Rain

It's been raining crazily this past few weeks. It's always a sunny noon, followed by a medium-heavy rain in the afternoon/evening time. The weather has been rather erratic this year. I was reading last year that we're going to face El Nino this year but nope. In fact I think 2022 has been one of the wettest year in recent years. If we're already entering the rainy season back in September, then... This is the year with the shortest dry period ever. I guess climate change is real huh.

I'm not mad at the wet weather. Wet weather would mean that the farmers will be able to plant, as they don't have to worry about not having enough water for their crops. But at the same time this would give a snowball effect where we'll have an abundant supply of vegetables, which will result in prices crashing. Just 2 weeks ago, we were harvesting chilies at a great price. Now, it crashed by 70%!

You know I often feel... Sad and weirded out. How in the past people would plant according to the seasons. They know when, and what to plant. But now I think this is getting more and more impossible. The weather is getting pretty much unpredictable and sometimes, catastrophic. We have flash floods, and extreme winds and so on. So sometimes I wonder if we're ready to face the future?

I read an article once where it says that in 2050, the earth will not have any arable land anymore. This is if we fail to thwart the destructive forces of climate change. I wonder, how are we going to face the future? Will there be enough food for everyone? How are we going to grow enough food?

While innovations are growing each year, with technologies such as urban farming, and high-tech farming (where we can grow crops in the desert etc), the next question I'm pondering is if we'll be quick enough to adapt to these measures. Or are we just going to leave many people behind.

The future looks bleak but... I have hopes.

Chamomile

Continuing from my previous post, about chamomile.

So as you know I'm sadly allergic to paracetamol/ibuprofen since 2012 ish hah. And ever since I discovered this sad trait of mine, I've been looking for alternatives to cure my fever. Usually when I have an inflamed throat, flu etc, I will easily pop some medicine and feel better. But most flu medicines contain paracetamol/ibuprofen and thus I can't take them. Well there's one flu medicine that I take but it's just nasal decongestant. It doesn't bring down the fever. So not that effective.

One of the alternatives that really work for me is garlic. I usually eat like 2-3 cloves of raw garlic three times a day when I have flu/sore throat. And it really works, I'll feel much better within a day or two. However garlic has a bad side effect of giving me a gassy stomach, or gastric itself. Also it makes my mouth/breath smell wonderful. There's one time when I ate garlic before dinner. Note that my stomach has been empty for 6 hours. And I got a horrible gastric that accompanied my bed time.

Recently I was reading up on a few articles about herbs that help infection. Garlic is one of them. Others include tumeric, ginger, fennel, thyme, rosemary. One ingredient caught my eye and it is chamomile! Well I'm not a huge fan of chamomile but I'm okay with it, since it's readily available and easily consumable as well. It's just in the form of tea and I can drink it easily, throughout the day.

So last month I had a really bad sore throat and I was also coughing badly. I had fever on the first day and so I decided to put chamomile to test. And it really worked! Well not quickly but okay here's how it went. On the day which I had fever, I drank lots of water, and also drank three cups of chamomile tea. After my second cup my fever actually went down a little. I drank it again before bed and the next day the fever was gone. But my annoying sore throat was still there.

So I continued drinking chamomile and in 2 days' time, the sore throat improved a lot actually. Well I was still having cough but it was just like those lingering and remaining cough. I continued drinking chamomile for the next week and the cough subsided eventually. No medicines, nothing!

Okay I'm not really sure whether it was just my body that fought the infection, or if chamomile does indeed have medicinal and anti-inflammatory properties. I do read that Native Americans used chamomile to heal wounds by applying crushed chamomile flowers on the wound. And they also brew the flowers to drink to aid in healing. So it does work I guess? Well I'm just happy that I have an alternative now. I'm eager to explore more alternatives, since I really rely on them! :P

I'm quite intrigued by tumeric because in traditional Indian medicine practices, tumeric is like an awesome herb that treats almost everything haha. There are articles on treatment of diabetes, anti-cancer properties and also anti inflammatory ones too. There's even a study in India where two groups of patients with flu were treated, one with tumeric only, and the other with normal flu medicines. 

And the ones treated with tumeric has a faster recovery.

The only "side effect" that I get from chamomile is... I feel more relaxed throughout the day. Well it is good, but sometimes I become so relaxed to an extent that I feel sleepy haha.

Alright that's all for this random post on chamomile! I hope you can give it a try too, if we can go back to nature to heal, I don't think it's a disadvantage at all. Hope you had a good week and here's to another fantastic week to end off February! :) Take care everyone.

White Light

I am currently hooked, so bad, to this latest song from Shura called "White Light". Sadly she doesn't release it as a single in iTunes, and I've been listening to it on Soundcloud. Before I sleep, when I wake up, when I do work, etc. It is so good! Definitely a jam we all need for the summer. I rarely find an artist in which I would like every single song they released. I mean I'll like some songs, and doesn't quite like some songs. But for Shura, I love every song from her so far! I really can't wait for her album.

Today was an alright Sunday I suppose. A bit shocked about some stuff as well. Okay here goes.

We will have a lot of flower demands for Hari Raya. Which is coming in about a month's time. As for the fasting month (puasa), we will have a decrease in demand. We learned our mistake from last year, so this year we reduced the flowers we planted for the fasting month, and increased for Lebaran. We planted these 3.5 months ago back in early March. We used to count the growth period by weeks. This time round we even count it by days. We gave the flowers 105 days to begin harvest, and 112 days for "grand harvest". Basically the latter means we'll have A LOT of flowers blooming together.

We have a greenhouse that we planted for the fasting months. We counted the days, and the beginning of harvest fell on this week, and the grand harvest as next week (22/6). We counted another greenhouse, and the beginning of harvest is suppose to fall in July - mid fasting month.

But somehow somewhat - we have begun harvesting from these two greenhouses this week! They bloom way too quickly. I am super worried because the first week of the fasting month is when the demand of flower is the lowest. But now we have a lot of flowers. And I am also worried that the greenhouse in which we planted for Hari Raya is going to bloom more quickly than the planned date.

Thankfully though, seeing the growth of the plants on the Hari Raya greenhouse, they look like they are going to bloom right before Hari Raya. I just hope we'll have enough rain and sunshine to sustain their growth, and for them to bloom right on the planned time. And not earlier like the other 2 greenhouses!

Well this is the taste of having a business that involve living things, which are affected by weather/nature. You just can't control them. It's like... When your business is a production kind of business, it's easy. You can have 3 shifts to create your product and sell them easily. For flowers, well you have to plant them, let them grow for 3 months, and then harvest them. Don't forget about the weather that can affect them. And also nature - like pests, winds, weird weather pattern and so on.

From this issue, I learned that well no matter how hard we try to control nature, to anticipate her actions and to "adapt" to her ways, I think queen nature is going to find her own paths. And sometimes I just feel that she truly knows the best. Whatever she does, is really for the best of us. Unless of course we're talking about natural disasters and so on. These are the ones that are beyond our control, and also no one wants natrual disasters to happen to us right. And yes, yet we still destroy nature and expect that she won't give her revenge to us. Hashtag humans.

Alright that's all for now. Can't believe Puasa is going to begin on Thursday! It feels like it just happened 3 months ago. Oh well, have a great week ahead everybody :)