Dam vs. soil erosion

Soil erosion is a natural phenomenon, like rain and drought, like day and night, like winter and summer. But if one wishes to minimize if not control such soil loss mainly due to heavy rains and flooding, one has to build dam checks and obstruction, man-made or natural, in order to trap a big portion of the eroded soil brought down by flash floods.

And this is one of the small dams we built in our farm made of stones, no cement.




It is about 4 feet high already starting from the base. The base used to be the “ground level”. We built it more than a year ago only, and during the last rainy season, it has trapped eroded soil and organic matter from higher elevation about 2 feet high.

Here’s another view of the stone dam. There is a small coconut tree that has grown near its base. This tree should help stabilize the base.



Here’s the back view of the dam, below. A layer of smaller stones stabilize the front layer of big stones. The force of the oncoming flood will hit the back layer first and the excess water will overflow on top.



This back layer is the one that will trap the eroded soil and organic matter brought down by the flood. Thus, after sometime, the back layer of stones will disappear and will be covered by new soil. Notice the leaves that we deposited at the back as initial deposit of organic matter.

And here’s the top view, below. There are now 3 layers or stone terraces in this dam. The 2nd and 3rd layers from the right are actually sitting on the trapped soil by the 1st layer (rightmost) of stones that we built last year.



The width of this 3rd and last layer of stones is about 1 ½ foot. When new soil has reached the level of this last layer, then a 4th and new layer of stones will be built on this new soil. And so on until this dam gets higher and higher, trapping several cubic meters of eroded soil from higher elevation every year.

This is the gully that we hope will be slowly covered by new soil every year.



What’s the point of doing these things? Well, three points. One, minimize and control soil erosion. Two, improve the water retention capacity of this part of the farm, creating a new water table someday. And third, build bigger and higher stone terraces, without cement, and have a beautiful layers of big stones rising up every year. Should be a beautiful spot for picture taking someday. :-)



Above are the guys who helped me build the 3rd layer of stones just last weekend. Our caretaker in the farm is Nong Endring Paragas, right most. He is also one of my wedding godfathers. Assisting him is his son, Danny Paragas, leftmost, who also got me as one of his wedding godfathers, and the world is turning round and round. :-) In the middle are two teen-agers who work for 1 day with us, Hardji and Marlon, and both are nephews of Danny.

The rains of January

Since January 1 this year, the sky above Metro Manila and surrounding provinces has been generally covered by clouds, for 18 days straight now. Last night there was a light shower, this afternoon it rained. The probability that the Sun is not covered by thick clouds the past few days is only about 15 percent. I was also informed by my sister in our province in Neg. Occ. (1 hour by plane south of Manila), that it's been raining there almost daily. These things are unusual.

Wet or rainy season in our part of the tropics is from June to around mid-October. From mid-October to Feb is "dry and cold", from March to May is dry and hot".

It was also unusual in 2009. Prolonged "cold front" from December 2008 until mid-April, with scattered rains in some parts of the country. Then the rainy season started in mid-April. Two typhoons each in April and May, supposedly the 2 hottest months of the year.

I'm observing these things because I'm testing my own simple hypothesis, with no formal tests, just layman observation -- that the "frigid parade" from the Arctic or north pole is marching south, down to the equator.

Meanwhile, two new papers were uploaded in our website re warming scam:

1. "On warming hysteria" by Al Protacio, 6 pages,
http://www.minimalgovernment.net/media/alprotacio-201001.pdf

2. "Climate alarmism and Copenhagen" by Nonoy Oplas, 22 pages,
http://www.minimalgovernment.net/media/mg_20100104.pdf

Al Protacio is a Filipino geophysicist in a geothermal plant in UK.

Rainy September and int'l climate meetings

We're past 3 weeks of September now, and I think I counted only about 5 or 6 days that there was no rain this month. Lately it's hot in the morning, then very cloudy if not raining in the afternoon. The past 2 days and today, the sky was always cloudy. It rained for about 7 hours yesterday, stopped in late evening, and the rains are back this morning.

My friend from Hanoi said it was sunny there last week. Maybe the rain clouds in the Philippines came from evaporated water from Vietnam. :-)

The climate bureaucrats and "negotiators" from many countries, they should be enjoying the frequent travels and perks. Too many internatinoal climate meetings. They just finished their meeting in Bonn, Germany last month. This week, they met in UN, NY office. Next week, they will meet again in Bangkok. Next month or November, they will meet again in Spain. And in December, they will have a big meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The current deep solar minimum, the deepest in a century, can possibly result in a repeat of the Dalton Minimum global cooling that happened 2 centuries ago. Thus, instead of preparing for drought, we should prepare for lots of flooding. Those in the temperate regions, they should prepare for long winters, short summer -- it actually happened in the US and Canada this year, even in south america like argentina.

