Piedra China

We found a great deal offering one lot of piédra chína, numbering around forty hefty and heavy blocks of dense, raw stone yet naturally polished over hundreds of years. They are of similar sizes but are all uneven; no two pieces are exactly alike. Some are squarish, some have slants. Some have a tinge of pink, while some have longer and shorter sides.

It was both challenging and exhausting to lay them out! I wanted them to look randomly,  naturally in place, as if it has always been there, organically part of the landscape. It has a very practical purpose: I needed to connect the entrance driveway through the muláwin gate all the way to the cabáňa with a solid pathway as it always gets either dusty or muddy to walk through.

It was extremely back-breaking to establish a pattern, through trial and error, with stones as heavy as tree trunks! Not only are they uneven (above left and right), I also needed to make the path curve as gracefully and effortlessly as possible.

Their thicknesses also vary widely, so the depths we had to dig to make the finish with an even surface was different for each piece! In the end (below), all the hard labor paid off with a handsomely paved walkway gracing our garden's foyer.

Filipino Country Furnishings




The Philippines has a rich history of furniture, however it is hardly or loosely curated as in other cultures. I have yet to hear a local (Filipino) term that would classify  country furniture into an equivalent of "Shaker" in the United States or "Provençal" in France.

We have a wealth of artisanal pieces that have survived to this day, despite the fact that country furniture are extensively used and abused, left to the elements even. You don't have to go very far: a lot of times, they are the familiar pieces we have grown up with yet we do not see them as the next stylish piece for the weekend house! I have been scouring around for many years, collecting and streamlining as I go along. Way before we acquired the farm, I gravitated already towards more rustic pieces; with simple lines, hardly any ornamentation, spartan hardware, weathered edges, and a whole lot of character. I don't have much, but what I have all looks and works harmoniously together.

One of the very first things I moved years ago is a very straightforward mésa altár (top), rather uneventful in the Manila house but looked very appropriate in the cabáňa. A wooden batyâ (basin), a brass kawáli (wok), and a burnáy (Ilócos earthenware) jar complete the rustic tableau. The batya is now hung in the kitchen (where it really should be anyway), the kawali we use to burn incense to fumigate the huts, and the burnay always receives brightly colored heliconias or whatever flowers are in season.

Also looking odd in a bedroom in Manila then was this armário (above left), which I recall contained some books on one level and a boom box and some CDs on another. But now, it serves its original purpose as a pillow rack (and baníg [sleeping mats] in the olden days).

Old kitchen implements like these two mortars (below, left and right) serve as accent pieces around our place. A stone almirés gives visual contrast to white sampaguíta and kalachúchi, and a beaten lusóng (wooden mortar) which I just found among my neighbor's junk and asked for is now re-purposed as a bromeliad pot. I'm even on the lookout for more labangán (trough, bottom), in case you have a lólo or lóla who took care of pigs!

Rain Lily

One of the pleasant things the wet season brings are the simple yet pretty pink flowers of rain lilies. For much of the year, the narrow, grass-like leaves look just like long, uniform tufts of dark green weeds but once the monsoon starts, they suddenly transform into charming and flawless rose-colored blooms.

Chesa

Scattered around the farm, especially on the ravine are numerous trees filled with golden yellow fruits, not many young people know no longer what this is. I myself could not tell at the onset, for some reason this was something that was no longer served to us when we were young. 

Commonly called chesa (also spelled tiesa, Pouteria campechiana, Sp. zapóte), everyone says they have heard of it but I'm certain no one can identify it if it were mixed up with others in a basket. All the more I can tell, no young person has tasted it. The English has a more descriptive name: egg fruit, not only for its yolk-like color but for its pasty texture which actually reminds me more of camóte than eggs.

Bamboo Shoots

A nutritious, filling, and highly-fibrous vegetarian staple is Labóng (young bamboo shoots), generously flourishing now in the farm at this time of the year. They are literally what they are called (and shown on the right): suckers growing out of the edges of the grove, harvested right when it juts out of the soil.

Bamboo is actually a kind of grass, a very stiff and tall variety but grass nevertheless. It spreads just like grass, through an underground network of rhizomes. 

You'd want to take off the outer part to get to the soft, edible core. You can slice them thinly or julienne; the smaller, the easier it is to eat, enjoy, and digest. In our house, we cook this with gata (coconut milk) and occasionally add small shrimps for flavor.

Remember that just like ubod which comes from the pith of the coconut tree, labong is the fibrous component of bamboo which eventually becomes the strong, sturdy bamboo that we use to construct and make furniture with. It's a great detoxifier especially for our digestive system, apparently containing phyto-chemicals and potent anti-oxidants. It kinda makes sense because in its compact form, all the necessary nutrition the mature bamboo will need is practically present already in its young form.