Another new class 20180625

Went to my first Monday class at Udavi school today.  They have cut down the big tree so the class were clearing up all the material from that which was spread all over the garden.  This class is the one which had their first year in the garden last year. 

They got down to the work immediately and knew what to do.  It showed me how far they have come in the last twelve months.

Busy rest day 20180624

Had a very busy day clearing up some more shelves, seeing a Newcomer, talking to a friend on Skype about a farm he wants to set up in Portugal and doing my hair.

Phew!

A new school class 20180623

Yesterday I went to the new school class Year 7 who are going to spend time in the Udavi school garden for the first time.  Funny to go right back to the beginning again with another class.  I had forgotten how little they know at the beginning…. I had to show them how to clear the beds of the plants from last year as well as explain to them about Tamil Nadu seasons.

I was meant to go to the garden again this afternoon but it was cancelled because the group were doing some project work or something.  This has happened before with this group.

Happy Birthday 20180622

I love the mysteriousness of this picture of Ganesh in the evening all lit up for Magzhiran’s birthday.

Had a lovely gathering with meal and two birthday cakes, one of which was ice cream and melted rather fast.  Magzhiran is three years old today.

Ready to go 20180621

At last our pineapples are ready to go.  They have been on the verge of being ripe enough for a long time.  So it seems to have taken ages to get them to this point.

Creating 20180620

Tried very hard to start the new video about weeding, but it won’t come together yet.  So have cleared up some writing jobs instead.  Easier than trying to bring together the visual, intellectual and emotional elements of weeds for the video!

This is my favorite picture of today which shows the basil on the automatically watered bed growing much better than the basil on the conventionally watered bed.  All the clips and photos came out much better now the aperture of the camera is clean.

Dirt 20180619

This morning we were doing some weeding and I was very pleased with the clips and photos I took – until I uploaded them.  Then I found that there were various blurry bits on the images.  I looked at the lens aperture to see what looked like slime on the glass.  It looked as if a slimy something had crawled across the glass.  Fortunately whatever it was cleaned off quite easily with a cloth and water.

I’ve obviously got to be a lot more careful about keeping the camera clean.  As I’m usually using it in the garden, often while working there, my hands are often quite dirty.  Although how that mark got on the glass I don’t know as I try hard not to touch that part of the camera.  Maybe I have to cover up the aperture when I’m not using it.

Off we go again 20180618

The start of this week feels like the end of the summer and the start of the summer rains.  Udavi school started this week and they will be having four garden sessions each week.  Fortunately I will not have to go to all of them.  But I will need to go to enough to keep an eye on things and take some video clips.  We also have four people coming to stay this week.

Had a bad stomach today.  I think it might be a combination of the spicy food on Saturday night and the handstand at the yoga class.  Eating raw beetroot probably didn’t help either.

I took some pictures yesterday (rather than video clips) and this is my favourite.

What handstands do to me! 20180617

This was how I felt doing a handstand in yesterday’s yoga session – absolutely terrified! The only way I was able to do it was with Grace’s help.  I felt very wobbly when I finished even although I was only in the position for less than a minute!

I don’t feel that my arms will hold me up.  Despite the fact that I have greatly increased my upper body strength.  I think I need more practice.

Another video completed 20180616

I found it very intense indeed doing this week’s video.  I wanted to do something with the music so that it speeded up when I speeded up the video action.  Unfortunately I couldn’t do it.  I did end up with something that was OK – but only OK – nothing special.

Spoke to Giulio about our hole and he said we must not fill it in.  We wait until there is some more rain and see if it is held in the hole.  This could show there is clay deeper and if so it would be work digging the hole deeper to see where it is.

Shaken and stirred 20180615

This is the new auto rickshaw from the Integrated Transport Service that I used to get to my yoga class yesterday.  It’s a nice looking vehicle and everyone looks at it as it drove along.  So I think they should put a notice on it about its ecological credentials – that its electric and therefore no emissions from the engine.

Unfortunately it seems to have been built with little or no suspension.  Consequently by the time I got home I felt very uncomfortable as if I had been shaken and stirred.

I hoped that Mary and family would be able to use it for getting around Auroville, but I think they would find it too uncomfortable.

Ants grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr 20180614

Woke up at 3.00am with all the ants having a party in my bed.  Got lots of ant bites on my back and neck. This is the second time its happened recently and it often does happen at this time of year which brings out the little biting ants.

The picture is of my mattress being baked in the sun.  This helps to get any ants out of the mattress.  I also cleaned very carefully under and around the bed to discourage ants from making a home there.

Another video finished 20180613

Finished and uploaded the bean video today after making some new photos like the one above.  It looks to me like the letters of Chinese or similar calligraphy.

I’ll be interested to see what, if any, the response is to a video which is very different from any of the others I have produced.

