Month: October 2006

The last time I touched on the issue of gardening was when I was in Form 3 and Agriculture Science was one of the main subject in my class.

I recall the time when we formed a line from our classroom and walked towards the end of the school football field when we do our “gardening” – planting flowers and vegetables. We are given a pair of black “Pua Chu Kang” type boots and a small hoe to plow the garden. The Agriculture Science class teacher, Mr Low was a kind and helpful man on the field, always can be counted on to give sound ideas and advice on ensuring on plants to grow big and healthy.

When I left Form 3, I lost touch on the gardening until now. With a small patch of land at my new house courtyard, the interest of doing a small gardening is back in my mind. However, before I can plant the first plant on the said land, some preparations need to be done.

The patch of land was full of debris, rocks and plastics – unsuitable for plants to grow except for maybe some wild plants. It was time for some minor excavation. I needed to clean up the debris, clear way the top layer of the soil and add a new layer of healthy black soil on the top. It probably took us some 2 hours to complete the “excavation” but me and my brother managed to clear away the debris and cleared the mud like soil. Next to come was the black soil which we purchased from Tesco Puchong for 99 cents for each bag. Rain drop areas was reconstructed with large rocks to ensure that the top layer of soil was not washed away during heavy rain (it helped but not much – there was some layer washed away). By the time we finished, it looked rather a bit ugly but was much better than the earlier state:-

Next the final touches – the plants and the grass. After seeing the garden at my friend’s house, I decided to add carpet grass (also known as Philippines grass) to most of the area, surrounded by pots of flowery plants, pebbles and fine rocks. The adding the grass was the easy part (as easy as “cut and paste”) but taking care of it and removing any unwanted weeds was the difficult part. From what I understand from my friend, it will take about a month before the grass is well grown and is ready for its first “hair cut”. As at todate, it has been 2 weeks since we first laid the grass and that’s means it will be another 2 weeks to go before I can start to trim the grass. This is what my garden looks like for now but it is still not finished.

In the next weeks, I wanted to add more of the white pebble stones and add more pots to fill the space around the patch of land. There are still things and experiment to do on the garden.

Perhaps it’s time to recall what Mr Low had taught me during the Agriculture Science class time – its feel great to be doing gardening.

More picture in BJ Photos

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Even my son helped out in the shifting by packing and arranging his toys – seen here the next day exhausted and resting at the entrance.

Read earlier post on Part 1, 2 and 3

Exactly at 6.30 pm on last Friday, Operation “Night Run” started.

The final step to the final shift has commenced. We have been slowly moving things over the last 2 weeks but we gather the Friday night run will be toughest todate. At our disposal (not literally), we had a gutsy Proton Iswara, an agile Perodua Kancil and 2 energetic young men (me and my brother lah). Not forgetting in the background, were the hardworking ladies at home who helped to pack and unpack most of the things to be transported and my wife even managed to prepare dinner in between them.

Armed with 2 cars, we made 5 trips transporting things from the old house to the new house (10 minutes drive). The guards at the entrance to my new housing area was a bit confused seeing the 2 cars running in and out every an hour or so. The final and the last trip (carrying the family members) for the night at 11.30 pm was greeted with heavy shower of rain. A welcome closure to a tired night, the rain helped to cool the house as load of household things were lying on the living area packed in garbage bags. The heavier stuff like the cabinets (5 of them), washing machine, TV and bed was still lying in the old house, waiting to be transported via a lorry the next day.

The unpacking and cleaning of the old stuff continued until 2.00 am in the morning. Like a football match, that was only the 1st half. The 2nd half would start at about 2.00 pm on Saturday.

On a Saturday morning, we continued with the unpacking. The house was in a big mess but it was being cleared slowly and surely. The lorry that we hired was suppose to arrive at 2.00 pm but by 4.00 pm, it was not seen anywhere near the old house. The “movers” comprised of myself, my brother and my two cousins who been waiting at the old house since 2.00 pm were started to get worried. If we are not able to shift the heavy stuff on the same day, the clearing of the small stuff was going to be delayed by another day and that is something we wanted to avoid at all cost. After couple of calls, the lorry finally arrived at about 6.30 pm – apparently the driver have been held up with some work in Sungai Buloh and rushed back to Puchong through a heavy traffic jam. Luckily for us, the driver brought a 3 ton truck instead of the earlier agreed 1 ton truck. Hiring charges went up from RM60 to RM100 of course but we did not mind paying extra because this meant we could transport all things in one trip.

Although 2 of my cousins were around to help, most of the heavy lifting were done by me and my brother. Some where in between of the heavy carrying, I thought I heard my back giving up and decided to go on leave. There were sweat and pain all over the body. The very thought of us finally shifting to our own house however motivated us to finished the job in time.

We managed to lift and un-lift heavy stuff within an hour. We were exhausted but there was no time to lose by resting. We still needed to arrange them in the house and start filing up things. Whilst we were busy loading the heavy stuff at the old house, my new fridge arrived and was installed at the new kitchen. It looked a bit out of place in a kitchen full of unpacked plates, cooking utensils and other kitchenware.

Major shifting means we had to sleep among the unpacked things and we did that for 2 nights – on Saturday and Sunday. Rather messy you might say but a good night sleep probably is what I needed to reduce the back pain that I been having since Saturday evening. We took the Monday off otherwise it would have been “suicidal” trying to go to office with the pain we had. It was not until Monday afternoon, the living room was finally cleared off unpacked things. There was still things unpacked but we have managed to store it nicely in the storeroom or in boxes. Things like books, was still tied and was not unpacked because I have not purchased new book shelves to store them. In my shopping list, there were still book shelves, dining table, sofa and showcases remains to be purchased. Once purchased, more things can be packed away.

The rest of the Monday was spent sleeping, attending to my grass (garden) and double checking on the things that has been unpacked and tucked away in the new house. The pain in my back has gone down but we were still lacking precious sleep. Thanks to a public holiday on Tuesday, our prayers were answered – we had the whole day off for more relaxing and recovery.

It will take time to stabilize ourselves at the new house and there are still things to do as part of the final shifting. There are still some shopping to be done and reinstallation of the Astro dish need to be done in the next week. My son is missing his Channel 63 so much and his “naughty-ness” due to that is driving everyone crazy. It’s back to work on Wednesday, so the departure time from the house to work need to be adjusted as well.

We have shifted house several times and this shift is considered as our 6th shift. However, I am glad to say that it was the most organized shifting of all. Probably because we started our “shift” earlier or because we expect this to be the final shift – whatever it is, it turned out to be well in the end.

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