Toothless Corn

All I want is to have some sweetcorn in my garden. But I only planted a few of them over a period of time, which obviously reach maturity in different timing. Last week I harvested an ear - as you can see here, it looks like a toothless corn.

How can this happened?
As usual, I consult Mr. Google. Corn is usually pollinated by wind. Its pollen is so fine and light that it's easily fly away on slight blow of air. The problem is  when only single corn is planted (or planted far away from other corn) the pollen doesn't always land on the corn's silver hair, which is the female receptive organ.
Do you know that every single strand of hair represents each kernel of a corn? The failure to pollinate every strand may result in toothless corn as in the picture.

Lesson learned, now I am planting a new batch of Red Aztec Corn in 4x10 formation. Hopefully, I'll get a bunch of red jewels soon.

* Special thanks to AH for going through so many body search in smuggling seeds for me *

Curiosity didn't kill the Cat

Started with the thought of creating some chocolate for this year's Easter, but since there are no pretty coloured chocolate here in Padang, the thought just get killed. But as usual, my curiosity took over, so after hours of consulting Mr. Google, I finally opted for an easier to approached alternative: Cookies!!!
 

With a borrowed mixer, a tall glass for rolling pin, plastic bag as a piping tools, non-temperature-mark oven, some free cookies molds from cereal and other emergency kitchen stuff; I am really proud of these little cuties. It tastes not too bad, it's sweet, but not that sweet. This was my first time in making sugar cookies, yet alone decorating them :) I think it's not too bad at all.

Family Day

It's been a while since my last writing here. A lot has happened.
Mostly happened in my garden. But first, I wanna present some pictures from our company's family day at Pantai Carocok, Pesisir Selatan. Here I did some tug-a-war. And I also get another character marking on my body parts (not like the "X" is gone yet!)
Enjoy :)

Happy Chinese New Year... Welcome Bunny Year!!!

a Pumpkin's Life

In the past few months I have been so captivated by pumpkins. Yes, my daily activity in the morning and night is to check my pumpkin garden :) Here, I'd like to share a pumpkin's life in my garden.
1. Choose good seeds. You can just insert the seeds in moist soil. But I am more kiasu, so I soaked the seeds in water for 24 hours, and it'll germinate in 2-3 days rather than a week
2. Soon, 2 tiny leaves will pop up and more true leaves will appear
3. It won't be long until pumpkin vines turn monstrous and invade your whole garden

5. This is what a male flower's butt look like when it blooms. No sexy butt.
6. Inside the male flower is a stamen. It's a long stick with sticky yellow powder, called pollen.
7. Here's a pic of sexy female flower, note the voluptuous hip
8. Inside the female flower is the stigma, and the orange part is called pistil-a receptive organ for the male pollen

 9. Now, the making-love part. The technical term is "pollination". Again I'm very kiasu, so I am doing hand-pollination (Yes, I am Dr. Love)
 So what I did is I pick a bloom male flower, remove its petals; then I rub it to female's pistil.
10. So, this is what a female stigma will look like after that tiring love-making session. Soon, her hip will become bigger and bigger, and that's what we call pumpkin :)
11. Here's a developing pumpkin, it still have a pale skin
12. A mature pumpkin will have a red-orange hue on its skin, ready to pick :)

13. This is a fruit fly. I took this picture in my garden, and look how pretty it looks. But they're nasty.
14. Look at this pumpkin :( It grew quite big, but it carried a scar from the fruit fly. When I cut the pumpkin, inside is fully of tiny maggots.
The fly will sting on young pumpkin when its outer skin is still soft (usually within 7 days of pollination), she'll leave her eggs inside. The eggs then grow into maggots and they'll feast on the pumpkin from inside :( Oh, my poor pumpkin
15. For pre-caution, this is what I did. I use old B5 or A4 envelope, turn it into a bag shape, and use it to cover the young pumpkin. Make sure the cut some tiny slit so rain won't stay in the bag.
Don't worry about the bag size will hasten pumpkin's size. It won't. The pumpkin will outburst the envelope, and by that time, the pumpkin is safe from fruit-fly anyway.

 

16. So, here's what a beautiful pumpkin look like. She's a bit plump, isn’t she?
17. Halved, see the seeds cavity :) full of tiny lil' seeds. I scoop the seeds out (18)
19. My mom cut it into few pieces, steamed it. I prefer it to be pan-fried with butter. Here's what it looks like.

It's yummy!!!! Happy pumpkinnnnnn, baby!!!

Pohon Sengon

Our local bank gave a few 2011 calendar (pic 1), as you can see it has a small pouch attached there. It contains of 4 seeds of Pohon Sengon Buto (Enterolobium cyclocarpum), apparently it is in accordance of their green campaign. So, I let those seeds to have a chance for life (pic 2). Started by soaking those seeds in hot water. Yes, hot water. How hot it was? Well, I can dip my finger in the water for at least 5 seconds (OUCH!!!). After 24 hours, the seeds will scald its outer skin (pic 3). The seeds will swell almost double its size and soon will break its shell, exposing its new tiny root (pic 4).

Srikaya and me

Another picture of srikaya (Anona squamosa) and me!!!
The size is so huge too :)
This time we don't a scale to weigh it, but as you can see, it's almost as big as human head :)

X-back

Here's a pic of my end-of-Oct 2010 sunburn.

Still quite visible as you can see here.

Chinese Super Breed

A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it's like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I've done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

 • attend a sleepover

 • have a playdate

 • be in a school play

 • complain about not being in a school play

 • watch TV or play computer games

 • choose their own extracurricular activities

 • get any grade less than an A

 • not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama

 • play any instrument other than the piano or violin

 • not play the piano or violin.

Happy New Year 2011

Hum... Happy New Year 2011 :)

Time sure fly fast, isn't it?

Sorry I'm a little late to write "Happy New Year" on this blog...

Anyway, I had my new year in Kuching, Malaysia. and it is to attend my uni-mate, Adeline's wedding (1-1-11). The wedding was great, I didn't take much pic of the event. Most likely i have my pics on someone-else's cam. But these are a few that i took using my faithful BB.

1. this's the hens party, which was held at Top-Nail, Crown Plaza. (+preview of my perfect nail, before i ruined it right after i left the parlour)

2. me & ade in cheongsam for her tea-ceremony

3. me & ade's eldest sis... (can u believe i didnt take pic with the bride??? - photographer sure got it)