🌈 The Rainy Season Is Over ⛅ Time To Work On The (Future) Airbnb Cabin 🛖
The weather is finally cooperative to allow work to continue on our cabin renovation project. and now we're mostly focusing on landscaping.
Joy In The Little Things 🔥
Since making a little impromptu firepit, it has become (literally and figuratively) the hottest place to be in Steung Kach at night. The girls seem to enjoy the meditative relaxation, and so I've been making a small fire nearly every night since adding this outdoor feature. I've been stealing scraps of wood from the construction rubbish pile outside the cabin, but yesterday I finally decided to start picking through the wood, sorting it, and tidying up the area for future landscaping.
There were several rice sacks full of sawdust as well, so I emptied those around the base of foundation, knowing that will be help to make some rich soil once it decomposes even more. It doesn't look very different in the photos, but the mound of wood next to the banana tree is nearly gone, and the plastic sacks and rubbish are all gone. In the other day's post, Monkey-B and I were busy breaking roof and floor tiles with a hammer before covering with backfill dirt.
🪚 Operation Fence Takes Precedent 🪵
Next to the remnants of the hammock that collapsed into the river is about half of the 3-meter fenceposts we had cut for us. After recent problems with our neighbor concerning our land, we have determined it's best to build a fence before we focus on anything else. Also, the neighbors are now building a mountain of trash at the back of our house, I think to spite us, and it can be easily seen from the cabin. With a high fence we can block our view of the trash pile and it will also keep some of the trash smoke away from our lungs.
Unwilling Babysitter 👦
Now that our neighbor is taking the kids to school for $200 a month, I have a little more freetime, and I've been trying to be productive with it. I didn't plan on having to babysit his son while he is away though, kind of cancels out the potential productivity. He's cute, but completely wild, can't focus for more than 5 seconds and can't sit still, wants to throw everything, so basically he needs to be under constant watch. Just before this pic he tried to climb on top of my cutting board and Superman jump off the table. I wasn't happy about this, obviously, and it's clear he needs a little discipline and some speech therapy, or at least conversation practice.
Any attempt to keep him entertained only lasts for a minute at most, even given a paper and pen, it only lasts a few seconds before he's scratched a few lines and is ready for whatever's next. At home he has full freedom to do whatever he wants, but nobody is spending much time teaching him things and showing him how to behave, so I am worried how this behavior will change as he gets older.
👁️ Dragon Eye Anyone?
Monkey-B probably was heading to the bathroom or coming back from it when I took this shot, but I really can't remember. She decided to show off her longan for the camera, but I prefer the name a nearby Chinese grocer in the USA uses for them, "dragon eyes," probably because of transparent jelly with a black seed inside that is partially visible, kind of resembling an eyeball.
Off To School 🛻
Fast forward the morning, and these are kids ready or not ready for school, Srey-Yuu doesn't look particularly excited, and Monkey-B appears to not be fully awake, and I am glad not to be driving them with only 3 hours of sleep in my system. That's all for now folks, just found out the girls have a short school break, so there are likely more campfires to come.
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Good job dear brother. Do to complete your cabin keep it up.
Thank you, I hope we can finish it this dry season.
That cabin is so comforting, @justinparke . I just love the environment. I'm more into the woods and living quietly. All I need are my books and my favourite food, and I can survive without the internet for a month.
We hope to provide people from the capital a weekend digital detox escape. We are very remote, but I've determined folks from the capital could get here by 11pm on a Friday if they have to work until 5pm. It takes roughly 6 hours to get here, so I am going to focus on guests from there for my marketing.
That is an excellent thought. Not only did our bodies need to be detoxified, but also our minds needed to be stress-free. @justinparke , you did a good job there. I'm happy for you.
Hi Bro, I saw a picture of your little house, I miss the time I slept there.
Yes, it was nice to see you even if only for a half day. I hope you come back again and stay long enough to see the beauty here.
Yes I hope so too.
Your place seems so peaceful. I always dreamt of having a place surrounded by water and trees, it's nice to see Monkey B again.😁
It is peaceful and quiet here most of the time, the sound of the rapids put us to sleep at night. For the last week though it's been the sound of chainsaws cutting down the forest illegally, but it's very dangerous to interfere in those matters. I hope the forest lasts another 10 years, that will be a miracle in Cambodia.
I'm glad things are moving along for you but I gotta be honest bro, it looks tough. Especially the nonsense with the neighbor but then again, I've had issues with almost every neighbor I have ever had a house next to. I don't know what it is about proximity that breeds contempt but it does seem to be global.
