The trouble with retirement is that you never get a day off.
Abe Lemons
When I retired from the civil service in 2005, I made a resolution to reclaim my private life and freedom. That is, untied to work, bosses, appointments, deadlines, and public accountability. I considered it a reasonable desire having been a public person for more than 37 years.
Henceforth, I'll take it easy. Unlike some retirees I know who are employed in multiple jobs or have embarked on some businesses after their retirement. They took George Burns' advice never to retire hook, line and sinker and ended up busier after retirement. Well, they're richer. But I look younger.
As my constant reminder, I formulated the following battle cry:
I won't tie up my time earning wages!
I won't rack my brains advising bosses!
I won't stress my heart running businesses!
Sure, I got what I wanted. I'm a free man. Free to do nothing. But I soon realized that not working is as hard and demanding as working. That I can't really totally retire. Not until I'm six feet below the ground.
I found myself in a quandary. What shall I do with all the free time in the world?
I'm basically home-bound, a domestic guy really. So I've to occupy myself within the four walls of the house and the yards around it. And some stretch of roads for my morning walks.
My routine outdoor activities are going to church, attending meetings in my civic and religious organizations, marketing, paying the electric and water bills and getting a haircut.
My old motorcycle had become unreliable and whimsical so bought a new one. I've been driving motor bikes for the past 32 years. I still do, disregarding the warning of my urologist that my prostate will not enjoy the ride. As a compromise, I limit my driving on paved roads within the city proper.
We amortized a Toyota wagon but since I can't drive cars, my contribution to the family mobility is limited to paying the monthly dues.
To fight boredom, I occupied myself with domestic activities.
I continued populating our residential lots with fruit trees but in time there was not a space left to plant another tree. There is a bank-foreclosed lot at the back of ours. It is idle so I took the liberty to plant bananas and papayas there, inter-cropped with a hodgepodge of edibles such as taro, cassava and sweet potato for a year-round supply of tubers, roots and leafy tops.
Trees top the pecking order of the flora, lording over grasses, bushes and other low vegetation. After besting other plants for sunshine and space, trees can survive on their own. In my orchard cum garden only the sayote (a climbing vegetable plant) can annoy or overwhelm a fruit tree.
So fruit trees are not much of a hassle unless there's El Niño and I have to water the durian and lanzones (the other tress have longer thirst tolerance, they can wait for the next rain). And when it is harvest time for the mangoes, rambutan and marang. But since I'm past climbing, nobody expects me to do it. The lanzones and the mangosten are young and short so I can harvest the fruits standing on the ground or with the aid of a pole.
In case of the durian, just wait for the fruits to ripen and fall to the ground. Durian fruits are armed with hard and sharp spikes, so I'm extra careful when I pass by a durian tree or collecting its fruits. I'll not be surprised if someday Congress will enact a law mandating compulsory helmets for people in close encounters with fruit-bearing durian trees. Of course there will be a downside to it. It will be hard to identify people stealing your durian in broad daylight. Aren't motorcycle-riding criminals (usually noted as riding-in-tandem in police blotters) getting away with murders and robberies because of the mandatory helmets?
Retired, I have more time for my oldest passion — gardening.
To enliven my days I tend the garden
delighting in –
the sigh of the clods turn over by spade
the eagerness of shoots sprouting from pods
the surefootedness of tendrils climbing trellises
the litheness of stalks dancing with the breeze
the smiles of plants at sunrise
the flagrance of sampagita blooms in the night
I enjoy gardening despite the risk involved in this love affair with plants and soils. Notwithstanding that my clumsy hands would easily get hurt by rusty nails, bits of barbed wires, shards of glasses and other sharp objects including the instruments I used in weeding, digging, planting, pruning and whatnot. I'm a certified klutz which had caused me a lot of misfortunes.
With a lampas (scythe), I pruned the overgrown vines of the sampagita (Arabian jasmine) at the backyard and accidentally cut the tendon at the base of my index finger. The injury cost me a lot for the surgery and much remorse for being careless.
But I'll continue gardening come hell or high water. Even if in the future my garden will be a jumble of discarded sacks, tires, pots, pans and other metallic or plastic containers As of the moment, I'm content planting vegetables in patches of grounds where there's still enough sunlight to trigger photosynthesis.
It's not the same with the Bermuda grass and the ornamental plants in the front yard. They are basking in sunlight, unhindered by tall plants.
The Bermuda grass and ornamental plants need regular watering which is in my "to do" list. I also do the landscaping and replanting. My son manicures the lawn with a grass cutter and I trim the shrubs.
