Christmas Lights

These lights look pretty right? We (my husband, my children and househelpers) made these.

I saw these colored lights hanging on a tree at my friend's yard. When I saw them, I told my husband that "we can make lights like those ourselves". And the next day, we purchased the materials we imagined to be used: chicken wire, bulb suckets, tie wires, electrical tapes, colored plastic sheets (1 meter for each 6 colors), and electrical wires.

My husband cut the chicken wire sheet into appropriate sizes (with a PVC big pipe as guide), then I helped in closing the cut sheets and shape them into cylenders. Tie wires were attached to each cylender to strengthen the frame. Buld suckets were then attached before I taped the colored plastic sheets on each frame.




Wirings were done by my husband, light bulbs were attached then we turned the lights on! Wow! Although it took us almost a week to finish all 30 pieces of light framesSeeing those colored lights was already a feeling of fulfillment.

I computed the cost of our project, it costs 50% less than similar lights sold in the stores. It's not the cost of saving that I am counting on, the most important value of that project was that the product was made by us ourselves.

It was more satisfying to know that people who pass by our house and see our colored lights appreciate them.

Huge Puppy

Here is the latest picture of our puppy - Sergio Brutos. He is only 7 months old here, but look at him, is really huge.

He is still growing bigger and taller. And I can't wait to see him on the time when he is bigger and taller than me.

What breed is he?

Great Dane, the same breed of today's tallest dog - Gibson (search for "tallest dog in the world" at Google).

What does he eat?

When he was much younger, we feed him with milk (powder milk - bear brand, alaska or nido) mixed with his dog food. After we saw an episode in Oprah about dogs (featured Gidson too), we learned that feeding your dog with dry dog food is not the best way. Oprah said indicated that raw meat is the best and the next best is feeding the dog with cooked food (similar to what we eat). So, for now, we have been feeding Sergio cooked chicken (adobo) with sliced carrots and potatoes, mixed with cooked rice. We give him Centrum vitamins too, though, his vet ( Dr. Egos) also prescribed him an appetite vitamin.

How is he treated?

Although, he is kept in his own dog hut with its own yard, most of the time, we do release him and let him run and walk outside his own domain but inside our bigger yard. He is free to go inside the house and run around inside the house. He is already familiar with what's inside the house thus he doesn't knock off anything anymore. Once he is tired of moving around, he will just lie down anywhere in the house. The one in the picture is one of his favorite places, though most of the times, he likes to lie down across our bedroom door.

Ear-cropped

Although some dog owners won't agreed to what we did, we had Sergio's ears cropped for the sole reason that we think our dog will look "tigas" with his ears cropped.

Last March 7th, we had Sergio brought to Dr. Egos' clinic for the ear-cropping operation. I have no guts to see Sergio undergo this painful operation so we left him in the clinic and just asked the secretary to inform us as soon as the dog is already ready for pick-up. We picked him up at almost 6 o'clock in the evening already. He looked so pail and still drowsy when we carried him out of the car. He slept the whole night like a baby.

Some weeks after his operation, he is now doing better. Dr. Egos prescribed him some appetizer vitamins and treated him for a minor illness when we brought Sergio to his clinic last weekend.

Today, his big nipa-hut dog house is finished. His dog house is built on our yard and it is enclosed with a fence. Sergio's new home is wide and big enough to accommodate his big frame and spacious enough for him to run around. He needs this big space for he might grow as tall as 40 inches soon.

Sergio

It’s been almost five years now that we didn’t keep real a pet dog. We had Amanda and Bruno – both great danes.

Last Christmas, we decided to get a pet dog and we still ended up choosing another great dane and we named him Sergio after Marimar’s (star of our current sopa opera) love of her life.

Finding Sergio

Last December, when the family was spending vacation in Manila, we browsed the Buy and Sell papers and found a few ads offering great dane puppies. We called each number posted in the ad and one guy we called was so friendly and we thought of checking out his puppy.

From our trip to Laguna, we dropped by Las Pinas to check out the great dane puppy. Since we are not familiar with the roads in Metro Manila, it was hard for us to find the house of the owner of the puppy. But the trip was worth it. When we saw the puppy for the first time, we fell in love with him. He was sooooo cute!

