Pak Idrus's Blog

I love gardening. It has been a passion of mine since I was a kid. So when I retired I decided to turn the front of my patio into a little garden of my own. It just a small one but it has everything that a garden should have. So as to create an ecosystem that would attract the little animals and insect to the garden I had grown some trees including a bamboo bush which turns a part of the garden into a little jungle.To attract birds and small animals like squirrel and civet cat I hang a tray of food so that it would come from time to time to eat. The first thing in the morning I would put an assorted of foods like banana, apples and bread in the tray. Now I could watch the birds and the squirrels come and go to enjoy its meals. At time civet cat would come too. Now it is normal to see these birds and small animals come and go throughout the days to enjoy the food there oblivious of us watching it.  Have a nice day.

While making a stopover for lunch at the beach of the Andaman Sea in South Thailand two years ago I saw this Squirrel running up and down the tree nearby. With my camera I took a numbers of shots of the active creature as it move up and down the tree. Here is an image of that Squirrel with a mouthful of a nut for its lunch. Interesting indeed.  Have a nice day. 

Last year a female alley cat came over to the house and became friendly. I shoo it off but it kept coming and slept on the chair at the Serambi [patio]. After a few weeks of doing that I found the cat was trying to find a more comfortable place to sleep. My experience with cat say that this cat is trying a safe place to give birth. I then took out a basket and laid it with old newspaper and put it under a low lying table at the Serambi. Sure enough that night she slept in that basket and later on give birth to four beautiful kitten. To help her raised the kitten we took all the kittens and the mother cat and put all in a bigger cage at the back of the house. We already have three cats so we do not want to have more. My spouse and the grandkids help to feed the kittens. Later on we decided to spay the mother cat so that she would not continue to have kittens. At the same time as the kitten grows and could eat solid food we decided to get folks to adopt it. We put up notice on Facebook ...

I am back in Kuantan for a short break from the city life. Kuantan a small town on the east-coast of Malaya is my hometown. I grew up here and spend my childhood and my youth here. So, there are lots and lots of memories. In a way coming back here is sort of reliving those memories. I shall write some of it here. In the forties in the kampong where I grew up there was no air or water pollution. The well water was clean, and air was so refreshing. The word pollution did not exist at that time and no one talk about pollution. Now that with all the talk about pollution I realised that there was also no sound pollution as well at that time. The reason I am talking about noise pollution is that when we were living in the kampong in Kuantan we could hear every noise of the wild, the crickets, the frogs, the birds and everything else that makes sound. Since there were hardly any cars or buses, lorry or air plane flying by or any factories that create noise there was no noise polluti...

A few days ago; early in the morning I notice Tam the mother cat squatting on the window sill. On seeing me she made a small noise. I somehow knew that she wanted something so I went to the front door and open the grill. As I walk to the door she jump down and met me in front of the door. She move closer to me and brought my attention to a dead mouse lying on the floor nearby. She sat near the dead mouse and look at me. I then look at her and petted her back. she looks pleased. I knew at that  instance that the dead mouse is a gift for me. Sort of thanking me for always feeding her and her son Kenat. I quip to her thanking her for the gift and then she happily left. I then went into the house and told Asmah about it. Well this is not the first time our cats did this. It happened before probably they knew I no longer hunt for food thus that dead mouse is for dinner! ( did not want to post the image of that dead mouse) Well that is an episode of the story of my life. It always made ...

We was at the Twinkle Villa in Janda Baik last weekend. It was our first visit to this hideout in the jungle of Bentong, part of the main range call the Banjaran Titiwangsa. It a nice place to get lost from the hustle bustle of city life. While there I did lots of photography and above is an image of  t he friendly birds that I saw at the compound of the Villa, City kids would surely be amazed with these birds eh!  Have a nice day.

For two successive days I found dead lizard [just killed] on the mat of our front door. Tiger and Tam who live at the patio outside did not touch it. Normally cats eats their prey. I have been wondering why. I told Asmah and our daughter Lin  of what happened. To me it rather strange that the two cats does not eat it like cats normally do to their catch. Lin an anthropologist quip perhaps its the work of Tiger and Tam giving us their precious catch  to us to say Thank You to us for taking care of them. I know animals often bring home their catch but did not realized that the two alley cats Tiger and Tam that we had adopted did this. Anyway thanks Tiger and Tam for the generous offer; we really appreciate it. Well folks what say you about this beautiful story of our world! It does made  me cry!   Have a nice day.

I woke up early on Monday morning and decided to take a walk along the beach. I love the beach in the early morning. Over the night it has been cleaned by the wave that come hitting the beach thus it clean of whatever debris that we human had left there the day before. Come morning the beach is as clean and nice to look and walk. I love the sea and the smell of the sea always refreshes me. While on my walk I took picture of  things that was left overnight, that was not touch by the waves. One of the image is  a hole made by the crab just after the tide went down. Diligently the crab goes with its daily chores of cleaning the beach come what may and continue to populate the beach. Without it the beach would not be as alive and colorful as it has been before. Thus enriching our lives.  Have a nice day folks.

These are birds that come often to my little garden to feed. It almost tame now.  Have a nice day.

Above is the scene of the beach at Teluk Cempedak in Kuantan in the early hours of the morning. Images in this posting was taken while I was waiting for the sun to rise on a visit to the place some years ago. The weather was cool and the beach was almost empty of people but already heavy with activities of the little crabs digging holes all over the sandy beach. Small birds seen picking food on the shore careless of the bashing of the waves.  When I was growing up in the forties the beach was pristine with golden sand, a crystal clear river, lush jungle of greens all over making it a great place to whilst the day away and enjoy nature at its best. Then it was considered far from the town since there was no road leading to it. To get there one had to hike using a narrow path flank by dense jungle on both sides. One could see birds, small animals and creature like monkey and iguana or large lizard running loose here and there. There was no man-made structure ar...

S ome years ago we took in a sick baby Squirrel that had fallen from a tree and nursed it to a healthy baby. It then grow bigger by days and became tame and friendly. We name it Jatoq a Malay words which mean Fall. As it grow bigger we soon found that we could no longer let it live at our little garden in front of our patio. Afraid that it may be caught by other bigger animals we decided to move it to a bigger compound at our daughter's house nearby. We were sad to part with it but because of its safety we had to move it to a safer area. It took to the new surrounding well and start running around but in evening would come back to its cage. As days goes by it did not return. We all felt very sad since we got somewhat emotionally attached to it but eventually we got to accept that it for its safety that we let it go and continue to live in its own habitat and not caged. A friends told us that animals often remember and it or its offspring would eventually retur...

In photography we learn all the times. Its an art that continue to evolve as we move on with new equipments and knowledge. In the past before the coming of the Digital Camera we are restricted to taking the maximum of 36 image with a roll of film thus we are careful and selective to take photo because it costly to take more. Today with the Digital Camera we can take as many photo as possible limit only with the memory with had on the card. It is amazing how the evolution of picture taking has gone through in the last 25 years. We learn new technique of how to get a good picture. Two years ago I bought a new Telescopic lens which could be converted into a Micro Lens with just a switch for doing Macro Photography. I did not know that it was possible to do Macro Photography with a telescopic lens not until a friend show me of how he managed to get a close-up of objects that is at a distance with his telescopic lens. I had been doing Macro Photography with my Micro Lens and the result ...