Saturday 19 December 2020

20201219 Return of the sun

 

It feels like the sun has returned as it is sunny with a lovely drying wind.

I will enjoy it while it lasts because who knows, the rain might come back.  Several times we have thought the rain was finished and then we found ourselves wet again.


20201218 Why did this happen?

 

We found this in the chicken run this morning.  Did it die because of  the rain? Killed by another animal? We don’t know.

We found that all the chickens have got some tiny insects on them – fleas or mites – something like that.  Rajan got some special leaves to fumigate the chicken house after Sangeeta had cleaned it.  Our two chicken families look much better now.


20201217 My poor feet

 

My poor feet.  Not only has the wet weather brought another bout of fungus - now between all my toes - but I also got a scorpion ant bite which is very painful.  The ant dropped down onto me from the plastic roof over the vegetable area.

According to Giri there are a lot of them doing that, maybe the rain is making them seek dryer places.


20201216 Brightening

 

It hasn’t stopped raining but every now and then it seems to be a bit brighter.


20201215 Not drying up

 

I spoke to soon yesterday about things drying up!  Its started to rain again and with it comes more mud.


20201214 Neem mat

 

A very pleasant day with sun and a drying wind which brought down these neem leaves.  They are making what feels like a lovely mat under my feet as I walk around Buddha Garden.


20201213 More decay

 

Another picture of another part of the decay demonstration.  A palmyra tree trunk which has been there for about two years and even that is getting overgrown at this time of year.


20201212 Decay display

 

I’m involved with another farm having problems at the moment.  I’m finding it difficult to find enough time to do everything I want to do on our farm.

I took this picture recently of one of the display rubbish dumps in the Garden of Unsee Helpers.  I still cannot get over how quickly such large piles of stuff decay and get overgrown.  There are not small piles of different sorts of materials left as they have all disappeared into the undergrowth.


20201211 Wonky trees

 

We’ve got to get someone with a chainsaw to come and deal with these.  They fell over during the last cyclone.


20201210 We need to plant

 

Now it seems that the rain has gone for the time being and I get the sense we need to be  planting as fast as we can.

These are our first tomatoes and lettuces of the cool season planted in the Seed Garden.


20201209 Growing like crazy

 

These avarakai beans are growing so quickly and I am sure that all the rain has speeded them up!

I get the feeling that the soil and the plants are soaking up the water and growing as fast as they can before it all goes away.


20201208 Unexpected beings

 

It rained again last night but it seems that the last of the rain from the current weather system may pass over today.  I went out and took a lot of pictures for this week’s video  and came across these very tiny but extremely brightly coloured mushrooms.

They were so tiny and yet the colour was so intense it was as if they were blinking at me to get my attention.


20201207 Unexpected heavy rain

 

After a bright start with the promise of sun during the morning we had some unexpectedly heavy rain.  At the time I was in the bike shed at the Town Hall where I was stuck along with quite a lot of other people.

We just missed getting flooded yet again but everything is very soggy.


20201207 Ants at play

 

The rain has brought out a lot of insects like these ants I saw on one of our gates.  Rajan is worried about snakes in the water but so far I haven’t seen any.


20201206 Squelchy

 

I walked around Buddha Garden today and it is still very squelchy.  Sometimes in unexpected places that its hard to see until my foot goes into it.

 


20201205 Flooded again

 

I rather like this picture of Rajan looking very pensively at our second lot of flooding in a week.


20201204 Very hungry mosquitoes

 

After all the rain the mosquitoes are REALLY voracious.  This picture only shows two on my leg but as I squelch around Buddha Garden there are usually many more.  Rajan says its why he is wearing trousers a lot these days.

 


20201203 Another cyclone

 

It rained steadily for most of the night and although there has been breaks it has rained quite steadily today.  Its because we are in the tail of cyclone Burevi which looks huge on the maps. The main cyclone is supposed to hit south Tamil Nadu tonight.  Despite all the rain we haven’t flooded as we did in the last cyclone.

I love this picture of what I have called ‘green and wet’.  With rain expected for the next few days goodness knows when I will be able to start grass cutting again.


20201202 Wet again

 

Its started to rain again but not very hard so the water rests on the vegetation.  Like the drops on the twigs of this tree.

The drops sparkle in the light and are very beautiful.


20201201 Long grass

 

Had an exceptionally busy day today with a Farm Group meeting in the morning and grass cutting in the afternoon.  I have to do the grass in the afternoon when it is dryer and easier to cut than in the morning when it is wet. As the picture shows, the grass had got very long.

If I don’t crack on and do it now it will grow into a jungle that will be even more difficult and time consuming to cut

20201130 Our chicken family

 

Our chicken family is doing very well.  Mummy chicken seems to be a good one!


20201129 Rajan and fallen tree

 

I really like this picture of Rajan taken just after the monsoon when we were cutting up a tree that had fallen across the entrance path.

Unfortunately the tree root was still half in the soil so we weren’t able to move it completely out of the way.  I think we are waiting for a machine to cut up more of the wood.


20201128 All the papayas

 

These are all the papayas that we gathered this morning.  Although people do eat green papaya I doubt very much we will be able to get rid of so many.  A few of them will probably ripen but the rest will have to be thrown away in the forest.

 


20201127 Dramatic skies

 

It was lovely to see the sun this morning and when I looked up into the sky I saw this.

It was only when I looked at the picture that I realized how dramatic the sky had been this morning.


