Cat-tails Memory

Assalamualaikum.

From what I could recall, I've been gardening since I was a small kid. Most of my gardening activities would consist of repotting my mother's plants, digging holes and pulling out all the weeds around the garden. Basically, just that.

When planting new plants, my mother would wait for me to do it all because she said if I'm the one who planted it, it will grow healthily, because of my green thumb. I always thought so. Perhaps, it's just my mother's way to get his son to accompany her with her hobby. Somehow, my father is not very keen on gardening.

When I was in Universiti Putra Malaysia, my roommate for 3 straight years is this guy named Epoy and he's got quite a very peculiar sense of art when it comes to decorating our room. He would borrow so many books from the library and put it in on the rack so it would 'look good' and put coins & beans in small jars to be displayed on the his table. Also, how-about-stick-some-cool-photos-on-the-wall-to-impress-people-coming-to-our-room kind of thing. *Hahaa..I'm not even sorry for bad-mouthing you.

This is Epoy. Haha.

Being a good friend, I just get into his rhythm - and inject in a bit of my own 'insanity'.

While others would be on the football field or the basketball court, the both of us, on many occasion would scour the campus for plants to be planted inside the room. Not just ordinary plants you would find planted on the road curbs by the landscaper, but more likely wild weeds and tall grasses from the swampy part of UPM.

Photo of one of the plants we have in the room.

We would put them in glasses or any suitable container and let it grow inside the room. Sometimes, he would take photographs of them and heavily edit them on Photoshop to make it look stunning. Here's some from what's left of his artworks. Hehee.

Butterfly-like plant which we don't really know what the name is.

We have our fun, in our own ways.

During this part of my life I discovered that I truly have the capability to actually plant something and take care of it until it reach its worth. One one occasion, we planted a tall grass (which I later identified as cat-tails grass) inside the room in a candy container and all our friends would come and say its a bit crazy for us to do that. We took pride on that knowing that we are a bit different from them. One day, the plant started to produce its seed - the tail - and we are very much amazed that it have the ability to grow in such a condition - inside a small room, in a candy container by the window.

This is how cat-tails grass looks like.

After a few weeks, I came back from the class one day to find out that our room was filled with small, hairy, white flying cat-tails grass seeds. It was literally everywhere - on the bed, on the PC, on our clothes, all over the floor - and the room was a mess.

This is how it looks before it bursts.

We have a good laugh on how stupid we were to ignore it when the seed seems like its ready to explode - alas, we left the window wide open - so the seeds were flown into the room instead of away from it. A good memory indeed.

To my best-friend Mohamad Saifol Bin Aaisa whom is currently in Jubail, Saudi Arabia - thanks for all the laughter we shared back then. May God bless you. May your laughs cheer up all your new friends there. Haha.

When you're back in Malaysia, feel free to drop by my Backyard Garden. Hopefully, by then, the tomatoes are all red and the greens are plentiful.

Thanks.