His Sheep Am I

Saturday, March 14, 2009

In all things, give thanks.

My brother drove from Selangau all the way to Bintulu to transport this fibre glass boat, which cost a cool RM2,200. My 1st cousin bought it from a boat builder in Bintulu, to be used for their daily farming activities. After the sago felling season, the longhouse folks have deeper pockets now. Praise the Lord!

My nephew, Lua, who works for a oil & gas company (runggu ensing ku Indai Maie) bought a Hilux recently and in conjunction with his youngest son's birthday on 14 March, gave a big makan to the longhouse folks. So we city folks went balik kampung. I took my son and several workers to do manuring on Saturday morning and that completed, helped the celebrating family to prepare for the thanksgiving dinner. Cathetist Minggat came in the evening to lead the prayers. Meruik meh jani. Engkiuk sida manuk. Tu lumor Hilux ia angka bisi sekeda ka nguji nasit.

Young Enterpreneur - in - the -making?

My son with my uchu, Augustine Bansa. August is studying in Sabah and back for the short break. I took them to the farm for manuring session.

My son, who I am training to take over from me.

Do you see him as a potential gentleman farmer?

The best and healthiest palm in one of the plots ie sub-farms. Below: My son with the workers - one for the record

Life in the longhouse

I took this snapshot of the my uchus who were still sleeping soundly at the ruai when I left for Bintulu early this morning. They had a late night, after the party they went to my niece's house to watch the football match and came back late.

Below: My brothers and cousins -happily posing for this blog

Above: My son and nephews, Lua and Rampai.

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Mesra Farm - One Year Anniversary!!!!!!

Above & below: ramu kena ngaga langkau kebun ladang sawit blogger ngambika bisi endol indon diau.

Below: Tapak menantu aku - harvesting palm oil; 4 years old palm trees - very bountiful harvest indeed

Below: Blogger's own palm trees at one year old almost quite ready to bear fruits

Its very heartening to say the least when palm trees planted about a year ago look like the one above and below. Hopefully by the end of this year there will be quite ready to show some yield.

While Sarawak recently experienced the worst flood in 50 years - my folks in Dijih were busy harvesting their sago palm in Ng Luau; each lumpong of 3 feet each fetching RM6.50. One family got RM17,000+ another RM10,000.00. When the landas season was over they went home to Meruan and resume harvesting their oil palm which were not harvested for about 2 months because of the poor road conditions. One 10-acre plot yields as much as 18 tonnes which translate into RM7,350.00.

Karan For Rh Bansa - came 50 Years after Independence!

Rural electricity supply (RES) - wiring installation.

After almost 50 years of independence, baru datai karan ba rumah panjai. When is piped water coming, I wonder? Another 10, 20 years? The water mains is just 4.5 km away from the longhouse along the Bintulu-Sibu road. And our rivers and streams are being polluted more and more from the plantation and logging activities. The longhouse folks including the school nearby are dependent on rain water. So when dry season comes, kasih bala di menua merinsa nadai ai, literally have to nyauk ke Selangau ngambi ai. Yes, we were given water tanks but that does not solve our problem. It's just a stop gap measure. Our gravel road is in the most terrible shape now, what took less than 5 minutes before to travel from the longhouse to the main road now takes about 12 minutes bcos of the terrible road condition. It's worse now because the logging trucks transport the logs during the night along the road. Kemaya kami ngasaika utai ke nyamai?