Farewell, for now, Juniper Tree!

As I fly out of Thailand early on Monday, it's time to start getting packed up. Hopefully the interval between this months visit and our return to work here will be brief, but as yet no definite plans can be made.
As today is my last "day off", I went to the Day Market in Chiang Mai to pick up some souvenirs for home.

Unlike the Night Market, there is a much wider range of goods and not all aimed at the tourists either. I wandered around for an hour or two and found a few interesting things. One vegetable stall piled about six feet high had a very life like effigy of an old woman lying asleep among the fruit and veg. It wasn't until I was nearly passed by that I realised it wasn't an effigy-it was Grandma, snoring away the lunch time on top of the fresh goods!

Another stall, which was no more than a small folding table had small plastic bags of live fish, some tiny finches in a tiny bamboo basket and a washing-up bowl with twenty or more tiny turtles in it. Whether these were for sale as pets or as food-stuff, I'm not sure.

You could watch them cook your lunch here!

If you wanted to buy sea-food, the picture below is of a stall that was cooking fresh shrimps, tilapea, sun-fish, and many more I couldn't recognise, but the smell was fantastic! Other stalls with vast buckets of curries, sausages, kebabs and every conceivable  type of meat product in vast heaps sprawling across their counters.

Just outside the market was a Buddist temple. In fact there were far more monks, in their distinctive saffron robes, wandering in the market than I have seen so far. The temple was beautifully kept, it stands out like a jewel amongst the ramshakle stalls of the market. Markets often look like this though don't they? Even the Tooting Market in London looks and smells just the same in places! (At least it did last time I went there!)

I wanted to spend some time out in the sun around the Juniper Tree's gardens today. Before the original "Holiday Resort" was built, the land which we are now on was an orchard. Many of the mature trees in the gardens have survived from those days. The tamarind that I mentioned was in close proximity to lychees, jack fruit, bannas, mangoes and papayas. Other less well known fruits are growing around the gardens and in time I'll be able to find out more about some of them.


In the mean time try doing a google image search for mangosteen, rhong-rien, durian or dragonfruit; all these add a lot of colour and flavour to the choice we have here. Below are some of the fruit trees growing in the Juniper Tree gardens:

Mangoe

Bannans

Lychees

Jack Fruit

The Tamarind Tree Chain-saw Massacre!

The builders moved in today. Like builders everywhere there were sharp intakes of breath, off-key whistling and the need for digging some random holes! Oh yes, and of course, phone wires cut and water going off without warning.
The picture below shows the Thai approach to tree-felling. First, swarm up your tree in bare feet and shorts with a 24" chain-saw and start lopping off chunks of tree.

There were these tree fellers.......

The purpose of the radical tree surgery was to allow the builders to strengthen the perimeter wall of the Juniper Tree Site. Last year the floods that made the international headlines when they reached Bangkok, seriously damaged the flood defence walls around our Site. The neighbours didn't help by smashing holes through.
The thickened walls should help to minimise any future flooding. It's impractical to completely keep the water out but enough can be done to prevent danger to lives and most property.
The beautiful tamarind tree; known as ma-kaam in Thailand was too near the wall and one of the houses now it's so big. A lot of the staff were after slabs of the trunk to use as cutting boards, as it's the favoured variety of wood for this purpose here. The fruit is used in a sour curry, called kaeng som.
With the rains have come a wide variety of extra wildlife to contend with. Swarms of flying ants leave a blanket of dead wings behind them. Huge toads come out at night to feast on the flying ants.

I spent this afternoon visiting Elliot's school. His class were presenting their research projects on different South American Countries. His was about Uruguay. He had made a 3D map out of salt-dough, done some power-point slides, leaflets and models. Many other students had produced work on other destinations. A lot of effort and good quality of presentation in evidence! I tried not to start grading the work on display!
My next task was to install a computerised system for the Day and Night-Watchmen to use on their rounds of the site. The watchmen have to use a device to log their visits to each place on their rounds. They can record events, from the serious, like spotting  an intruder to the more mundane, like a broken light or a fallen branch! This may not go down so well with the watchmen as it means they have to be awake and walking to each sensor at a preset time. The next morning a print out of the previous 24 hours is produced in the office. Security here in Thailand isn't a major issue just yet but we do pay the local police to visit the site twice a day and add their weight to the security. Tim

Cobras and counting

You may have noticed the gap in the blog! It's very busy here at the Juniper Tree just now and I am finding more and more that I can help with.

Today one of the gardeners found a big King Cobra sleeping under house no. 20. 

This is one of the newly built houses at the back of our land. He released it back into the forest. 

As the rains have now started; I'm told it's  bit early this year, I expect we will see more.

We have had lots of lighting and thunder but until today only brief, heavy rain fall.

I am slowly getting familiar with the house numbers and the counting of money. It's a good thing that Thai numbers follow a simple, logical pattern; with only the names of the digits to remember because even that's a challenge to my frazzled brain cells!

I have even found that my DIY skills have been of use this week. I discovered that the computers, modems, wi-fi gear and printers where all daisy-chained together off one socket. This socket was sparking and melting; a fire waiting to ignite. Simon and I added 18 new sockets to the wall and we still need some adaptors to plug everything in! 

House no. 20

I would love to tell you more about the work that our guests are involved in, but this will wait until I get home. The managers are now getting ready for their Holiday in just a few weeks; we are all waiting to hear who is lined up to cover for them, both here and a Dolphin Bay. A speedy conclusion to our own house sale will be a great help to all concerned!

More news soon and I send you the warm greetings from all at the Lana International Church that I went to this morning.

Tim