconiaceae

51. Soro-soro – Euphorbia neriifolia - Euphorbiaceae

52. Buntot Tigre – Cordyline roxburghiana - Agaveceae 

53. Barbados Cherry – Malphighia emarginata

54. Kamachili – Pithecolobium dulce - Fabaceae

55. Pandakaki – Tabernaemontana pandakaqui - Apocynaceae

56. Pandan – Pandanus amaryllifolius - Pandanaceae

57. Mahogany – Swietenia macrophylla - Meliaceae

58. Maiden Hair Fern – Adriatum raddianum - Pteridaceae

59. Lantana plant – Lantana camara - Verbenaceae

60. Nangka – Artocarpus heterophyllus - Moraceae

61.   Philodendron – P. melanochrysum

62.   Indian Mast Tree – Polyalthia longifolia

63. Fishtail palm – Caryota mitis - Arecaceae

64. Shanghai Beauty – Jatropha integerrima - Euphorbiaceae

65. Selaginella – S, lepidophylla/braunii - Selaginellaceae

66. Tsaang Gubat – Ehretia microphylla - Boraginaceae 

67. Manga – Mangifera indica - Anacardiaceae

68. Mulberry – Morus nigra - Moraceae  

69. Yellow Bell – Tecoma stans – Bignoniaceae family

70. Kamias – Averrhoa bilimbi - Oxalidaceae

71.   Forget-Me-Not – Myosotis scorpioides - Boraginaceae

72.   Rambutan – Nephelium lappaceaum  - Sapindaceae

73. Bromeliad – Portea   spp - Bromeliaceae

74. Sisal – Agave sisalana - Agavaceae

75. Thorns of Christ plant – Euphorbia milii - Euphorbiaceae

76. Mickey Mouse plant – Ochna serrulate Ochnaceae

77. Lagundi – Vitex negundo Verbenaceae

78.   Lotus – Nelumbium nelumbo Nelumbonaceae 

79.   Nymphaea – Nymphaea alba/ colorata - Nymphaeaceae

80. Santol – Sandoricum koetjape - Meliaceae

81. Tibig – Ficus nota - Moraceae

82. Fortune plant – Dracaena sanderiana - Asparagaceae
83. Gummamela - Hibiscus rosa-sinensis - Malvaceae
84. Palmera – Borassus flabellifer - Araceae
85. Talisay (Lugo’) – Terminalia catappa - Combretaceae

86. Miracle Fruit - Synsepalum dulcificum - Sapotaceae

87. Malaikmo - Celtis philippensis - Cannabaceae

88. Mabolo - Diospyros blancoi - Ebenaceae

89. Acacia - Samanea saman - Fabaceae

90. Kandaroma - Vachellia farnesiana, formerly Acacia farnesiana - Fabaceae.