Chi's Birthday Lunch in a Farm

Fresh sweet tuba

Our 'healthy' lunch 

It has been long since I saw my architect friend Chi Victorino.  Last weekend I joined her to visit a private farm in Cavite (near Tagaytay) - which was sort of her birthday lunch.  The owners, which were her friends, hosted us and prepared a sumptuous semi-healthy meal for us which memorably included a gracious serving of fresh tuba.  I am not sure if the pork and the vegetables served were produced in the farm.  But what I heard from our hosts is that the tuba came from coconuts growing within the premises.  The tuba was extracted the day before and was sweeter than any I have tasted. Our lunch was capped off with a surprise birthday cake for Chi, which had a single lit candle (not hinting how old Chi was).  Chi was all in smiles while trying to blow the sole cake candle. 

The newly born native pigs are quite adorable

The piglets wanted the attention

After lunch our hosts, Sir Eric and Mam Des, toured me around their farm as it was my first time there (Chi had been there several times before). They showed us the native pigs growing in their well built pens - which I found adorable (the numerous small piglets were quite cute and endearing).  Mam Des was telling me that the native pigs were not as smelly to keep compared to the domesticated pink-colored kind we see commercially.  They amazingly deposit their 'poop' into one corner of the pen. They also were quite easy to feed as they are 'vegetarians', eating mostly produce and discards - which are harvested around the farm. 

The straight mahogany path

An old fruiting kapa-kapa or Medinilla magnifica 

What was nice to discover is that the farm approximated a forest look.  Yes there were mahogany trees and norfolk pine all over, which was planted more than 10 years ago (before the owners knew about native trees). But in corners where they had existing native trees like tibig, bangkal and pagsahingan, they planted these areas with more natives like kayumanis, lipote, batwan, tabon-tabon and  a whole lot more.

Jade vine is quite at home to bloom

I seem to be rusty taking tree pictures. When I reached home, I found out that instead of taking pics of the farm and the native trees, I snapped at pics of the mahogany tree path and flowers. But at least I got to take shots of a few natives in bloom which were protected when they built the structures. Hopefully when I make my succeeding blog posts I could get into the groove of taking nicer native tree photos.