We have no regrets, but it hasn't come without its share of hardships. The folks in the village aren't exactly desirable or wholesome, but I must admit it's not much better in the cities where your neighbors are more likely to be educated, but it often comes with arrogance and racism.
When you mention global, I guess problems back in the states like this would often arise from playing music too loud and blocking each other's views. I think if we stay here, this certainly won't be our last place of residence, because I can see this place ruined in 10 years, but also my property value increasing. We could keep our eyes open for a very remote patch of land that's off-grid, and we could live comfortably much longer. The main thing will be the Thai border opening for international crossings, then we could access to supermarkets, modern medical care, and all the other easy to find products on the other side of the border.
Building a fence is really essential when you have neighbors that are nosy and are always jealous of you. I just hope they won't pile up their garbage beside your fence that it will destroy your fence overtime.
I love your cabin design very asian and honey.
That kid is quite a handful I must say and yah he does need a little disciplining and guidance and should start now because as said in the bible, "train up a child in the way he must go for when he is old he will not depart from it."
Your daughters are growing up tall.
The trash pile unsightly, stinky, and embarrassing, but the only thing we can do is to block our guests' view of it. Our little neighbor boy is mischievous, but in general boys receive much less discipline and guidance than girls, so they tend to be very wild in their young years, and unfortunately it often continues into adulthood.
I am always when I realize how much my daughters have grown. I am so proud of them and hope to see them have a good future.
We Cantonese call it Longan 🤣
And yes, that's exactly why is it called dragon eye.
Mystery solved, and I assume the English translation of the Cantonese name is "dragon eye," right? I wonder if the Mandarin name is the same translation too 🤔. I would pay good money to see a tropical fruit themed Wolverine movie.
Most of the Chinese decendant in the state(particularly earlier settlement business owners in China town) are from the southern region, which share similar accent.
Reminds me, I just saw something about a controversy in China, the CCP seemingly wants to further Mandarin-ize the country, and I think there were some major social media platforms that stripped support of Cantonese.
In the news I was reading/watching, it mentioned Malaysia as one of the places keeping the Cantonese language alive, I guess because historically the Chinese immigrants of Malaysia were Cantonese speakers, and there was never a force to convert to Mandarin there.
Both my kids can't speak cantonese. It all depending on which generation and how the parents bringup their childrens.
During my generation, my maternal grandma actually spoke Hakka with me 😂 so I actually inherited the grandmother tongue. My mom though, despite being from the Hakka clan, she only spoke Cantonese to me, so as my other siblings, since my dad is speaks Cantonese.
Back then, my school does force us to use Malay language(the national language). Alternatively, they only allowed mandarin as replacement of official language.
You see, in Singapore, dialects being seen as low standard back in the 90s, that's where they started nationally promote use of mandarin and English ONLY. After some 30 years, they're now finally understand they can't simply strip off the "language" to Singaporiate their people. They're trying very hard to restore their culture.
On the other hand though, my very own country is actually following footstep of the 90s Singapore 😂 the other day I went for a a groceries shopping, a credit card sales girl walk towards me asking me in Mandarin if I'm interested. When I answered her in Cantonese, her face looks like disbelief I'm the kind of ancient dinosaur who still speak cantonese 🤣
You know what, I'm not going to ask my kids to learn my dialect. I can't possibly be the guy who haggle price at the street in mandarin and ask my kids to learn Cantonese due to the "importaness" of their father tongue 😜
I can totally understand your reasons for this, and of course your wife and you come from different backgrounds, cultures, languages, so you do have to make some choices. I always wisht that my kids will be tri-lingual, but it looks like that will only be possible if I learn a third language fluently. So far I've failed at about 12 of them.
wow... the little house you built looks so comfortable to stay in my friend.you seem to be his person very diligent.
To make a fence it is very important to cover the area of the house, sometimes many things that we do not want to happen.
Seeing the children go to school in the morning, so remembering when I was in school, especially leaving for school early in the morning, sometimes makes me a little lazy, hahahaha
I am so excited to see the completion of the fence, it will give us a lot privacy and more comfort, and bring an end to the trespassing. The commute to school is a very long one, but it's so important to keep my daughters' education going.
I like the idea of making your cabin a Airbnb in the future.
I can just imagine how that little boy needs to be watch the whole time. :D
Haha, when the little guy visits the cabin, he immediately jumps up and down as hard as he can to cause the floor to make noise, he is tough to watch.
Yay! 🤗
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encouragement for those who smile sweetly.
Thank you my friend 🙏🙏🙏.
camp fires are the best thing. I hope the weather will favor you in the following days more.
The nightly campfires have been a nice addition to the daily routine. The girls love it and it's a good opportunity for conversation.
🙏🙏🙏