Great Dane

I really don’t know why we have special preference to great dane breeds. These kind of dogs are huge and in huge! They would grow to as tall as 31 inches high and they got huge paws that when they accidentally stump on you, it feels like a big man has stumped on your foot too.

Our Sergio has am impressive blood line. He’s got “papers” issued by the Philippine Canine Club, Inc. His grandfather is Philippine grand champion Rufus Ala Scooby Doo and few of his other descendants were also Philippine great dane champions.

Sergio’s trip to Bohol

From Manila, Sergio rode the Cebu Pacific with us, although he was at the cargo section of the airplane.

We bought a cage for him from Aranque Public Market a day before our trip. On the day of our trip, we picked him up from the former owner’s house in Las Pinas before we went to the airport.

Bringing Sergio with us was a learning experience too since it was our first time to travel with a pet. When we arrived at the airport, we went to the quarantine section at the departure area and asked for a ‘clearance’ from the staff at the counter. We were asked whether the puppy already got its shots (vaccination) and we just told the staff that the puppy is only two months old and we will just have his shots done in Bohol. We got the clearance.

Our flight was delayed by two hours and we were getting worried of Sergio being in the cargo section of the airport. He might be thirsty or tired or hungry already.

When we arrived at Tagbilaran City airport, we all looked for him and were happy to see him again and that he was alright and looks excited to be in Bohol too!

(more about Sergio soon…)

Upo

One of the vegetable varieties that is planted at my vegetable garden is upo. Everyday for the past few weeks seeing my upo plants bearing fruits amused me.Early this week, I harvested 6 pieces of medium to large size upo and I gave them away to my office staff. I do love to share my vegetable harvest to them.

The picture was taken after I harvested 6 pieces and tomorrow, about another 6 pieces are ready for harvest and more are still growing.

How do I care for them? Actually, nothing much has been done. After planting the seedling and watched it grow and tie the vines to the trellis and water the plant everyday.For me, it is a stress-reliever checking on my vegetable garden and watch my plants grow and bear fruits. Sharing the harvest to others is another joy.

Maynah Bird

I don't keep a maynah bird in my house but my parents have two in their porch.They have that for some years already and these 'talking' birds are just really funny.
My father recently has one in his law office too. Its bird cage is placed at the door entrance. It won't be long that this bear will be the one to greet anyone who enters the door "good morning", "good afternoon", or "go away!".

One time, my father (who is fond of this bird)was so worried about one of this first mynah bird that he owned, that he brought the bird inside his bedroom and placed it beside the airconditioner. The next morning, he found the bird stiff. His suceeding mynah birds are now kept in cages placed at the terrace.

Here are some of the words and phrases these birds can say and do:
- "maut kag nawng" (you're ugly)
- "ayo!" (tao po)
- "naay taw" (may tao)
- "naa na si papa" (nandito na si papa)
- wistle
- "dayon" (come in)
- can make sound like that of a telephone ring
- calls the names of our drivers
- makes the sound of my father's 'clearing of his throat'
and many more......

Everytime I am at my parent's house or at his law office, I always tell the mayna "Leah guapa, Leah guapa" hoping that everytime they see me, they will shout those words to me.

My vegetable garden

Me and my family loves to eat vegetables. We prefer organically grown vegetables too - no fertilzers, no pesticides.

Since we have a spacious yard, we decided to raise our own vegetables. We have okra, string beans (batong), eggplants, petchay, atsal, alugbate, tomatoes, camote, squash, srping onions, radish, ampalaya, ginger and upo.

With all these vegetables that we grow in our backyard, I do enjoy harvesting them, cooking them and giving away the excess produce to my parents and my office workers. Aside from sharing my "vegetable blessings", I am also inspiring them in a way that I (their boss) is also capable of growing vegetables more than what my family needs.

In my vegetable garden, I enjoy planting the grown seedlings to the prepared ground or to their individual pots. I love watching my vegetable plants grow, bear flowers and of course fruits. I even monitor their fruits twice a day to check their growth progress and always look forward to the harvesting period.

I bring with my my basket and my scissors when I do the harvesting, which I enjoy doing so much. Most of the times, I can harvest as many as 3-baskets full of vegetables. The produce is much more than what my family can eat and I am indeed thankful for these blessings.