Happy New Year ! Our dog Karma gave birth on December 22, 2020 during the Jupiter & Saturn alignment. Two weeks later there are 8 of them and they are getting bigger every day. As usual the New Years celebration in the Barangay (village) was a hearty one. There were plenty of fireworks, revving of motorcycles, and car horns blaring. The home-made percussion cannons continued until January 4th behind the house compliments of some of the local kids. My dogs did not appreciate it and neither did we. Despite the fact there are noise and disturbing the peace ordinances here they are not enforced when it comes to home-made cannons. Fireworks can still be heard in the distance in the early morning hours.
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The island of Luzon has been declared to be in a "state of calamity" as a result of two recent typhoons. Typhoon "Ulysses" made landfall on November 11th as a Category 2 storm on the eastern islands of the central Philippines after reaching Category 4 status. This storm caused wide spread regional flooding including metro Manila. The Magat Dam on the Cagayan River reached the spilling point and had to be opened to avoid catastrophic failure. Flooding was reported in Marikina, Cagayan,and Isabella. There was at least 70 fatalities and several people still missing.The outer bands of this storm reached my location in the Ilocos Sur region. High winds resulted in damage to numerous trees and some homes. A small tornado may have touched down in our vicinity at one point during the day destroying our pig pen and snapping a palm tree in half in the front yard.
Super Typhoon Goni ( Rolly) hit the Philippines on November 1. The storm reached record breaking Category 5 status before it made landfall on the island of Cataduanes with sustained winds estimated at 140 mph with gusts up to 195 mph with a central pressure of 26.72 mm Hg. Nearly 400,000 people were evacuated before the storm. There were at least 26 fatalities as a result of the typhoon along with severe flooding secondary to storm surge and rainfall. The storm past south of my location in northwestern Luzon. I went to get the step ladder by the carport several days ago when I was surprise by a large snake. I was on the side of the vehicle by the right tire and it was in front of the car. It was 6-8 feet long, as thick as my wrist, and a medium brown color. I did some research and learned that it might have been one of three snakes. Two of them are cobras and one is a rat snake. The rat snake here has a reddish tail. The snake I saw did not have a reddish tail. The other two possibilities are the King Cobra and the Northern Philippine Cobra. If it was the King it was a juvenile. If it was the other one I am glad it did not spit at me because I was not wearing my glasses.
Life goes on here in northwest Luzon in the Philippines. It is still the monsoon season but we have not had any typhoons yet. Our dog Coco gave birth to six pups two months ago despite the efforts of that hit & run trike driver. The search for that trike continues. Coco got a case of mastitis while lactating so we had to get the pups off the milk early. I took her to the veterinarian who prescribed antibiotics. They made her sicker so I stopped using them. I treated the infection with natural coconut oil and warm compresses and she healed up just fine. The pups are growing and life continues.
- Our dog Coco gave birth to 6 pups last Thursday. All of them were OK despite her being hit by that heartless trike driver a few days before delivering. Note: the search continues for the trike.
- There is a law here now that dogs have to be secured by a chain if there is not an enclosure for them. Locals rarely if ever walk their dogs. I know this one dog that has been chained to the same tree every day since it was taken from her mother. A few days ago I saw the same dog chained to the same tree being tormented by some kid who was punching it with closed fists. I yelled over to him to stop. He stood up and walked away back into his house. Then one of the local farmers busy shoveling cow manure in his cow shed nearby starts cursing at me for saying something about it. Can you believe it? This place is truly outer limits. My present efforts are focusing on several coincidences involving the undeniable connection between Girard College & Temple University with the former Monument Cemetery. Back in the 1950s two cemeteries were relocated in the vicinity of these two academic institutions; Monument Cemetery and Odd Fellows Cemetery. Over 100,000 sets of remains were relocated to make room for a public school and the expansion of Temple University. One of the advocates for the transfer was Philadelphia City Councilman Raymond Alexander Pace. Does that name sound familiar?
