Live in the Philippines

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Ye Ole Typhoon Season

Weather / by

The typhoon season is fast approaching my little patch of the world, and getting prepared is part of the yearly drill. Last month the roof was made ready by waterproofing and painting, everything was removed from the roof patio and stowed away until November.

But as usual the two remaining Mango Trees in my neighbor’s yard are posing another threat to the safety of “Casa Mayang”. I wrote a while back about chopping the other two tree’s down without permission. And my encounter with the faux land owner. (I was going to reference the article but couldn’t find it, that’s a hint Mr. Sir BOB Martin! lol)

But later I did meet the real owner and broke bread; well actually it was beer, with him. So Mayang phoned him and asked permission to trim both trees that were close to our house and of course at no monetary cost to him.

He recommended his caretaker to be the one to be the one to trim the trees. I had no problem with that but I did withhold some secret knowledge from the owner. The caretaker cooks with firewood not gas. He loves to trim trees and now he is being paid to do it, for him it is a total win-win.

The caretaker who is named April by the way, and once more, let me say I was not the one to name this man. Plus his two teenage sons who are for some reason not named May and June but they aided their father in the tree trimming.

An hour or two later my suspicions about the firewood were proved true, both trees were missing and being cut into smaller pieces if I understood how to measure cords of wood I would tell you the approximate amount they got. But alas I’m a city boy, and lack the required knowledge in that area. But gone they are and never to be a mango tree again and will never cause anxiety to my darling wife again. She does worry about such matters.

Last week we fell under the spell of a low pressure system that has sat over our house depositing copious amounts of rain upon our freshly caulked and painted roof, after the painting I never bothered to move anything back up there as I’d prefer to not have anything that will float or fly up there for the next few months. I’ll hang around the Mancave in back. BTW The roof didn’t leak.

Now she has turned her ire to our mango tree in the front yard which has been trimmed so often it stopped producing any note worthy quantities of mangos, and which has the added blessing of stopping kids from wildly throwing rocks at the tree and my house trying to knock the mangos down. Unto all things there is a plus side. Also, it will never be my tree that knocks down the electrical wires on the pole passing in the front of our land.

So I say to the Big Bad Wolf “You may huff and puff and try to blow our house down”, as Mayang now has an impenetrable incursion zone surrounding her house. Where she’ll be mounting the water cooled 50 caliber machine gun, I just don’t know.

I’ve done my part, by having my Honda generator serviced and taking on the stowage of extra fuel and removing my wife’s lawn gnomes to my Mancave, which BTW is might bit creepy when you are sitting there a tad over served.

During the rain I mentioned the other day, we were in a brownout situation, I was on the roof during a lull in the rain and witnessed a unusual sight, a group of my neighbors were running in circles with their hands wildly gesturing in the air and the shrill sound of AYE, AYE, AYE being uttered to all who would listen. The pole the house up was on fire; well actually it was 6 of the 15 electric meters on the pole that were burning, causing vast amounts of smoke. And out of the haze I spy Hector dashing forward with a bucket of water. Harkening back to my yearly shipboard firefighting training I knew that water and a class “C” (Electoral) fire didn’t mix.
I saw right there by the pole a pile of damp construction sand, and shouted for hector to stop, he did and I yelled down; “Hector, dry sand.” He tossed out the water and started digging and two tosses of the sand put the fire out.

It seems there was huge serge when they turned the power back on, but do to the noise and pandemonium I remembered that my generator was running and my breaker was still off. Lucky me! Oh and Hector is now regaled as a local hero for his fast thinking and daring action, and thankfully by not throwing the water, he’ll live to enjoy his new found notoriety.
Oh Hector knows and I know, and that’s good enough for all.

Last year we were hit with the fringes of quite a few typhoons but have had no direct hits in Mr. Paul’s neighborhood since 1995 or was it 1996.. But all that tells me is; “Do not depend on the past to predict the future or Al let Gore either.”

To all my fellow friends scattered around the Philippines I hope we all have a very safe and uneventful typhoon season. But no matter what, please be prepared with all that you need to keep you and your family safe. A little stock pile of beer won’t be a bad thing either.

While typing this it is raining outside, I have two twelve inch square drain systems to dump rain water away from the house and off our land. But the down side is the huge toads that crawl into them, and then call to each other incessantly until they find their way out. It reminds me of sailing into San Francisco in the mist and hearing the fog horns blowing, “Into the Mystic”

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Comments

  1. Paul,
    They really did a job on the mango trees. We got a nice rain 4 days ago, but none since. I bet you really have a nice river flowing down your street. Any complaints from your neighbor about your water flow?

