I asked God for more

I asked God for more

                                                 Dr Abe V Rotor

Virgin Forest: only 3 percent is left in the Philippines. 

Requiem to a forest, Brooke's Point, Palawan

I asked God for food, clothing and shelter

     and He showered me

these necessities I can not live without -

     they are the Earth's bounty;

I settled down on fertile hills and valleys

     and multiplied freely.

I asked God for power to boost my strength,

     and He gave me energy;

I leveled the mountains, dammed the rivers

     and conquered the sea;

raped the forests, prairies, lakes and estuaries,

     a world I wanted to be.

I asked God if I can be god, too, all knowing

     with my technology;

broke the sacred code of life and of matter,

     changed the Great Story;

annihilated life unfit in my own design,

     and set my own destiny.

I asked God if He is but a creation of the mind,

     and rose from my knee;

probed space, rounding up the universe,

     aiming at immortality;

bolder than ever, searching for another home,

     and wanting to be free. ~

Please eat the flowers

 Please eat the flowers

Dr Abe V Rotor

Banana Blossom (Puso ng saging)

Bagbagkong

Himbaba-o or Alokong

Cauliflower

Staminate flowers of Squash (Kalabasa)

Flower vegetables are nutritious. They go well with many recipes - from salad to bulanglang.

Puso ng saging is high in tannin and it's good for diabetic patients. It can be an extender of expensive meat burgers. No kari-kari is without banana blossom. Pesang dalag is best with puso ng saging cut in chunks. Ginatang puso ng saging, anyone? When I was a kid, I love to eat the inner heart raw. It tastes like artichoke.

Squash flowers are high in carotin. It improves eyesight and prevents blindness. It is excellent with saluyot when cooking bulanglang or diningding. Add fresh mushroom. The best sahug when you are in the countryside is freshwater shrimp. If you have no problem with cholesterol, why not use as sahug bagnet (lechon kawali) from Vigan.

Alokong is a staminate or male flower which is gathered from the male tree. The female tree does not produce edible flowers. Because the tree is very tall, gatherers take the short cut of cutting the branches and take immature flowers and buds as well. Try buridibud by mashing kamote to thicken the soup. A unique recipe of Ilocanos is to combine alokong and malunggay pods in juvenile or succulent stage, and add broiled hito or bangos as sahug.

Katuray flower is blanched and served with tomato and a dash of salt. It is good for people who have elevated blood pressure. It is cooked the way alokong is prepared with kamote and sahug of fried or broiled bangos, hito or tilapia.

Another flower vegetable comes from madre de cacao or kakawate which blooms in summer. The flowers are our local counterpart of cherry blossom. Open the pot when it comes to a boil to reduce the characteristic bean taste.

Sampalok or tamarind flowers are gathered for sinigang. Malunggay flowers which include newly formed pods are cooked the same way as any bulanglang.

Cauliflower and broccoli are perhaps the most popular commercial vegetable flowers. They belong to Family Cruciferae. They grow on semi temperate and temperate countries, although they are grown in the tropics during the cool months. One disadvantage of Crucifers is that they are the most sprayed of all vegetables, and are likely to carry chemical residues hazardous to health. Cauliflower and broccoli are also among the most expensive vegetables. They are prepared in restaurants as chopsuey, dressing, soup, pickle and the like.

Other flower vegetables come from the following plants:

• Okra
• Spinach
• Kutchai
• Onion
• Garlic
• Daylily
• Artichoke
• Zucchini
• Endive
• Cucumber
• Lettuce
• Gumamela
• Anis

Flowers are not only for decoration and offering. Other than their aesthetic value, they are delicious, nutritious and unique.

Please eat the flowers. ~

Lesson on former Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class Monday to Friday

Reference - Living with Nature Handbook, AVRotor; acknowledgment, cauliflower photo (Wikipedia, Google)

An Evening Guest - A Giant House Spider!

An Evening Guest - A Giant House Spider! 

