Family news

 One of Lolo's nieces who lived in the USA has died (of cancer), and will be buried this weekend, so some of our relatives have flown out there for the funeral. Sad, because her sister died a few months ago .

Our granddaughter is taking spring break nearby with her aunt, so they will also attend the funeral if she is well. 

Because she goes to a fancy college (on scholarship) and has an interest in international teaching, they will send her for practical teaching session in India. Why India? I mean, the college is in Minnesota, where there are many multicultural areas (Hmong, Somali, Objibwe, Norwegians, and Finns). And since she is from the Philippines, it's not like she never worked in a different country. But never mind. 

The problem is that she had to get a lot of shots: not just booster shots but new ones such as yellow fever, cholera, and typhoid.

Now, every time I had to take typhoid vaccine, I was in bed for several days with fever and malaise, so I warned her of this. And sure enough, she get sick... by the third day, her cousin (a nurse) got worried and make her take a covid test, which was negative. But she is now feeling a bit better and should be well enough to go to the funeral which is being held an hour drive from her aunt's house. And she should be well enough to leave for India in two weeks.

Here at home, Kuya is busy at the farm preparing fields for harvest, and Joy is teaching agri seminars.

in other news, we have had a fish die off. We have a fountain and because of the danger of mosquitoes, we keep golden carp in it. But one of our workers thought: Hey why not add a couple of talapia so we can eat them. Bad idea: The talapia ate all the baby fish of the carp, and with oodles of talapia doing their thing it means a lot of work to try to keep the pond clean. And of course we have had brownouts, meaning no pump to oxygenate the water. As a result, several carp died of heat stress, so now we are down to only two of them. But up to now, the talapia were thriving. 

But earlier this week, I noticed the water level had fallen, the water was very dirty, and we had seven dead talapia.

Now, usually to fill the tank, we use deep well water, but in the dry season our pump isn't working well. City water is cholorinated, so usually we have to put it into our storage tank for a few days to get rid of the chemicals. But the helper that does this is busy at the farm preparing the fields for planting...But with dead and dying fish from the polluted water, I figure I would do it. So I added six inches of (chlorinated) water to the tank. Since then, every day we have had six or more dead talapia floating in the pond. Yuck. 

so now I am to blame for the dead fish, but never mind. 

Ironically, the two remaining carp are doing well so far. I hope one is a female and we will again be able to have nice golden fish instead of greedy talapia. If not, we might buy a few to restock the pond. But I suspect the worker who put the talapia into the fountain last year will simply buy some fingerlings and restock the fountain.

Lolo and our fountain