Wawel's blog

Environmentalist, writer and ecological artist Odette Alcantara passed away at the age of 68 on Monday, 21 September 2009,  after suffering an aneurysm. Alcantara is most notable for her strong environmental advocacies. She was convenor of Artists for the Environment, founder of Earth Philippines, and Philippine coordinator for the Earth Day Network.

Mom fondly recalls how our late father, Tony Mercado, used to wake up early in the morning, walk to the lagoon area, and just sit there gazing at majestic Mt. Banahaw, while on his morning prayer meditation. Dad loved this area of the Forest Club and dreamed of one day building a house by the lagoon, facing Mt. Banahaw. I am convinced that it is the view from here that convinced him to buy this property. I remember that when the property was new and still being developed, he bought a giant hand-made kite from a local kite maker along the national highway in

The rainy season is our traditional low season, with guests occupying our cottages only on weekends, leaving most weekdays free. But we are taking full advantage of this season to continually improve our facilities. Just this week, we have started and completed the installation of new tiles on our dining room floor. Using new generation tile adhesives, installation was relatively quick and easy, eliminating the need to roughen up the cement surface before installing the tiles.We have also installed new lights to brighten up the buffet areas of the dining hall,

We have just deployed six native ducks, locally known as "itik", into our organic rice field to help us get rid of Golden Kuhol (Golden Apple Snails) that are a menace to our organic rice crops. Golden Kuhol bring down rice yields in the Philippines by as much as 40%, and Filipino farmers have been resorting to massive use of synthetic molluscicides that are expensive and broad spectrum, affecting non-target organisms including human beings.

One of the greatest pleasures that summer brings are flowers of every imaginable color in full bloom...red, yellow, orange, violet, pink, peach, white, purple, green. Yes, green! Jade green in fact! The rare Jade Vine is in full bloom at this time too. And it is not yet even May!    

I've always had a fascination for them, stone sculptures that I would find at roadside gardens in Laguna, sold as garden ornaments together with plants.