                                  Dr Abe V Rotor

My granddaughter, Mackie, then 7 years old, sketched on the wall in our family house, f an imaginary figure with the features of a spider and a starfish.  That was before the pandemic.  It was also her last visit before her family moved to Australia. One evening a house spider came crawling on the wall and stopped for some time over  the unique figure.   

In my room one peaceful evening came a spider.
Welcome, gladly I said, as it paused for a moment
on drawings on the wall my grand daughter made,
its legs tapping a message for whatever it meant.

Ah, you are an artist too, I guessed, as it moved
along and across swiftly I thought it would fall,
Instead it embraced a make-believe companion;
I looked into this creature a mirror on the wall.

          More than fairy tale I saw a world beyond my own,
         the unity of reality and imagination, the promise 
         of a child's vision, the beautiful nature of creation,
         oneness in the deeper understanding of peace.

Giant house spider (Aratigena africa) is also known as Wolsey spider (Tegenaria parietina), sometimes referred to as Cardinal spider, named after Cardinal Wolsey during the time of Henry VIII of England. Giant house spiders have been recently classified under genus Aratigena.

Ten Songs of the Violin

 Ten Songs of the Violin 

Dr Abe V Rotor

I love the violin.  It is not only music that it creates, it conveys the thoughts, feelings and soul of the player. And playing not only to himself, but to the whole world.

1. It is Vivaldi’s violin that brings into our living room the Four Seasons at any time of the year;

2. It is Beethoven’s symphony he wrote for Napoleon, whom he revered so much, but at the end, changed his dedication of the piece to the French people; 

This is the violin I played in my elementary and high school days. It's a 1776 Guadagnini violin made in Czechoslovakia. I still play on it today with my children and grandchildren. 

3. It is the violin which mimics the sound of Nature - lambs, stream flowing, cows on the meadow, and the distant thunder, all put into one beautiful composition - Pastoral;

4. It is the violin that accompanies perfectly the song of the Nightingale, the masterpiece of Andrei Rieu, which he adapted from Enrico Tosseli’s Serenade, reversing its theme of "Regret" to one that is happy as the Nightingale bird that sings in the night.

5. It is the violin with organ accompaniment that literally brings down to earth God, His saints and angels in Michelangelo’s Sistine chapel.

6. It is the violin that gives the peak of ascendancy in the world’s greatest religious chorus Alleluia by Frederick Handel. 

7. It is the violin that captures the ultimate in musical dexterity of Paganini; and the sensual appeal in Ravel’s Bolero. 

8. It is our own Redentor Romero’s (PHOTO) playing the violin that brought pride to the Philippines while conducting the world’s famous Philharmonic Orchestra in New York.

9. It is also our own Kabayao who skillfully translated with the violin Filipino compositions into immortal classics. Gilopez Kabayao has been honored worldwide for his violin virtuosity and using his and his family's musical gifts to touch the lives of people.

10. It is Requiem Mozart wrote for a strange visitor in the night who never returned, and at Mozart’s death the music became his own requiem. ~

 

Seed

Seed

Dr Abe V Rotor

Seed, It's Time to Wake Up, acrylic painting by AV Rotor

Wake up

For the sun, sleeping one.

The soil is fertile, the rains have come,

Make the field bloom

To Feed Mankind.

Wake up

Stir my whole being,

My life, my intellect, my faith,

That they, too, shall blossom

To serve mankind.

Terms given to groups of animals to capture their unique qualities

Terms given to groups of animals to capture their unique qualities

Dr Abe V Rotor

A flock of birds

A colony of ants

Here is a long list of terms given to groups of animals.

1. A COLONY of ants
2. An ARMY of ants
3. A STATE or SWARM of ants
4. A HERD of asses
5. A DROVE of asses.
6. A TROOP of baboons
7. A CONGRESS of baboons
8. A COLONY of bacteria
9. A CULTURE of bacteria
10. A BATTERY of barracudas

11. (A BATTERY of lawyers)
12. A SHOAL of bass
13. A COLONY of bats
14. A CLOUD of bats
15. A SLOTH or SLEUTH of bears
16. A COLONY of beavers
17. A FAMILY of beavers
18. A GRIST, HIVE, SWARM of bees
19. A CLUSTER or NEST of bees
20. A FLOCK or FLIGHT of birds.

