ESSAY

A Sunny Day in the Yard Following the Rain

Witnessing changes in the environment

I came home last night in heavy rain. These days, we are experiencing an early monsoon situation. It starts to rain early in the morning and continues throughout the day.

This morning, everything has changed. It was a bright morning with a clear sky, so we had to make the most of this rare chance.

Mother waited for me to come home because she needed to plant some cassava cuttings. She didn’t mind that I had planned to dedicate today’s time slot to Medium, so I complied.

I dug a trench and planted two cassava cuttings along it. When we’re growing cassava at home, we don’t need to give it much care. It’s enough to stick them in the soil, and after a few months, we can get a good yield.

September is often called the month of change, and our yard is also showing some noticeable transformations.

Here, this small June plum tree has started to bear fruit. We didn’t expect it to happen so soon, but it seems like it has some other ideas.

Have you witnessed yam bearing at the top of vines? Actually, those are called bulbs. I found a few small bulbs in some Dioscorea vines. They are edible, and their taste and texture are equal to their below-ground counterparts, the tubers.

Normally, yam tubers are harvested in November when the vine is withering. In Sinhala, we have a saying, ‘Ala bahinakota Vela Merenawa,’ which means ‘The vine may die when yam is growing.’

The plant’s reproduction mechanism involves producing bulbs before the vine withers, and we, as greedy humans, eat them, too. However, we always save some to grow for the next season.

My friend R C Hammond requested that I share some photos of our Durian tree. It is also undergoing some changes; it has started to bear flowers. A Durian tree has flowers in the middle of the stems, and when it blossoms, it’s a truly beautiful sight.

Unfortunately, not all the flowers end up becoming fruit. This is still a young tree, and this is the fourth time it has had flowers, but it has only given us two fruits so far, mainly due to issues with pollinators. Hopefully, this time, we will be lucky enough to have some fruits.

It seems that we’ll have a coffee harvesting season in just a few weeks when these fruits turn red.

I saved the most interesting piece for last. A few days ago, I wrote a piece about the ‘Queen of the Night’ flower. The photo was taken more than six years ago. After that, we didn’t have a blossom, but now it has started to bear a flower again. We need to be on alert to witness the blossom now.

It seems like this September is going to bring some positive changes.

I almost forgot to mention the reason I had to come home in the middle of the month. It was someone’s birthday.