Shell Square Spots

Hard shells are evolved to protect the soft bodied creatures living inside. Any colour shall be sufficed to protect its life. What for then the systematic brownish squarish spots appeared on the shell? Reproduction purpose or accidental?

 

Brown Skipper with White Spot

The whole body is brown in colour except the white spot at the middle of the underside wing. Well, not commonly seen in my farm.

Common Bush Brown (Bicyclus anynana)

This is one of the most common small butterflies found flying among the bushes in the open field. Its main features are the brown colour with white line crossing the wings and at the wing edges plus a number of eye spots. In other places, the number of these eye spots are more than five, often seven or even more. 
This one has only five eye spots.

Common Fivering (Ypthima baldus)

This butterfly is less common in my farm but occasionally could see it flying around. Its distinguished feature is one big false eye and many small eyes on the under side of each wing. The big eye even reflect sparkling blue dots. The wings have numerous dark wavered lines throughout.

The difference with same species of butterfly in other places is the number of the smaller ocelli which are generally between five and six. But this one has seven small false eyes.

 

Oriental Grey Pansy (Junonia atlites atlites linnaeus)

This is one of the most common butterflies around. It likes to fly around open fields, parks and gardens. I see the colour to be light brown, don't know why it has to be called grey pansy. 
It has many false eyes and it seems to work as the predator attacked its back rather than the real eyes. It hurts a bit, I do not know whether it feels pain, but at least it managed to gain more time to live and to reproduce.

 

The Powdered Baron, Malay Baron (Euthalia monina)

I like eating the Indonesian Langsat. Last visit to my farm, I bought a few kilos of the fruits at US 1.50 per kilo and threw the skin and seeds on the ground. The next day, I saw so many Baron butterflies resting on the langsat remains.

The butterfly is distinguish through its blue colour at the lower part of the Wings. It stays at the heavily shaded forest.

 

Lesser Gull Butterfly (Cepora nadina andersoni)

Some people say this butterfly is rare in Malaysia, but I find this butterfly is quite common in Borneo Sarawak. My farm has plenty. The other day I saw it flying around. I also saw quite a few in Miri. 
Some people say it habits only at 200m-600m altitude, which is cooler. But I saw them happily flying around at 10m above mean sea level.

 

Shiny Shell

Humans admire the shininess of the latest car models and feel proud of the shiny coatings as technology advances.

But this shell has probably achieved the shiny coating a few millions years back. Look at the shiny brown coating, it is really amazing! Sometimes, we seem to be too big headed.

Butterfly Tree (Bauhinia Pupurea)

It is the flowering season now with thousands of flowers on the tree. The problem is these sizable and pink flowers are too high up on the tree for me to appreciate. 
In fact, the tree drops a lot leaves and flowers on the concrete floor that I have to maintain all the time. It also extends toward the gate that I have to cut to prevent entangling onto the sliding gate.

 

Elfen herb, Flase Feather  (Culphea hyssopifolia)

This plant can last for ten years and still flowering. It is best grown under some evening sun and partly sheltered as it does not need much sunlight. But the flowers are too small to appreciate.

A Unique Red and Green Tropical Plant under the Shed

It just grows up from the sheltered ground. The stems are green and slender, the leaves are dark red and all pointing down. The stem branches off in alternate opposite directions. Each branch has about five hanging leaves.

Go Star- Interstellar Travel

Finally there is solid proposal to send space probes to our nearest neighboring star, Alpha Centauri, thanks to the Russian billionarie Yuri Milne who is willing to foot US100 million bill for Stephen Hawking and his team to come out ways to send the spaceships to the star in the shortest time! 
It will not be something like New Horizon which could travel only 13.78km/s with a weight of 478kg. It will comprise a colony of chip-like mini-spaceships less than 10kg with all the nano sensors and cameras plus sails propelled by laser light from Earth at a speed of 60,000km/s. The mini-spaceships are expected to reach Alpha Centauri in 30 years. Information sends back to Earth will then take 4.3 years.

Look like by 2100, we shall be able to know anybody out there!
Sound Exciting!
But, do not be too optimistic! There are still too many unknowns and uncertainties in the technology as well as in the space. 
Let's do hope that ONE of the group survives the technology failures, asteroids clash, magnetic disturbance, supernova explosion, gravity interference, etc and finally reach the destination, will we be able to slow it down so far away? Or just another flyby!

Yellow Episcia Gold Digger Flowers

The yellow flowers seem trying to extend out like the little baby birds, extending their necks to get food from the mother bird. They look cute and comical.