    • Randy;
      Eight days of solid rain with intermittent sun and our road is 3 feet lower than the national highway which causes a natural hot tub to form between the two. But Mayang raised hell until they dug a drain. (Her new car was getting dirty driving through the muddy water)

  2. Hi Mr. Paul….since I am new to living in Davao area this will be my first summer and typhoon season? I read your article about getting my house in order for the coming rains, but my only trust worthy Pandi (carpenter) is working on another job in the middle of the jungle. I was going to have my roof resealed and painted ….but…The Jungle has called him to more pressing things and the people he works for now decided to have more work done as he is fast and excellent workmanship….oh he also listens to you when you want him to do the work your way …..unless it would be detrimental to your project, which he will explain to you. So I just hope we are not too late as it seems to rain every night now…

    • Dave;
      Sir Bob and the rest of the folks in Davao tell me there is no rainy season there, do you agree with them? But waiting for the right guy to do proper work, is worth your time. Being prepared is 80% of the battle, not being prepared is foolhardy. To prove my wife (Mayang) right, during the rain the other day we received 40 KPH gusts of wind. I might think I know it all, but she really does.

  3. I just can’t stop imagining you and the gnomes in the man cave,,,,after just a few beers 😀

    We are ready for the rain and storm. Unless El Ninò want to play a part. No matter that Ninò – hanging habagat will come

    • Axel;
      I’ll worry when the gnomes start drinking more beer than me. The E; Nino is predicted every year for the 20 plus years I’ve been here, I went through only one about 10 years ago and they really are bad on the price of rice.

  4. Reminded of one of my all-time favorite songs – thanks!

    “We were born before the wind…” … so let us be prepared!

    • John;
      Ahh someone who knows my favourite song (ALSO), great line that you quoted from the song. I was wondering who would catch me sneaking that in!
      But yes be prepared…
      I have all Van Morrison’s albums.

      • Saw him play live at a small venue in Wels, Austria back in 1990. Was about 10 yards back from the stage.

        My gypsy soul was rocked back in the days of old – lol.

        • John;
          That is music to drink beer to, a sailor bar in Singapore I used to go to would plat that a few times every night and no matter what country the sailor was from, he knew and loved that song.

  6. Nice pic of the vacant lot next door and the Mango trees I have read about in your articles from time to time. I guess this is the start of the ” Wet Season ” there ? Best luck to all of you that live there.

    Paul, when you mentioned having your Honda Generator serviced, it gave me a thought, the new old Honda is now history so could the generator be ” the other Honda ” ? LOL. Thanks for another good Monday Morning read, Paul.

    • Bob New York;
      Former mango trees, firewood now. (LOL)
      I bought the Honda Generator in 2000, the year I retired, and except for the time the pull cord broke, it has never failed me. It (The Generator) was the reason I bought the new old Honda in the first place.

  7. Those tin roofs get loud in the rain.I would imagine they retain heat too. I noticed that tree is not dead standing lol,adding a Green flavor to the food?My inlaw/Family was using a lot of the But ends of those coco frawns for cooking,My wifes using Gas.Actually im glad the rains hav arrived.Iv been watching the news things over there are drying up in places.Could it resolve some electric issues also? volcano activity to consider also? The Mayon Volcano just made the news.A Great read Paul,Thanks.

    • George;
      Cat on a hot tin roof, they wrote a play about it so it must be true about the heat. My son-in-law has a 10 hector farm, and is very thank full for the eight days of rain we just received. The Hydro-Electric power plants in the south still need more water. Here on Luzon it should improve by July.

  9. Paul, thanks for another entertaining and informative article. I always look forward to reading your weekly episodes of adventure and misadventure there in Dinalupihan. Keep it up.

    • RJ;
      Thank you for you kind words of support, I’ll keep writing as long as the Philippines provides the material, we are a team in this endeavour. Plus Sir Bob, continues to publish them, so that’s a good sign. But again thank you for reading and commenting, for without the readers we’d be nothing.

  10. Paul? Maybe I took action a little too quick?

    I have a lot that I plan to build my wife and my house, I had planted with Coconut, Jack Friut, and Mango Trees around the edge of the lot. I got some natural growing banana trees, but they are easier to remove. With your report, it seams like these trees would seem to be more of a problem than a blessing. The lot was mostly completely cleared, we had an old avocado tree that seems to be tough as nails, always produces a lot of avocados.

    Maybe I was looking to build my own Garden of Eden. LOL. I guess we will see what will be left after the house is built.

  11. James;
    Plan the location of the trees, and then keep them trimmed, the shade added to your house will keep it cooler. It’s a balance that can be maintained.
    .