Rainy Season Begins: Looking Back at a Scorching Summer

Swimming Pool.  Jep | Flickr The local weather bureau officially announced last week the start of the rainy season in the Philippines. Fortunately, summer this year wasn’t too unbearable, though I was mainly concerned about the deep well drying up again, as it did last year. That, and the inconvenience of my air-conditioning unit breaking down for a few days last month. I remember the city’s social media pages issuing a formal notice last year, urging residents to refrain from watering their gardens - yes, it was that bad. Coincidentally, I spent most o…

Mulberries in the Summer: A Journey Through Memory Lane

A mulberry fruit. Photos by Flickr/Jep . It's the height of summer, and the mulberry tree at the back of our house is filling up with succulent morsels of deep purple goodness. Every morning, I try to harvest all of the ripe ones within arm's reach and leave the ones I can't reach to the birds and to the annoying neighbor's chicken (or should that be the neighbor's annoying chicken - think I am just going to feign ignorance) when they drop to the ground. My fingers are stained purple as mulberries tend to bruise easily when ripe, and…

Hot summer days in Iloilo

I like to monitor these room temperature and humidity sensors I placed around the house. Photos by Flickr/Jep It was the Lenten season last week, and it would seem that traditional wisdom holds true for being regarded as the warmest time of the year in the Philippines. True enough, temperatures in Iloilo have been soaring to as high as 35 degrees Celsius in the afternoon over the past few weeks - and forecasts predict this trend will persist for the rest of this week. The city government has even made an announcement of a preemptive suspension of cla…

Hot summers in the Philippines

The week of lent is oftentimes regarded as the warmest time of the year in the Philippines (at least according to traditional wisdom). Sure enough, temperatures in Iloilo has been getting as high as 36 degrees C in the afternoon for the past few days (and for the rest of the week according to forecasts). I have been vacationing in Iloilo since early last week and on a whim, I have decided to bring my portable room thermometer/hygrometer to Iloilo. Perhaps it is my obsessive nature that makes me want to know the inside and outside temperature and humidi…

Fire Tree Afternoon

Fire Tree Originally uploaded by Jepster . As if the hot atmosphere and brilliant sun is not enough to remind us that summer is here, the brilliant red fire trees all over the golf course just screams summer! At this time of the year, the tress lose most of their leaves and red flowers begin appearing all over the branches. These tress are all over the place and the one pictured above is at the golf course near the road going to the our office. A few of my colleagues and I just couldn't resist taking a little break from work and examine the trees…