Things we see out our window

In this post I thought I'd share some of the photos I've taken out our window from our house in South East Asia.

This is not a typical view, but one day in June 2014, this is what we saw.

Unfortunately the cause of the smoke was a fellow expat's home going up in flames!  We praise God the people all got out safely, but a few families lost their homes and most of their belongings in less than 2 hours. 

Note the fire truck, which showed up eventually, but quickly ran out of water (no fire hydrants here) and really could not do anything to help stop the fire of the mostly wooden houses.

One day this truck was our entertainment for a while...

The truck had gotten stuck in front of our lower gate and it took a second truck to pull it out
(after multiple unsuccessful tries with a chain that snapped)

We are blessed to live in a year-round warm climate!
This is one of the ways I help the boys (and neighbor kids) cool off!

Can you spot the girl in the tree?

One of our neighbors climbed straight up this TALL small tree to get the "fruit" off the top.  The fruit is pinang, also known as betel nut.  It is chewed by many of the locals as a mild stimulant with some harmful health effects.

We've seen quite a few interested insects around our house.
This one was a beetle with antenna about 7 inches long!

The smoke in our backyard is not from fire, but rather the "fogger."  In an attempt to reduce the mosquito population in our yard, we occasionally fog with medicine to kill them.

We have several resident geckos in our house.  These two live near the front window
and they fight a lot!  In this picture one of them had the other's neck in his mouth.
I guess it's a prime "residential" spot for geckos, with the bright light at night that attracts many insects. 

We were so excited when our road was repaved!

It was fascinating to watch the process.  This guy had a can with holes in the bottom that he'd
swing back and forth across the road with hot tar streaming out the bottom.  I'm sure
there is a machine that does this on US road construction projects,
but here most things are done manually. 

This post wouldn't be complete without pictures of puppies, the favorite part of our yard!

This boy LOVES puppies!