Our family had in our possession number of ranches where we would spend our weekend. It seems like every year dad would purchased more land and built on it. I believed we were in possession of 4 ranches before the communist takeover. Dad shared later on that the ranches were to be passed on to us once we can demonstrated certain level of maturity about life and people.
Weekend at the ranches seemed to be relaxing for dad and mom in a laborous sense. Dad always had some type of projects going on whether digging ponds or plantings some kind of fruit. The first ranch that I can remember was the smallest of the 4. Dad planted mostly bananas and mango. We had house there but it hardly was used. The next three ranches are further up the dirt road and were connected. The second and the third seemed to have been purchased at the same time. Dad put up two more homes and hired a live in keeper on one of them to help with the managing the activities of the land and safe keeping. Knowing dad, the keeper must have been some lost soul who may have been the victim of his own foolishness in need of mercy and grace (That is one many qualities I always remember and respect about dad which was his generosity). The second and the third ranch had bananas, mango and yucca plants.
The fourth ranch was by far the biggest. It is my parents place of refuge. Dad built a fairly large home there along with storage barn and pens for his turkeys, pigs and water buffaloes. Additionally, dad had a big pond dug for fish and for watering our rice field (sticky rice). Another lived in keeper was hired on. All that I can remember about this gentleman was that he was single guy. He was blind in one eye. And he apparently was at one time a professional singer. He was always polite and smiling and never without some melody from his mouth. Uncle Phoukham was also hired on to stay on the ranch as well. All breeds of plants and fruits (pineapple, 5-6 type of mango, coconut etc.)were planted on this land in addition to the high volume of rice. Dad even ventured into growing his own orchid plants.
My siblings (thavisak, phonethip (1/4/2010), viratham, khinkham and manotham spent many, wonderful days here. We also learned learned many lesson here about biology and love. Dad always ensured that Tavi, Phonethip and I helped out whenever we were there. I remembered dad late one night took all of us children from the city out to the ranch so we can witness dad's priced pig give births. That was a first for us. There were many close call here as well for my and my brothers.
In one working incident, dad had asked me to use a wheel barrel to move some lose rocks from near the house somewhere else. In backing up with the barrel, I lost my footing and my grip on the handles. One of the handle shot up and back right into my right eye and cut my eye lid. Mom was livid at dad especially when dad told mom those rocks didn't need to be move but I needed to know how to work. Thanks dad. I remember when Tavi was stung by a poisonous scorpion, mom was livid at dad for that too. There was one painful incident that involved both myself and Phonethip. We were sword fighting as though our lives were depending on it. As we moved along in our battle we found ourselves separated by a group of banana tree. We charged right through the tree and disturbed a wasp nest the size of football (american football). Both of us were stung repeatedly by swarm of them mostly on our heads. Dad along with uncle phoukham charged over to drag us away. That was funny stuffs. No, mom wasn't there for this one.
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