Trimming is a light job. I can do it whistling. Did I say whistling? Yes, I just did, silly. During my time all the kids in the neighborhood knew the art of whistling. And we did it whether or not snots go down and up in our cute noses.
Nowadays, you can hardly hear kids whistling. Maybe, their parents did not see the relevance of handing this ancient art to their children. Or the kids decided it's not cute or trendy.
I raise chickens for the fun of it. I like the ways of the chicken. I'm humbled by their lack of pretensions. I felt unburdened by their scratch-and-eat survival instinct. I'm amazed at the unconditional love and compassion of mother chickens to her chicks.
When I see a hen scratching morsels for her chicks, I see love;
gathering her brood under her wings, I see compassion.
Unfortunately, I'm not as good a caregiver as my hens. After many years, the size of my flock remains to the tune of less than two dozen (add 8 or 10 if there are newly hatched chicks). My chickens don't practice family planning but pests and predators (including humans) kept their population in check.
Our fenced lot is over-ranged. There are not enough greens to peck or worms and insects to scratch from the grounds and debris, so my chickens are all smiles when I let them forage outside. The feeling is mutual. I am happy to save on feeds.
I feed the chickens early in the morning and late in the afternoon to maintain their domesticity and dependence and won't forget to return home after foraging on their own.
This earthshaking strategy also ensures that the chickens are accounted for and safely roosted at night at the lanzones tree, their
proclaimed perch after abandoning the durian tree which has grown tall for their cropped wings.
Feeding the chicken before twilight is like calling the roll at the mess hall to make sure everybody is around. Occasionally, a chicken or two would not answer the call. Not their fault, occupied as they are inside some predator's warm belly or basking in the heat of some people's cooking pot or frying pan.
I have to learn the intricacy of feeding so that every chick, cockerel, pullet, hen, and cock will have their share of the feeds. Otherwise, everyone will starve except the dominant rooster (usually the oldest and the biggest) and the hen he is particularly amorous with at the moment. Chickens have the most obvious or predictable pecking order. I guess this behavior is the etymology of the phrase pecking order"
Poultry feeding can cover a book by itself. So the basic is enough. Put small amounts of feeds in as many places to give every chicken a chance to get its share.
Let me close this business about chickens with this poem:
At the porch
Endeavoring to recall last night's dream
Wondering what's in store ahead I caught sight
A hen scratching the earth
Chicks scrambling for edibles unearth
I thought
Why not stop chasing after fleeting dreams?
Why not stop worrying of what lies ahead?
Why not enjoy life a day at a time?
Truly, from the humble chicken you can get free lessons on life. What's next? Ah, dogs.
There are four dogs in the house as of the moment, a mother and her three sons. The mother has 50 per cent mini pinscher blood and still looks similar to her purebred miniature pinscher grandmother. Her siblings are mongrels. I saw several dogs flocking and fighting in our compound when the bitch was in heat so it's hard to know their real father or fathers. They are smaller than the average dogs in the neighborhood but they bark as loud, which make them excellent night guards. I tether them at day time and make sure they don't stray outside and end up as pulotan by rum-drinking loafers.
It is my task to feed the dogs. That they are fed on time otherwise they'll chew anything like sandals and shoes and even fossilized bones. I also noticed that if the dogs are starving they start coveting the clueless chickens.
I have to take care of the dogs' personal hygiene but since they are not particularly delighted with immersions or showers I have to limit their baths. You see, I love the dogs so much I don't want them to feel unnecessarily unhappy by subjecting them to more frequent water treatment.
On tender moments, I take time in hunting and squashing their ticks, fleas and other blood-sucking parasites. I also bring them to the city veterinarian for their annual vaccination and their dosage of anthelmintic.
Our dogs are tidy. To their credit, they don't litter their droppings just anywhere but on paved surfaces like the concrete pathways and the car park. Their prudence made it easy for me, or other household members under duress, to collect their poops for disposal.
But my wife would rather face a firing squad than collect their feces with the pan and the midriff broom. In fact, if she has her way she would rather hire security guards and be spared of their loud barks and eerie howls at night.
Our dogs are lucky, she doesn't have the money.
Time was when cats were handy in driving away if not exterminating rats. But not anymore. Domestic cats don't prey on rats. Not in our household. Once, I saw our cat running after a mouse. Nothing happened. The two were playing.
