Farmers Express Appreciation for Friend’s Thoughtfulness

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Adriel Dave Afuang Alvarez sets up pollen traps in his beeyard near San Francisco, Cebu, Philippines. Photo By Hazel Suson Alvarez

My husband and I are beekeepers and vegetable and corn crop farmers near San Francisco, Cebu, in the Camotes Island Group of the Philippines.

Recently we had a big surprise at our island farm when our friend Stephen Roquet came by with three farmhands ready to mow overgrown grass in the beeyard portion of our eight-hectare (20-acre) veggie farm.

A busy man, Stephen, who was bound for the United States in a couple of days, still found the time to drop by and work in the heat of the noonday tropical sun to sort our farm debris as we got the barn ready for storing our newly harvested corn.

Having known him for more than a year, we came to appreciate Stephen’s thoughtful nature when he shipped a corn sheller for us to use post-harvest. He also helped make raised beds, hoeing the soil for the new set of vegetables we were planting in the final quarter of 2012.

With so much work at the farm, his kind gesture was such a welcome thing, but he didn’t exactly give us enough time to return the kindness. Then I thought, maybe writing to your magazine would be a good way to thank him, as well as surprise him for his random acts of kindness to our family here in the Philippines.

Because of him, too, I have come to know about your magazine, and the plethora of information you share with readers like us on a farm setting. We are blessed to know Stephen, and we wish him all the best, and, by extension, all who practice kindness in unique and helpful ways.