For the past several years I've done a blog with photos from the beginning and ending of the year. As I was looking through photos, trying to decide what to pick, I realized that my choices show how I look at my life. Someone else might have chosen different pictures. (A saying I have is: There are two kinds of journalists. Those who are biased and recognize what their bias is--and tell others. And then there are those who are biased and don't think they are.)
I could have done nearly-identical pictures. On January first, we had several of the youth over from church to make fritters or, as some call them, New Years cookies. On December 31st we were making a batch for a New Years eve service at church. These would be people oriented photos.
But I decided to use some different photos. I'm not a great people photographer.
While we tend to choose our sandwiches based on what is in the middle, we also want to choose our bread. So while these photos don't represent the meat of what happened this year, they are like the slices of bread I choose to put the meat between.
January 1st falls close to my birthday. I told my wife that I don't really want to acquire things for my birthday. I'd rather just go to a park somewhere. So we decided to go to Phu Phrabat Historical Park. It turned out to be the first of three trips to the park that year.
Phu Phrabat Park is focused around some interesting rock formations that were used as housing and places of worship many, many years ago. There are even red-colored petroglyphs which have a character similar to those I would see in the American west. If you want to see that side of things, as well as photos of the fancy restrooms, check out my flickr album from the park.
What I like about the park are the nice walking trails with varied scenery. It just happened to be the season that some of the dipterocarp trees were blooming. I picked up a blossom and stuck it in a mossy log, because I like the color contrast.
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| Dipterocarp flower on mossy log |
Dipterocarp trees were once very common in northern and northeast Thailand. They grow in humid climates with long dry seasons. They don't seem to be bothered by the fact that it doesn't hardly rain for six months. They just drop their leaves to cope with the dry season much as trees where I grew up would drop their leaves to cope with the cold. There are many species in the plant family Dipterocarpaceae. Most have winged seeds; the seed pictured below is the same species as the bloom above. We big kids sometimes enjoy throwing them in the air and watching them helicopter down.
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| Dipterocarp winged fruit |
Most species of the Dipterocarp genus get quite tall and the branches tend to be clustered at the top. This can make recognizing species difficult because it is often hard to see the leaves on the tree-you have to look at leaves and flowers that have fallen to the ground.
One thing that is nice about the Isaan region (as opposed to central or northern Thailand) is that the farmers often leave native trees in their rice paddies. So one sees perhaps more of the big giants that used to cover the region before they were all cut down to put in farms. Sometimes I'll even see masses of the pink flowers that have fallen off a tree onto the road.
Which brings be to the photo for the end of the year.
While many of our Canadian friends and relatives might be whining about the cold at this time of year (I would be if I was there), here in Thailand we are enjoying the cold winters. It's nice when the temps drop into the 60s (15-20 C) at night.
While I tend to ride my bicycle all year round here, it is perhaps most enjoyable in the winter. And so I found myself doing a leisurely bike ride on New Years Eve day. This day I was staying on the dirt roads as much as possible because of the very busy highways during the New Years Holiday season.
My trip this day brought me past an old oxbow of the Huai Luang river that they put a dam in to form Huai Kan Lueang Reservoir. The reservoir is on both sides of a minor highway and right now they are excavating dirt on one side to make it deeper and using the dirt to fill in the other side.
A consequence of this dirt fill operation is that I can now get up close to water lilies that used to be in the middle of the swamp. On this morning, it had started out cloudy, but the clouds were moving off to the west so the flowers were in the sun.
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| Pink water lilies |
The water levels in Huai Kan Lueang have dropped considerably since wet season. As the water levels drop, some of the area is used to grow rice, as pictured below.
Ironic that this area was under water a few months ago. Now the farmer is using his tiller motor to drive a pump to irrigate his rice paddy. Along one of the berms there are palm trees. These are oil palms. The fruits are are crushed to extract the oil. There is a significant acreage planted to oil palms in this part of Thailand.
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| Rice paddies and oil palms |
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| Oil Palm Fruits |
And so my year has brought me from the forest to the field and lots of places in between. But when I woke up on January 1st of this year, I was happy that some things did not change. I woke up next to the same wife. The sun rose again like it has everyday. And God's great love for us was still there.
God showed how much he loved us by sending his one and only Son into the world so that we might have eternal life through him. This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. 1 John 5:9, 10
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Hebrews 13:8
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