Rainy September

There were just too much rains this month in the Philippines.

From September 1 to 13, Sunday, mostly cloudy days; it rained almost everyday except for 2 days.

Last Monday it was half-cloudy, half sunny.
Last Tuesday, it was sunny the whole day, at times zero clouds.
Yesterday, the clouds and rains were back, there were street flooding again.
Today, Thursday, sunny in the morning. Thin clouds appeared in early afternoon. Now as I write this, there is a heavy downpour, though it does not seem to last long.

It seemed that the sky would be sunny only for sunlight to get evaporation, to accummulate thick rain clouds again. Then dump the rains anytime, anyday.

I remember last August 2003. While a severe heatwave killed more than 35,000 in Europe, we had 7 days and 7 nights straight of almost non-stop rains in the Philippines. Several dozen people died because of landslides, drowning from bloating rivers, and diseases. Some because of hunger perhaps. There is nothing to eat when almost everything is flooded. I remember that month very well because I was preparing to go to Sweden for a 7-weeks seminar on "Sustainable agriculture in an environmental perspective" from September to mid-October that year.

I visited our farm last Saturday. I learned that many rice farmers have already harvested their farms for the first crop, they were happy with the early onset of the rains. But too much rains can be a problem for the farmers too. After harvesting, they cannot dry their rice as most of rice farmers in the Philippines depend on solar drying. If the harvested rice don't get dried for long, it blackens and the quality and taste is adversely affected.

Meanwhile, I believe in the Sun-climate link theory. Deep solar minimum, very little or zero sunspots, meaning weak solar magnetic field, allow the entry of plenty of galactic cosmic rays that reach the Earth as the solar wind is weak to drive them away. These cosmic rays help form the aerosols that become the seeds in cloud formation. More clouds, less sunlight to reach the Earth surface, more rains, there is global cooling.

Around my treehouse

Around my treehouse are either trees and rice or grass, depending on the season. Here’s one view – rice in the front, trees on both sides and on the back.


A view from my house, ricefield during the rainy season. Our caretaker plants 2 crops per year. The vacant portion is where the cows would sometimes rest and sleep in the evening.


During summer and dry season, the land is left on fallow to “rest”, the cows eat the rice straw and whatever grasses that will grow.


On one side of my house are thick branches of different trees, mostly mahogany but there are a few fruit trees (a tree each of avocado, rambutan, jackfruit, calamansi, etc.). These fruit trees though do not bear good fruits because they don’t get enough sunlight as the mahogany trees are tall and get most of the sunlight.


On another side near my treehouse is our outdoor dining table. It also has cogon roof. The roof suffers as the mahogany trees become bigger and taller, after the rain, the cogon don’t get dry immediately as sunlight is blocked by the tall trees.

Organic chicken

We re-started our organic chicken just a few months ago. We have about 17 chicken for now, mostly female. None so far are laying eggs regularly, should be the rainy season, and there are no “palay” (unhusked rice) to eat yet.

A few years ago, we experimented it, the chicken were free roaming, there were plenty of them already, nearly a hundred perhaps. But there are several enemies for the free-roaming chicken.

One, our dogs. When the dogs are eating, the chicken would come in to eat the scattered food, which makes the dogs angry, some of the chicken have broken legs or broken wings, etc.

Two, the wild animals – monitor lizard (“bayawak”), wild cat (“musang”), even hawks flying more frequently above the farm since they could see plenty of hapless chicken below. And possibly some snakes that prey on the smaller chicken.

Three, thieves that are passing by, they chanced upon the roaming chicken, hit the chicken when no one is looking, carry and steal the injured chicken in their sacks or bag.

In addition, some of the chicken who were terrified or shocked being chased by the dogs or people passing by, learned not to come back to their resting place in the evening, they found other places to spend the night several meters away. Later on we did not know where they went.

So this time, we are building an enclosed area for them.

The lower fence is made of small, native bamboo (“bulo”), about 2 to 3 feet high. Then used fish nets up to the roof. The roof is made of cogon. All native materials except the fish nets.


We have one evening caretaker, Fernando. He works making charcoal in our farm, removing low-lying branches, extra branches, fallen trees and branches. That's mainly his day time job. He's very industrious. He would visit his family in the barrio by late afternoon and go back to the farm by evening.


In the evening, he either rests, or hunt fish and wild frogs in the nearby creek using electrical current. This will be his viand in the farm, the extra he will bring to his family.

Stuck in the farm

Monday last week, I brought some materials to the farm, drove my pick-up, tagged along my wife and daughter. The trip was fine, cloudy skies but no rain, we reached our caretakers’ house in the barrio, still a few kilometers from the farm.