Somehow, cats have lost their appetite for rat meat. Or they must have grown wiser. Why go to the hassle of hunting rats when ready foods are offered to them. If they needed to hunt, they'll do it in the kitchen where they can sneak in to steal whatever food is left in the open.
Kittens are known to have the most odious and revolting excreta. Simply because they still don't know the simple etiquette of personal hygiene. Unless trained to use the litter box, kittens are capable of committing unjust vexation, a heinous crime that can send the coolest person to a state of hysteria.
How to stop a kitten from defecating inside the house? Take this tip from a friend:
"Catch the offender in the act, rub its nose on the feces and throw it out through the window."
"Did the cat learn?" I pursued.
"Yes. Every time I caught it in the act, it rubbed its nose on its poop and jumped out through the window." Well, so much for cat training.
Our present pet cat is a black queen. Pets are not allowed loiter inside the house. So our pet cat is invisible most of the time. But she promptly appears to claim her breakfast and supper when I feed the dogs. This is understandable because cats have keen noses. Plus the rumpus made by the dogs who can't hardly wait for their rations. What amazes me is how she can tell when the kitchen door is left unclosed from where she hangs out, somewhere in the ceiling minding her own mange.
After the dogs and the cat, that leaves me with the carp pond.
Our fishpond is rain-fed. When it rains, a spout from the roof pours water into the pond. However, on dry season the pond is filled with chlorinated water from the tap.
I am responsible for the pond maintenance and the health and well-being of its residents.
I throw feeds at the fish, disregarding the off-repeated remarks of my son (who lives in the adjacent house) that I'm over-feeding the fishes.
The pond is also drained and the water replenished. I do this when the water is dark enough that the colorful carps become almost invisible. Or when the carps start showing up, hovering near the surface, gasping for breath.
I'm not keen on changing the water more frequently. The last time I did it, one-third of the fish died. I guess of trauma for slithering half-exposed in the residues during the last stage of pond draining and of suffocation inside the holding container. There was a brownout and the 4W air pump stopped pumping.
It takes overnight to fill the pond and for the chlorine to wear off. Another third of the carp population died when the mason working on the post at the edge of the pond was careless enough to spill cement into the water.
So, I'm left with one-third of the original fish population. The funny thing is, the more fancy-looking are weaker so I was left with the not so fancy-looking survivors.
I've yet to decide if Ill visit a pet shop and repopulate our depleted pond. In fact, I've considered covering the pond so the dogs would have more space to spread their poops.
I'll just have a glass aquarium. We have a big one left unused for quite a time after its lone inhabitant, a large arowana, leaped to the floor and seriously injured itself. It was tragic. This fish had been with us for many years and had graced the aquarium since it was barely six inches long. More tragic, it lingered sick for days that I thought of mercy killing but did not have the nerve to do so. The fish died shortly after my son put it in the pond, perhaps after having said goodbye to the carps.
Poor fish. How I wish he heard me cajoling, "Come to papa, I'm draining the aquarium, you've to be detained in the plastic container." The "he" is an assumption. I'm not sure of the fish gender. Lately, I thought of asking my son but decided against it for fear of scratching an old wound and running the risk of a mild rebuke. It happened that my son owned the arowana and had shelled out a fortune to acquire it. He was kind enough not to make much noise about the mess that I did and I didn't want to provoke him unnecessarily.
Whatever, I've learned something about pet fish. They don't like chlorine or cement. They can get sick of overfeeding. They don't like to be hugged. And like us, they breathe air.
Wait a minute. With this great learning, I've decided to keep the pond. Otherwise, I'll be in a hot seat explaining to my visiting grandchildren what happened to the pond. They adored the colorful koi.
A handyman, I fix things that need fixing. But the demand of fixing toilet bowls, electrical switches and outlets and sundry things are far in between and not so demanding.
Desirous not to be left behind in this "cyber age", I embarked on my new passion: the internet. I signed up in Yahoo, You Tube Twitter and Facebook. Later, I put up my own blog.
I would hang on to my laptop and tablet until I can no longer disregard my backache. Then I would haul myself to the living room to recline on my favorite padded couch. It's strategically located near the TV. So I would end up spending much time in front of the glowing tube to watch cable movies.
My wife is an armchair traveler so I know her favorite channels. My daughter is a cartoon buff and I'm glad she has a TV set in her room.
Now, with all the time gaps filled, the holes of inactivity plugged, I can confidently say that retirement is a full-time job. More so, I write my own job description. And no boss looking over my shoulder.
Excuse me, my wife is calling.
Yes, dear?
