A day in the village with sticky seeds on pants!

I remember those days my dad came home with his pants full with sticky seeds of the weeds all over. My mom would pick them out one by one patiently before washing. It was a tedious and unpleasant job of getting rid of them. My dad must have adventured into some wilderness with his friends. Did not remember exactly for what purpose he made the trip but I believe he must have gone on a fishing trip that required him to walk along the sand dunes of the ex-mining land, waded through some streams and also trekked some areas with lallang and tall undergrowth. He and his friend had gone to that fascinating and mysterious region of wilderness located just opposite my grandpa's home. A meandering river and the mining activities kept the landscape there ever changing. My memory could only register a vague image of the scenery of that place which was fast changing too many times over the years! I did remember seeing the row of long tender bamboo fishing rods that were laid on the side of the house, perhaps it was for the sun to dry up the equipment before they were kept in-house for future trips.

The strip of land over there was a "happening place" for the village folks. It was rumored that those big deep ponds further inland were once infested with crocrodiles, someone claimed they saw but no one actually caught or killed any one of the beasts. It was also a favorite spot for the villagers to do fish farming and a kid in the neighborhood was drowned in one of those fish ponds. It was a young boy by the nick name of "Little monkey" and that was a sad episode of  life in the village where the youngs were often left alone while the parents were at work and the whereabout of their children was hard to be monitored!

I used to follow my mum and those women in the village nervoulsy to the side of  those big ponds (with crocrodiles?) for the "dulang washing", which is an ingenious method using the centrifugal force of the swirling water to get rid of those mud, sand and stones, but retain the heavier tin ore at the center of the washing bowl called "Dulang"! This old fashioned way of dulang washing profession had fed many of the families in the village though now it had become obsolete that perhaps one could only see this dulang bowl item for display in the muzium!

There was a stretch of vast sweet potatoes land located right before crossing over the river where the happening place was. The sweet potatoes fields were planted for its leaves to feed the pigs, which were kept and reared at the backyard of practically every home in the village in those days. The sweet potatoes field there also served as the natural playground for us where we used to fly kites, catch dragonflies, crickets, butterflies and ambush birds!

We used to see helicopters hovering over that piece of the land in the evening from far away! One day I was told a helicopter crashed in that area but I had not got a chance to see the crash site for myself despite my curiosity!

There came a time with further discovery of rich tin ore deposit in the land by an Australian mining company! The 24 hours rumbling of the giant size bull dozers, "big stomach" scrapers, excavators and dump trucks cleared the land, transformed the entire landscape again beyond recognition. The whole western side of the village was supposed to be relocated for the mining operation to take place but fortunately it did not happen.

These little pricky sticky seeds on my pants brought me back to memory lane once more! By the way, I asked the name of this grass with the sticky seeds on facebook, my "learned friends" said it is called the "love grass"!