Our Own Beach Drama

One Saturday, I was at home in the province, i decided to be at the beach to document our sunrise.  Somehow it gets shameful that i have been going to other far places just for the sunrise and sunsets. Sometimes it takes long hours, many transport vehicles and much more funds just to see them. I truly wonder why i haven't been to our own beach to be familiar with it, and the beauty it shows to those who are willing to see.

I really admit, it was indeed a shame I watched this only for the first time! A mere 3km separate us from this shore. We are facing the east coast. When you are in your own bed, to take a bath and changing your house clothes seem very difficult tasks. It took many sunrises and sunsets from many places before I fully decided to be familiar with our own place. At least it is not yet too late.

 I arrived here at around 5:30 a.m., just in time for the sunrise. There are still some electric lights in the horizon.

In a few minutes, the sun peeped through near the mountain on the left. During the dry season the sun is normally at that position. At some point throught the year the sun can be at the extreme right of the mountain at the right. 

The sun rises fast and i have to be quick, left and right, far and near i clicked. I have two cameras and they come really handy. However, i didn't have time for a long exposure shot. I am tempted to just sit in there and absorb all the moments without looking at the viewfinder. 

You will never ran out of subjects and frames even if you remain at your position. Just look right and left and keep on clicking. This is to the right showing Maricaban Island at the horizon. You wont believe me, i haven't been there, a mere 40 minutes away. Two small rock promontories at the distance provide the name of the place, Pulang Bato meaning Red Rock. 

Up close the colorfull stones are very interesting. The reds and browns reveal the iron deposits under our areas, maybe even under our houses and farms. They come in different concentrations showing as different degree of colors on the stones. This might not be a very good beach for swimming because of the rocky shore, but the colors suffice for the inconvenience. Other stone colors reveal the previous volcano activities throughout our history, and others are coral fossils. No stones are alike in this shore.

 A broken rock shows the iron filling as reddish brown pattern. I have to find a geologist to explain to me these findings.

Pulang Bato, we call this place. Those two rocks on the water are previously colored just like that on the right cliff, but oxidation and exposure to the elements got them black. The cliff remains fresh as erosion goes on continuously. When we were kids, those are still close together near the cliff and we can still pass to the other side of the cove during low tide. These days, water could really have risen, nobody can go through that way anymore.

A few minutes later it is already hot, and motorized boats begin to pass by.  Heat starts to get through the skin so i started to prepare for home.

 But then, looking up at the west sky there among the weeds is the moon. Oh My God, can i resist that! I cannot even change for a longer lens, it is already very hot at 7:00am.

I guess, a continuation of this will be done for the other shoots i made with the details. Part II here i come. Please bear with me.

Nature Notes

Watery Wednesday

Natural Leaf Calligraphy

I am taking photos of my hippeastrum which sent a scape so early even if the dry season has just started. It normally flowers after the first heavy rains in May or if it has suffered a long dry season and got a little watering. I asked my sister if she watered it, and yes she did.

I did not post the full photo as my my objective in posting is for the macro shot. I can make different figures from the outcome of the weeds below. Can you discern yours? To me it looks like some Chinese or Jappanese calligraphy, but because i don't know how to read any of them, i pass the reading to anyone of you who does.

Macro Monday Too

Nature Notes

Ruby Tuesday Too

I Heart Macro 

Dry Season Blooms

I am again lost with so many things that i, as usual, forget the date again. It is 15th of the month and i need to show some of the flowers and plants in our area that is now already experiencing so much heat even if the dry season is just starting. The flowers here look like they are fine, but if you will see the total garden it looks very chaotic and wanting. Water is needed so badly, which we cannot provide. Only the hoyas are getting the big share of the water, while those planted on the ground get some recycled water from the kitchen.

Nevertheless, good photo angles and good light hid the total picture of the total garden. And that is the job of the photographer, to please the eyes of the readers. I hope i can do that with the series of photos i am showing here now! Tell me what you think and thanks for telling me the truth!

Hoya diversifolia at different stages of flower development. I planted a plant each at different conditions, 1 in a pot and the 2nd i allowed to climb a lanzones tree. That in the pot flowered earlier but it only flowers once a year. That on the lanzones tree almost conquers the canopy now, and it doesn't stop flowering since August last year. My only problem is the difficulty of looking up and the impossibility of getting photos. At the lower left is the example. Some leafless stems just hang in there and produce consecutive umbels. They are so beautiful, but i will aim for more stems hanging, at the moment there are just two.   

       

Above right photo is a Hoya carnosa with 20 umbels in one plant, also at different stages of development. The scent is lovely too, and even just one plant with such prolific tendency can give total delight to the gardener/owner.              

Hoya diversifolia in full bloom

a pair of Hoya mindorensis

another pair of a still NOID species, with 2 peduncles arising from the same node

 i am not sure if this is also a Justicia plant, but it is very colorful too

 the very heat and dry tolerant Turnera subulata provides insects with their food

this Euphorbia millii is the most dry and heat resistant species in our garden, and very red

Some orchids even when neglected and not even watered still try to bloom. Maybe that is their intention to save their species, but by giving me such lovely flowers i will be forced to give them back more water and attention.

This is a native to the country and usually give strands of full blooms at the start of the dry season. It also has a lovely sweet scent for humans. However, it is just starting giving me only one flower in one stem. But when going solo it attracts more attention.

This Dendrobium hybrid doesn't want to be left out. Every stem gave spikes that collectively provides a nice attraction, both for humans and insects.

Lastly, this Impatiens balsamina has a lot of sisters around, trying to bloom even if the plants are having very difficult trying times. This one just lives near the kitchen, so gets some few glassful of water discharges. Everybody throws it a few sips, and it returns to us the favor. 

I hope i can still give a few blooms next month, at the height of our hellish dry season. If i cannot do that, i still have some foliage which will suffice for a post. Thank you for dropping by and letting me know how you feel. 

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day

Floral Friday Fotos

My rubies are coming back

These hippeastrum has not yet been flowering with me. I have only three bulbs from an exchange out of the country.  They have not been cared for well because we don't have the good place for them. We have animal pets around us that also sometimes walk on them like chickens, cats, dogs, goat kids.  Sometimes those bamboo fences are not enough barriers to keem them away. Moreover, we have shortage of water during the dry season that my plants have to sacrifice.

A few weeks back i just saw a broken scape emerging from the weeds. I don't know if a pet was there, or maybe mother was not able to see it when she went there sometimes. It reminded me that some bulbs are in those pots, forgotten for sometime. So i watched them during weekends i am home, and my sister put a trellis for the scape. She also watered them. And i was rewarded during the Holy Week Holidays, some are already spent, but some are still lovely.

 A bulb produced 3 scapes while the other got only 2, because one was cut and aborted earlier. Each scape have 4 blooms, and the 2 scapes bloomed simultaneously. I am so pleased.

 The third scape bloomed when the first 2 are almost spent. Their colors make a happy sight for a garden, mostly monopolized by the green background.

The throat is light green, radiating sidewards to the center of the petals. It gives a lovely color contrast too.

Even the back of the flowers are lovely too, the above looks like undulating and swaying with the winds.

Above are the reproductive parts of the flower; the stigma and style, the anther containing the pollen and the filament. I love how the stigma divides into 3 arms, purposely to easily capture the pollen. I wonder how the dark margin helps the anther, or if it has a physiological purpose.

This is the 3rd scape, developing after the 2 scapes are almost spent. So there will be the available red presence in the garden for a longer time. Next weekend they might not be there anymore, but i hope my pollinated flowers all get fertilized, so i can harvest some seeds in a few months. 

Ruby Tuesday Too

Macro Monday 2