This is my real first blog, thanks to JadeLondon for the idea and many did inspire. I don't know who will be interested with this but Jade says she'll read and I really did enjoy yesterday when I was young, so here goes:

My parents were farmers, the property was inherited from my father's parents. No one among his siblings was interested in farming, so my father pay-off their share little by little. As child of a farmer I was trained to be like one and enjoy every minute of it.

Everyday father woke up very early before dawn, so that at sunrise he has attended to the basics of rice planting. A portion of our property is a riceland another portion is a coconut plantation, and a very small portion can be called an orchard since trees inhabited the place, there are guavas, avocadoes, chico and lanzones. Everyday before sunrise I was tasked to deliver my father's breakfast every morning. I was then around 9 years old. It was when I learned my horseback riding or carabao riding coz there's no other means of transportation.

During summer, father had other crops, pakwan or watermelon is still my favorite, turnips, etc. Mother on the other hand, stays at home, she has her own crops though, our yard has plenty of vegetables, squash, batao, stringbeans, pechay, depending on the season. I can still remember that we didn't spent much money during those times because everything was harvested except for some meat and fish. Our farm was cut by a river so some fish were free during those times, like hito or catfish, dalag or mudfish, I love the crabs during rainy season. We kids, go skin diving in the river :D

How much I enjoyed the Santacruzan especially if our family was the hermano mayor, meaning we were in charge in feeding the entire barrio folks during the end of Santacruzan - its called Flores De Mayo, foods were abundant, ginatan, maja blanca, puto, etc. Father told me it was also our thanksgiving for the blessings we received.

For those who do not understand, Santacruzan is a tribute to Reina Elena when he was looking for the cross of Jesus, she was escorted by his son Constantine. Santacruzan is done by a procession of Blessed Virgin Mary and the Cross for nine consecutive nights, on the ninth night is the highlight it called Flores De Mayo - this is done as prayer to the gods to end the hot summer and ask for rain. The irony was that those who joined the procession was praying that rain won't fall or they'd get wet. (I think I'll have another topic on this.) ;D

That's part of my childhood, what can you say about this blog :)