Backyard Story ft. The trees & the swamp

It's been a long time since my last post here. I hope you are all doing well wherever you are. Today I'm going to share something I've enjoyed doing since I was a child that started on our backyard.

What you see above is what we call "Belimbing," also known as Carambola or Star Fruit and native to tropical Southeast Asian countries such as my own, the Philippines.

In our province, we have a large old Belimbing fruit tree at the back of our house. When I was about 7 years old, this tree was enormous. I remember my cousins and I used to climb up the roof just to get one of these, but now, well, with my pretty big weight, I'm afraid our roof might fall off, so I'm content with just using my hands to reach the near ones and our laundry stick for the unreachable, which I just let fall on the ground.

I was overjoyed when I got some. I feel like the kid inside of me has resurfaced! This fruit reminds me of a lot of my childhood memories that I thought I couldn't remember, but when I stared at it, it felt like it was calling me again. I wouldn't be in this part of our house if it weren't for my lola. I was calling to remind her to eat her afternoon snacks.

Look at that freshly harvested not-so-little Belimbing, which appears to be very tasty and sweet! But not all of it would taste sweet though. Some may taste sour like grape, orangey, and a bit of bitterness. You can easily tell which ones are ripe and which are not. The yellowish ones are ripe, but the green ones are not.

There are many of them at the very top, but I can no longer reach them with my stick, so I guess my harvesting must come to an end.

I went closer to my lola while she was busy sweeping the dried leaves near a swamp. Previously, near the swamp, there was a very old and largest mango tree right in front of it, but when typhoom Odette arrived, the poor mango tree, which was decades old, met its end.

It was struck by lightning, and the wind blew everything away. Only half of it remained. There are many children, and our neighbors used to play here. Running and playing without fear It was so much fun back then. But it's a shame that it's come to this.

_{I can see water lilies in violet colors in the distance, but my phone can't capture them that well. Do you see it? As much as I want to get closer to the lilies, I'm afraid of wild animals or snakes that might appear out of nowhere, especially since it's near a swamp. Maybe next time.}

After bringing my lola with me, I rush to the kitchen and prepared my belimbing the way I eat it. I prefer to eat it without its corner skin and cut it like this. Afterwards I add a little bit of white sugar to it.

Weird as it may seems but I used to eat it that way however you can always bite it straight after washing the fruit. Any ways will do.

I was just glad to be able to relive some of my childhood memories through this fruit and the swamp, which I still find beautiful despite being devastated by a typhoon. Nature, being what it is, remained strong and is now healing, attempting to recover and live with the scars. I was also very proud because neither of these trees, the mango nor the belimbing, had given up and is still standing at the corner back of our house, providing us with enough shelter, shade, fresh air, and refreshing peaceful scenery.

We don't need to travel far to witness and reconnect with nature, but if you look around, you'll notice how many different kinds of beauty only our mother earth nature has that we can appreciate and love.💚