21. A POD of birds (small flock)
22. A VOLARY of birds (in an aviary)
23. A BRACE (a pair of game birds or waterfowls)
24. A DROVE of bullocks
25. A KALEIDOSCOPE of butterflies
26. A FLUTTER of butterflies
27. A RAINBOW of butterflies
28. A CARAVAN, FLOCK or TRAIN of camels
29. An ARMY of caterpillars
30. A HERD, DROVE or DRIFT of cattle.

31. A MOB of cattle (US and Australia)
32. A POUNCE of cats
33. A KINDLE, LITTER OR INTRIGUE (for kittens)
34. A BROOD, FLOCK, RUN or PEEP of chicken
35. A CLUTCH OR CHATTERING of chicks
36. A HERD of cows
37. A KINE of cows (12 cows are a FLINK)
38. A PACK of coyotes
39. A TRAIN of coyotes
40. A BAND of coyotes

41. A ROUT of coyotes
42. A HERD, SEIGE or SEDGE* of cranes
43. A CAST of crabs
44. A CONGREGATION or NEST of crocodiles
45. A BASK or FLOAT of crocodiles.
46. A HOVER, MUSTER, or PARCEL of crows.
47. A MURDER of crows
48. A HORDE of crows
49. A PARLIAMENT of owls
50. A LITTER of cubs

51. A TROOP of dogfish
52. A PACK (wild dogs) or KENNEL of dogs
53. A LITTER of puppies
54. A FLIGHT or DOLE of doves
55. A TEAM, FLIGHT or FLOCK* of wild ducks in flight
56. A CONVOCATION of eagles
57. A CONGREGATION of eagles
58. An ARRAY of eels
59. A HERD or PARADE of elephants
60. A CRASH of elephants

61. A HERD of elks
62. A GANG of elks
63. A CHARM of finches
64. A SHOAL, DRAFT, NEST, SCHOOL of fish.
65. A RUN of fish in motion
66. A STAND of flamingoes
67. A FLAMBOYANCE of flamingoes
68. A CLOUD, HATCH or SWARM of flies
69. A SKULK of foxes
70. A CLOUD, TROOP or COMPANY of foxes

71. A GAGGLE or FLOCK of geese
72. A SKEIN, TEAM or WEDGE of geese (in the air)
73. A PLUMP of geese (on water)
74. A CLOUD OR HORDE of gnats
75. A FLOCK, HERD or TRIBE of goats
76. A TRIP of goats
77. A CLOUD of grasshoppers
78. A SWARM of locusts
79. A NEST of hornets
80. A SCATTERING, SEIGE or SEDGE* of herons

81. A CHARM of hummingbirds
82. A BEVY of larks
83. An EXALTATION of larks
84. An ASCENSION of larks
85. A PARTY or SCOLD of jays
86. A TROOP of lemurs
87. A SCOURGE of mosquitoes
88. A PACK or SPAN of mules
89. A WATCH of nightingales
90. An ENCHANTMENT of nightingales

91. A TEAM or YOKE of oxen
92. A DROVE or HERD of oxen
93. A BED of oysters
94. A SQUADRON of pelicans
95. A FLOCK or FLIGHT of pigeons
96. A DROVE OR STRING of ponies.
97. A NURSERY of raccoons
98. A MURDER of ravens
99. A CONSPIRACY of ravens
100. A HERD, HAREM, TRIP or ROOKERY* of seals

101. A DEN, BED, PIT or SLITHER of snakes.
102. A NEST or KNOT of snakes
103. A HOST of sparrows
104. A FLIGHT of swallows
105. A BALLET of swans
106. An AMBUSH or STREAK* of tigers
107. A COMMITTEE of vultures
108. A SCHOOL of whales
109. A HERD of whales
110. A ZEAL, HERD or DAZZLE of zebras
Acknowledgement: Thanks to Hint and Things Collective Nouns, Internet Wikipedia,