Spending a lazy day with then 7-year old Kunig It was 2013 when I first heard of Kunig and Maligcong. My best buddy, Ironwulf, decided to take a detour and spend the holidays in this part of Mountain Province after a trip to Buscalan. When he told me of this wonderful dog who loves to hike up Mt Kupapey, I instinctively knew he was special.  The following year, I got to visit with friends, Ironwulf, Erick, Rocel, and Norbel, and meet Kunig and Suzette, the owner of the homestay and his primary human. Up to that time, I was adamant about getting bonded to dogs (and cats) as I wan ..read more

Alvin, my almost 2-year-old rescue cat, has a liking for tasting my plants. Though she's off limits to the balcony garden (she once almost gave me a heart attack for jumping on the ledge; good thing she jumped back the right way instead of 30 floors down), she may at time, bite into my aroids. I know they're potential p9isons but after repeated conditioning, she has learned to steer clear of my indoor plants. I once gave her a pot of cat grass, which, at P200 is expensive. I've grown millet seedlings before from feeding the sparrows on my old ledge garden so I know it's feasible to grow my o ..read more

Copyright 2024 Og Ramos • Art + Illustration After 6-7 years, I found the time to update my Bontoc, Mountain Province Map for printing on tarapaulin as the Maligcong Homestay girds up for 2024. • Copyright 2024 Og Ramos • Note: Sharing is okay as long as proper attribution is done • No AI-generated content here, map manually drawn using Adobe Illustrator • #bontoc #maligcong #maligcongriceterraces #philippines #mountainprovince ..read more

 2024 Og Ramos Art + Illustration I'm glad that birding and nature watching/bathing is getting to be a bit popular in my second home in the boondocks. With more birders eager to see beyond the rice terraces, I did a standalone poster for Maligcong and sharing it here. Note: Sharing is okay but please attribute it to yours truly • No AI-generated content here, art done in Adobe Illustrator •. #birding #birdwatching #maligcong #maligcongriceterraces #bontocmountainprovince #mountainprovince #philippines ..read more

That my late brother loved cats all his adult life isn't lost on me when I befriended a grey cat I found at the Uncle John's at the back of the St. Peter's crematorium in QC, days into the new year. It takes at least two hours before the cremation is completed so instead of staying in the waiting room, I spent time feeding and petting "Jimboy," the name I gave to the grey tomcat. I wasn't expecting to meet a cat on this day so I wasn't able to bring any kibble with me. I consider myself part-humanist, part-agnostic, but I would like to think there's a mystical connection to all these. Having ..read more

I understand that Youtube channels on gardening will like to bait viewers on the intricacies of composting but I honestly think it should be downright simple. A lot of the kitchen scraps that usually get thrown into the trash can go to a simple composting pail. Even fallen leaves that otherwise go into the trash bin gets a new lease of life, literally, in the compost. Add some soil, and wait. Patience is the key, especially if you don't add brown elements into the fray.  But then again, it's liberating to free up cuttings from veggies, banana peels, fruit peels, garlic and onion peels, f ..read more

A green set of gifts -- Alocasia and Caladium It's been a kinda bittersweet couple of months, especially, the last few weeks. I would've thought that there was relief coming to my corner of the world after a trying period from last year -- losing my job, getting sick with Long COVID-19 (4 months), selling my belongings to survive, being scammed, getting close to getting employment about thrice but not clinching it, getting sick with psoriasis, getting scammed again, and getting scammed still one more time. The past month, one of my brothers suffered a stroke. Honestly, if there's a r ..read more

The five elements come together in a shower of green I actually had this realization awhile back but only wrote this on this space now. I think one of the reason why people (particularly city people who think themselves sophisticated and as far away from an agricultural existence) can be averse to farming is that soil is a reminder of our mortality. It came to me as some sort of epiphany while meditating at a nearby park. It was raining so I had to find shelter in one of the park's gazebo. I realized that the tree is a great intermediary between the four elements (five, if we count t ..read more

Note the Electroculture stake amidst the Oregano and giant Pothos Pardon if the title borders on the religious but it's how I describe my conversion from being skeptical to believing in what a piece of wooden stick and copper wire spirals can do for your gardening. It doesn't matter if you're doing it on a potted plant or on the earthen plot, whether you're using the bioelectroculture technique on edibles or ornamental plants. About two months into the experiment, my initial findings were the following: Indoor Dragontail explodes with new growth  • It works for plants ..read more

New batch of Basil after a typhoon blew away my former batch I would like to think I'm more open to fringe theories than most people I know. Even then, I thought electroculture gardening was farther left field than most topics. I've read and watched about it years ago but never got to try it until now. I had several Dragontail plants (Epipremnum pinnatum) that withstood my transfer to a new living space a year ago though one or two weren't really thriving. I found out the hard way that like rubber plants, they're rather sensitive to being moved around, preferring to be in their spaces ..read more