Bean video 20180612

Spent quite a lot of today working on a new kind of video.  I have presented it as a meditation on our beans – a meditation on why no one wants our so called ‘second grade’ ones.  When the only difference is that they don’t look the same as the first grade ones.  Rajan and I looked at and discussed it which was really nice.  We decided that I need to get some more photos tomorrow.  The picture comes from the video.

Had my first experience of the Integrated Transport Service today.  They were supposed to come with the rickshaw but it had a flat tire.  So they came with an electric scooter instead.  I didn’t feel too unsafe so it wasn’t too bad. 

Clearing and cleaning 20180610

I spent a lot of today clearing up stuff in my room.  This included boxes of old paints and electrical wires which I am finding new homes.  I’ve been wanting to do this for months and months but haven’t had the energy, presumably because of being depressed.

I am really pleased to at last have the energy.  And having done it I feel less cluttered and more hopeful internally. 

Our hole 20180609

Felt very sorry for the two people who came to dig our hole in the pond today.  It was so hot and they were in full sun.

The idea is that they dig down for two metres to see if there is a clay layer anywhere beneath the pond.  If there is we dig the pond  down to the clay layer and that will seal the pond to hold water.  If not we have to think of another solution, probably a plastic sheet.  So far we have not found clay or the clay has a lot of calcium carbonate in it which encourages the water to drain through.

Lifted 20180608

For the first time for a very long time I felt much better after yesterday’s yoga.  I felt not only that my feet were more firmly on the ground but that energy was being drawn up into me from the earth.  I felt more relaxed and in touch with everything. I have been so depressed these last months and today I felt it lift.

It was a bit cooler last night so we all slept a lot better than has been usual during these hot weeks.

Burning up 20180607

I created this picture to show how I am right now.  It was one of those pictures that just came.  I didn’t think it through before hand.

The red mirrors the fire I often feel in myself; so much so I feel I am being consumed, although that is better since I started doing yoga with Grace.  I also look very ungrounded which is probably a lot of the problem.  Grace says that I need to find a way of helping my muscles to relax.  At the moment when I put them under pressure they just tense up and burn.

Entwined 20180606

I saw the way this snake gourd was entwined with the plant and think that it makes a lovely picture.  Reminds me of how I am entwined with Buddha Garden.

Spent some of today working on the weekly video.  I’ve also been thinking about and experimenting with different ideas and shots for the video I am going to do about our resilient water system.  Its very interesting and I am really enjoying doing it.

New Tshirts for Buddha Garden 20180604

Giri came in with some new Buddha Garden Tshirts that he had just got printed.  They come in three other colours as well as the blue he is wearing.

It rained again today so was able to get more clips for the new video about the rain.

Diverse jobs 20180603

Rushed out to use my new camera when it started to rain this afternoon.  That brought out all the insects and I got bitten on the end of my little toe by what I think was a scorpion ant.  It was very painful although after I walked around for a bit this evening it seemed to get better.

The clips didn’t look too good on my software and it seemed they had the same problems with shake as when I used the phone.  But on a big screen it looked really good. So I will have to explore that a bit more.

The picture is of a poster about neem pesticide.  I spent some time looking through the old papers of the ‘No More Pesticide’ campaign and this is one I found.

New camera 20180602

Very pleased indeed that my new camera arrived today.  Unfortunately I can’t start using it until its charged up the  battery which is taking a long time.

This is the first time in a long time that I have been so excited about getting something new like this. 

New dresses 20180601

Miraculously I finally managed to get my new dresses today.  The shop is right the other side of Auroville and in this hot weather I often don’t feel like cycling.  So have to wait until I can hitch a lift with someone going that way.

Still feeling rather upset about having to delete the video about making the moringa powder.  But we can’t show people in Buddha Garden making food items with a low standard of hygiene.

Deleting my last video 20180531

Was very upset today when Vivek said I had to delete the last video on Youtube.  It shows Mani handling food items etc and not wearing the right clothes or doing it the right way.  I agree that this is something we don’t want to show – but I am still upset because I had put a lot of work into that video.  Ah well.

We have also got to get ourselves re-registered as a food processor which means filling out lots of forms with photos etc.  The picture today is the picture I took of me and which has been sent off to get printed.  Oh how I wish we had kept up the registration that we did five years ago.  We allowed it to lapse and now we have to do it all over again.

Back to the soil 20180530

We started clearing the two research beds in the Souryan garden today which meant that we had to do some soil tests.  This picture is of Rajan lifting the soil out of the bed.

I really must try to get him a proper device for doing this when I go to the UK.  It would be so much easier and more precise and I don’t think it is that expensive.

Beans, beans, beans 20180529

I have had several weeks spending a lot of times with beans. We’ve had six research beds growing beans and the amount we have had is incredible.  Every morning for weeks now my first job of the morning has been to go and pick beans.

This means that we’ve also had lots of been seed to process as well.  I don’t think I will mind when the beans stop producing and I can do something else.