Ho ho ho ho!

Season's greetings from la Farm! Christmases have come and gone, and always during the greetings season, we get inundated by commercial cards that lack the personal feel of say, a handmade letter, a typwritten letter, a sky message from a sky writer, a goodyear blimp ticker tail, a singing telegram, or a simple face-to-face "how are you this Christmas, my pink puppy toes?" So, the elves at the Farm decided to post Christmas greetings directed personally to a random Farm friend (but tell you what, if you've been to the Farm office, your chances of being in our greet list are higher!). Let's practice the art of demonstrating acts of random kindness, and wanton show of love and affection - uhm, with your clothes on please.

white wedding

Billy Idol had this song called "White Wedding," which throws Fruity back into an era of confused fashion plates and hi-wattage neon colors. But this time around, whenever, if ever, I hear Mr Idol warbling that song through my time-warped PC sound system, my image of a real white wedding will be this blog entry.

After seeing it live, I just felt instantly converted to a lifestyle of bread and water, skip the salt, skip the butter, and Gawd forbid, no marmalade. Ok, that's a bit of a stretch. But suffice to say that, a white wedding experience leaves no room for questioning the artistic or symbolic slant of the motif orchestrator. You go through it, and you'll say ... how can it be held any other way than this? There's just no other way.



The anxious wait



There she is!



Long aisle in God's country





Congrats M and I! May the coop overflow with blessings!

shy paparazzi

...and we thought those two words can hardly make up a real phrase! And yet, shy paparazzi exists - like us. We were sooo shy in the presence of popular celebrities that all we can manage to shoot were empty chairs, vacant tables, and the backs of people as they listened to the pastor.





Had there been another celebrity in our midst, someone would have had to de-ice our frozen trigger fingers to get the cameras clicking. In any case, we caught a glimpse of the JOYful couple from behind. It was a rare moment when their personal paparazzi cloud was away. Congrats J + R!

the future of green

Today, the Farm opened its gates to a group of children from Baranggay Pag-Asa, Mandaluyong. These kids are recipients of the Rotary Club of Mandaluyong Uptown's nutrition supplementation program - which has been running for three consecutive months per year since 2004. Every year, near Christmas, the kids in the program are treated to an educational excursion. And for this year, the first stop is the Mango Farm. It's quite a shock to Fruity's generation that many MANY of these urban kids have not seen a mango tree in their lives. How we wish these wide-eyed appreciation for trees gets carried on to adulthood, translating into greener environments for their children.

tropical fall

Fruity loves and misses autumn. On one hand, our tropical location blesses us with the simplicity of a wet and dry system, but on another hand, it deprives us of the autumn experience. Fruity can personally say good riddance to winter, but autumn is a different deal altogether. Once you go through that season, seeing entire swathes of forests of the Appalachian change colors as Fruity did in the 90s, you will want to see it over and over. It's like a magic ritual that grows on you. When we get requests to recreate the fall season in the Farm, we try our best ... through the colors of flowers, not of leaves. And then, there's enough magic in the moment to make the couple's dream a reality: it's REALLY autumn right here in tropical mangoville!









More warm tones waiting inside.





Our very own lavander. Fragile plumes on sturdy, water-proof and leathered lillies.



Congrats K and M! Your autumn will last for years :)

what if..

- we were CNN reporters, and had to be in two places to highlight the drama of anticipation. One would be cocooned in the pavilion, and one would be outside getting windswept in the company of Typhoon Santi, 7AM at that!



- we were print journalists, we would have readers walk the sentimental journey on a grainy image of a brand new marriage.



- we were painters, we wouldn't use Photoshop as much as we did below



Congrats M and M! You have a lovely lifetime of surprises ahead!

our foolish hearts

There's always a song wafting in Fruity's head as he studies a picture album. Maybe, because we are innately musical, always associating an experience with a tune (at least, that's how it works with the stuck-in-the-60s people here at the Farm). For the couple of the moment, it's My Foolish Heart... (try hearing Stacey Kent or Julie London's version :)

The night is like a lovely tune, beware my foolish heart
How white the ever constant moon, take care, my foolish heart



There's a line between love and fascination,
That's hard to see on an evening such as this,
For they give the very same sensation.
When you are lost in the passion of a kiss.





Your lips are much too close to mine, beware my foolish heart
But should our eager lips combine, then let the fire start.



For this time it isn't fascination, or a dream that will fade and fall apart,
It's love this time, it's love, my foolish heart



Congrats A and I! Too bad, Fruity can only mime a song, not sing it :)

Dog MTV - Back to the Sun

Donatelo is just almost 8 months (he turns 8 months next week!), and he's already showing the makings of le star. Howz about giving it up for le dog fantastique! Oh, the music is by Celilo - "Back to the Sun." Enjoy the view!

dreaming of sun

Turnip takes a nappy, whiling the time away on the airy solehia. The rain continues pattering, as winds frisk the wet foliage.



In the meantime, amidst serious discussions, some minds are wandering off, like rain-fed rivulets, in a cacophony of incoherence. - A well-travelled seminar participant :)

How green can a farm get? Google Map Maker will show.

When a place calls itself a "garden," the very least it can BE is a place with grass. And with today's compilation of satellite images, it is quite EASY to spot a "garden" or "farm" or "forest" or "nature preserve" or (insert something eco-friendly here) that is true to its claim. So, when the Mango Farm called itself The Mango Farm, it was actually just being up front about what it is, a mango farm! Let's google map the place ... (try this website: http://www.google.com/mapmaker and search for "Mango Farm")

Here's the actual map.



And here's the map, overlaid on top of the satellite image. The Mango Farm (highlighted in blue) and its neighbors, AANI and Orchard, literally form a contiguous green oasis in a field of concrete and tin roof! Pretty sad, but that's the reality - thanks to the twin evils of overpopulation and overdevelopment, with very little urban planning to begin with!



And here's a close-up of the Mango Farm, bound by yellow lines. So how green is Mango Farm's green? As green as nature intended it to be, a glaring reminder of how everyone should treat the environment - with respect and with foresight, always thinking of how we can preserve it for the unborn generations to enjoy.