We went to the farm, the dirtroad in the neighboring farm was a bit slippery because it rained the previous day. Going down a bit to our farm, it indeed looked slippery plus the sky was getting darker, but I thought we’ll just drop a few heavy materials – used wood, galvanized iron, etc. for our organic chicken farm – so I went ahead. It was big mistake. A very big mistake, in fact.

As soon as we unloaded the heavy materials, rainshowers started falling, the dirtroad up was more slippery then I thought. In short, my pick-up got stuck in the mud!

Our 2 caretakers were there to help, but their muscle or body weight (to add weight to the rear wheel as my pick-up isn’t 4wd, just 2 rear wheels moving. They called upon 2 other men nearby, 4 men – and still not enough. By then, the showers became a downpour.

After more than an hour of vain attempts, they called in more men from the barrio. After more than an hour, 5 other men came, they brought 4 steel platforms where the rear wheels can “step” on. It now looks a bit like “people power” to push my pick-up up on a slippery road.


Were they strong enough? Or were they heavy enough if they stand at the back of the pick-up to add more weight for the rear wheels to work?

NO to both questions. Really terrible. We got stuck around 11:30am, we didn’t have lunch, now it’s past 2pm, and about 4 of the 9 men there have not taken their lunch too. That means they have less energy to push or pull the pick-up.

They gathered sand from about 300 meters away to cover the slippery soil. Gathered small stones, etc., all for naught.

It was past 5pm we were still stuck. Two men already left. I said only one option left: go backwards, dare the muddy road back, get the men at the back of the pick-up, get some momentum and brave the slippery ascent. One, two, three attempts, unsuccessful. On the 4th attempt, the pick-up was able to go up! Hurray!!!

But it was only hurdle no. 1. There’s hurdle no. 2, a slippery part on a steep ascent in the neighboring farm. There’s a “pug-pug” or barrio truck nearby (its engine sound is like pug-pug-pug-pug…, hence the term). They also have a long rope, we hoped that the pug-pug can pull my pick-up. But it too was cannot ascend as it’s not a 4wd.


So the men pushed again the pug-pug up. Talking about a supposed solution that can become part of the problem itself.

The men again gathered small stones and gravel to cover the muddy part. Again, I reversed and moved backward to get some momentum, have some men rode at the back of the pick-up, then floored the accelerator on a 1st gear. Got stuck again in the middle, the other men push the pick-up, slowly but surely, until it finally got out of the mud and low-lying area!


It was around 5:45pm when we finally got out of the farm, or we’ve been stuck there for more than 6 hours. Some of the men suffered minor scratches from flying gravel or small stones as the rear wheels were burning the tires.

My daughter has been staying inside the pick-up for most of the 6+ hours because it was muddy to walk around, and there were still scattered rainshowers.

What a bad experience! My extra money, I gave away to the men who endured hunger, the rains, mud and some flying small stones.

On a positive note, I saw and experienced again how the guys in the barrio would help. Especially for us who have to travel back to Manila, 4 hours away from the barrio.

The food that was supposed to be our lunch at 12 noon became our dinner at past 6pm. What an experience again in the farm with my old but reliable, 12+ years old pick-up.

My treehouse, May 2009

My treehouse is now surrounded by tall and thick mahogany trees and a few fruit trees. When we were building my treehouse more 5 ½ years ago, those trees were still young, though they were planted about 10 or 12 years ago. Now that the trees are tall and thick, sunlight can hardly penetrate in some parts of the wooded area, it gets dark even in the afternoon. What is dangerous is that mosquitoes tend to abound, these insects like dark and shaded areas, they don’t like direct exposure to sunlight.


And to think that those mahogany trees lost many of their branches just 12 months ago in a strong typhoon, local name “Cosme”. That typhoon also toppled and killed at least 3 mahogany trees near the house, good that it was structurally strong, it did not tilt when one tree fell on it. The removed trees gave some open space for sunlight near my house.


Notice the top of the mahogany tree where my house is perched. That picture was taken nearly 3 weeks ago. Now the leaves on that same spot are thick. The roof was just repaired 3 months ago.

The roof

The original roof of my treehouse is cogon. It was neatly made, as shown in this picture. After 5 years, some of the roof were attacked by the termites. The mahogany leaves from the top of the tree that fall on the roof, plus rainfall, make the leaves-covered roof always damp and wet, and some termites that managed to go up were nibbling the cogon and wood.


Later it was leaking bad, we have to replace the cogon roof with galvanized iron in one side of the roof. Problem solved.

Cogon roof will work best if there is no tree top above it that endlessly produces fallen leaves, that partly covers the roof from direct sunlight. Here now is the new roof – galvanized iron on the right, and cogon on the left.


Notice young branches sprouting up.


The next problem will be the forever-rising tree top that is pushing up the roof trusses.