 

Evening Mist

After two hours afternoon rain and the sun came out again, the forest was engulfed with mist. But there is a certain area with thicker mist rising, like someone was burning. Why?

Trees produce a lot of vapour. The lowest area collects most rain water and hence has thicker vegetation. When there is temperature change, old to warm, mist forms. Together with surface vapours, thicker mist seems to rise from low area.
 

Lantana Camera

Why all the pink flowers dropped first while the yellow flowers stayed at the left older group?

Answer: The pink flowers opened up first while the yellow flowers open up later. They did not open up at the same time.

Life Is Safe Up There

The Coo-coo bird feels safe high up the electricity post. You can see how relaxing she seems to be.
But feeling safe is just an illusion, as what we often feel too. When we do not know much, every thing seems to be safe.

What she does not know, every minute she stays there, every atom of her is under the influence of the magnetic field by the current flow in the electrical wire. The spins of the atom nucleus may change directions and some cells may lose directions. Her DNA may mutate and she may get cancer. 
But do birds get cancer? I have not heard about this!
Oh, she may get cooked if she steps on or her wings touch the live wire!

The Pupa House

It stuck to a leaf on the Orange Tree. I took it down, the pupa was no more there. It had changed to the butterfly and started its new phase of life.
But I just wonder, how the larva knew how to build this house, it was not taught neither learned, every behaviour was just inherited, all written in the DNA. 
Then human, it seems, has too little in the DNA, we have to learn so many things in life to survive!

Respectable Human

"Don't look down at my job, everyday I help to sent many people to the other side of the river so that they can carry on their jobs and contribute to the community at large. I earn less than US10 per day!"
Yes Uncle, thank you for your hard work and really contributing to the Society. You are a much respectable human than those sitting at the high office and  transfer other people's money into their accounts and hide at Panama!

 

Unknown Fruit

Oh, I forgot the name of this fruit  plant which I bought from the Market. It is bearing some fruits too.

The Vendor did tell me the name of the plant, but I did not record down and after a while memory faded especially those unfamiliar plants. Nowadays, we have various types of plants available locally for sale from all over the world. But I wonder how many can actually survive in the tropical climate.

Ugly Villain in My Farm-Grasshopper-man

Well, you think you are a hero, the Grasshopper-man, but actually you are the villain of my farm, eating up the leaves of my young  fruit tress without mercy, Get lost!!!

Thorny Plant

Despite wearing two layers of China-made cloth gloves, these thorns managed to penetrate and hurt my fingers when I was cutting and handling the plant.

There are plenty of these fearful plants in my farm, especially the new area. Special precautions have to observe when cutting and handling these plants. Direct contact is not recommended as the thorns are spread all over the stems. Besides, very fine thread lined with thorns grow from end of the stems hang across your way and if you do not see it, you will have a line of wound across your face. Therefore, you must wear a big grass hat to prevent such fine thorny threads hurting your face.

 

Devilish Fruits at the Roots

This butterfly plant (butterflies like to lay their eggs on the leaves) produces some small ugly fruits at the roots. It looks devilish. 
I only discovered their existence when the soil eroded during heavy rain. Are they edible or are they just for spreading their genes?

 

Chilli plant

The small chilli pati plants had died and now the larger Chilli plant is producing fruits. But these chillis are not as hot as the previous ones.
Chilli plant generally cannot last more than two years and have to be replanted to ensure continuous supply.

Pear shaped Lemon Plant

This plant also produced one lemon fruit a few months ago. But before I could pluck it, some insects drilled through the hard skin and destroyed the fruit. 
Next time, I have to act earlier by covering up with plastic bag! Imagine how much work is required if there are thousands of them!

Lemon Plant

This plant only manages to produce ONE lemon! 
Well, it is enough for me to make one glass of lemon drink.
This plant is still to young to produce lots of lemons. It is about one year old.

Honey Oranges

Finally, one of my honey orange plants is bearing fruits, sixteen of them on the branch tips. It is indeed a happy moment after three years. Hopefully, other plants also start to produce fruits. I was wondering when the plants are fruiting without fertilizers or chemicals!

It costs about US2-3 per kilogram in Kuching but is cheaper in Sarikei as there are many farmers.Sarikei is basically an agricultural town.

My Ugly Dog

I haven't seen him for ten days, he looks so filthy! Look like he has not been bathing for a long time.
Well, I just read one article today in the newspaper that it is not healthy to bath every day according to some experts. They recommended to bath once or twice per week. The fact is that, if I do not bath twice per day, my skin will start getting itchy with the pro fusing sweat in the tropical climate!
Anyway, that is the beauty of this world, you can argue your way!