Saturday July 18, 2020
I took our dog Coco for a walk yesterday. She is pregnant and due sometime next week. We were walking on one of the narrow paved roads leading into the neighborhood when a trike came speeding around the corner and hit her narrowly missing me in the process. She flew into the brush on the side of the road while I jumped out of the way. The trike kept going. I chased after it for a few yards yelling "Stop" with no success. Coco was gone at this point so I began searching for her calling her name. I looked for about a half hour in the immediate area but there was no sign of her. One of the nearby farmers told me he saw her running up the road away from my location. I followed the road for a few hundred yards scanning the rice fields but there was no sign of her. Coco eventually came home without any serious injuries about an hour later. She was dirty and had a large scrape inside of her leg. What kind of person hits a dog and keeps going? I did not get the plate number but I know what that trike looks like. It is a small town and sooner or later I am going to find that cruel SOB and bring law enforcement into the situation. Meanwhile I will be researching the law. I will keep you posted. It is official ! I have been banned from Facebook. They kept asking for a mobile phone number and I did not have one that worked. I wrote them about it and sent them a copy of my identification on two occasions. I am pretty sure that was the reason. Although it might have something to do with my opinion on the public health issues of the day. I can't wait for the hammer to come down on Mr. Zuckerberg playing God over there. It seems freedom of speech is something he cannot appreciate. That legal blanket they are operating under now will soon be taken away. As for me; there are plenty of social media forums to join. If there is a class action against them feel free to contact me. Why ? Because Facebook engages in censorship and divulges information to 3rd parties without their consent.
Today we did our weekly shopping trip into Vigan City. There were plenty of sign-in sheets wielded by local vendors. There are no longer ID checks at the entrance to the public market but both of the vendors I stopped by had a sign-in sheet. The first one was the flip-flop shop. Why do they need my address and name to buy a pair of flip-flops? It seems a better idea would be to have the shop keepers fill one out and give it to the Health Department since they are the ones in contact with the most people. The virus also lingers on surfaces. Who is to say the sheet of paper they want you to sign is not infected by the last person. The same goes for the vendor selling ice. The latest twist was at one of the local supermarkets. There they asked for name, address, age, telephone number. I did not have a problem with that intrusion. My issue is with the fact they want me to sign a form divulging medical information. The form was supposedly mandated by the Dept. of Labor. I told them I would comply provided I see a copy of the memorandum or a legal document requiring medical information from the general public. I went to the hospital last weekend and gave them all the information they required because they have a need to know. The supermarket does not need to know my personal medical information. How far will those in authority use the Covid-19 outbreak to intrude into people's privacy? Every week there is some new rule at the stores . Everyone complies without making too much of a fuss. I have to ask if this a good idea?
This post is for all the protestors, leftists and anarchists swarming the streets across the U.S.A . Take a good look around when you are finished killing, burning and looting. These are the fruits of your labor. Seriously; Anyone that thinks this mass mobilization is not an engineered event is sleeping. Furthermore; Trump waited too long to exercise his legal right to take control of the mayhem away from the negligent / complacent Governors. They should have called in the National Guard and declared Martial Law ASAP. Instead they arrest the looters and let them go while the victims of the rioters pay the price in blood and lost property. That is as wrong as can be. The "peaceful" on the march say they are protesting police brutality and endemic racism in the police departments across the nation because of the death of one Negro by a white officer. The fact is that the police shot and killed less than a dozen unarmed Negro suspects in 2019 across America. This statistic does not indicate endemic racism. Who exactly was George Floyd? Did he have a criminal record? Was he on drugs when they arrested him? There is no doubt that the knee on the neck by the officer was harsh but what led up to the action? Was he resisting arresting arrest before they got him on the ground? Now they are going to sacrifice any officer on the scene for political expediency. Try getting a fair trial for those guys. As far as "Innocent Until Proven Guilty" ; forget it. Who are these idiots wanting to take away funding from the police departments? How stupid are these people. Maybe BLM should march in Chicago where the blacks are killing more of each other in one weekend then all the police departments across the nation do in a year. P.S. I hope they find that SOB that defaced the WW2 Memorial and teach that person a lesson.
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