20201126 Wet


 The cyclone hit us late last night with intensified rain and strong gusts of wind although the wind didn’t scream as I have heard it scream past cyclones.

Woke up to floods in different parts of Buddha Garden and quite a few trees down, especially papaya trees. Had a very soggy morning walking through flooded paths and clearing up all the debris and making a path around a large fallen tree on the entrance path.


20201125 Still waiting.......

 

It has been raining heavily all day and we are still waiting for the expected strong winds and the actual cyclone to hit us.  I think the picture captures the feeling of the day perfectly – sort of grey and smudged.

Everything is saturated with water.


20201123 grass cut

 

After our workers had finished clearing up around the stones I managed to get all the grass cut this afternoon after the grass had dried out a bit.  First time it has looked like this for ages.  For the last year or so we have only cut a path through the grass rather than all the grass.  We haven’t had time to do any more.

I’m not sure I will have time to cut it like this again after more rain comes.


20201124 waiting for the cyclone

 

A cyclone is coming but apparently it is coming much slower than expected.  Its very grey and at times very silent and then it rains very gently for a while and stops.

It feels like nature is holding its breath.


Thursday 3 December 2020

20201122 Grass cut

 

There is such a lot of grass cutting needs doing at the moment but its hard to do it before lunch as its still a bit wet.  This makes it harder to cut as well as more of it coming onto and sticking to me.

This afternoon I went and cut grass by the stones.  There is still clearing up and more cutting to do but hopefully I will get a chance to do some of it tomorrow.


20201121 New family

 

This is the chicken family which is really gorgeous.  I love the sounds of the chicks and the mother when they are together.


20201120 New life

 

We haven’t had any of these for a very long time.  Recently we put a cockerel with the hens and this is the result. With everything else bursting into life after the rain and sun its feels just right to have a family of eight chicks in the chicken house.


20201119 New Flowers

 

This is a tree recently planted in the Garden of Unseen Helpers which has also burst into life in the last week or so.


20201118 A new bud

 


I saw this beautiful new bud for the desert rose this morning when I was out doing photographs and video clips.  With the monsoon rain and sunny days it feels like life is quickening again.


Tuesday 17 November 2020

20201117 More rain damage

 

Today we found that two more papaya trees had fallen down because their roots couldn’t hold in the very wet soil after all the rain.  These trees tend to get top heavy as they grow larger and are very prone to fall down in rain and wind.

One of them fell on the very expensive pipe of one of the water research units.  As the picture shows, fortunately it didn’t break.  Its beautifully sunny again today for at least some of the time.


20201116 Oh dear!

 

The rain has devastated the plastic on the roof of the new nursery.  We will have to go back to the drawing board to find something more robust.  Maybe polycarbonate sheets or something like that.


20201115 Magical

 

More sun and rain which continued to clear the air.  Parts of Buddha Garden looked quite magical in the sun.  Although at other times it was extremely grey and wet and muddy.


20201114 Diwali

 

The day started with heavy rain but this disappeared as sun took over the rest of the day.  The air seemed very clear and the sun very bright and everything growing like crazy.

I’ve spent the day doing the weekly video as fire crackers go off all around me.  This is not very good for the air quality, although of course its not as bad here as in urban areas.


20201113 A good job completed

 

Its taken us about two months but at last we have completed the roof on the new nursery.  I wonder if the plastic will let through enough light, especially in the monsoon, but we can plant some plants and see how they like it.


Thursday 12 November 2020

20201112 Cleared up

 

I couldn’t resist taking this picture of the New Horizon vegetable garden where I cut the grass yesterday afternoon.  Cutting the grass was really hard work as it was very overgrown and doing it has made my back sore today. 

But as the picture shows, it was worth it.


20201111 New sounds

 

Today I was sitting inside and could hear a sound which I couldn’t identify.  Turned out it was Vasantha and Mala sorting the mung beans which we use to make sprouts.  They toss them up in the flat baskets so the small mung beans jump out and then go through them to take out any bad ones or bugs that they find. The noise consists of the beans being thrown up and down and rolling around.

According to Rajan most people now do this job with a machine!


20201110 Glowing gold

 

As I was walking around the farm this evening I came across these flowers that glowed gold in the sun.


20201109 Thorns

 

Today we started removing the thorns in the old cashew orchard that we have recently replanted.  There turned out to be are far more thorn bushes than we first thought.  The grass had grown so long it hid a lot of the thorn plants.  So I don’t know how long it will be before it is finished.


Sunday 8 November 2020

20201108 Happy accident

 


I was really pleased with this picture which was just a happy result rather than a thoughtful one. I just pointed my camera at the flowers and pressed the button.  I love the colours and the detail, especially how the raindrops on the flowers have come out.


20201107 Another shade of green

 


I loved the way these bunches of leaves hung down from the vine which was curling around a palmyra tree.  Yet another shade of green to enjoy.


20201106 Intense green everywhere

 

Sun and showers means there are many shades of intense green everywhere.  Its beautiful.


20201105 Pink and blue

 


As well as being for good for our newly planted trees the sun and showers have been very good for Sangeeta’s roses.  I love the delicate pink of this rose and felt this was the right blue for it as background.


20201104 More cashews

 


Right at the very end of Buddha Garden we have a very old cashew orchard which is as overgrown as the picture shows.  We took over this land several years ago but only this year have we found the time and energy to do something with it.  We will plant cashew seedlings here as well as maybe a jackfruit tree or two to go with the tamarind tree we have found amongst the undergrowth

20201103 Cashews planted at last

 


We have been doing a lot of planting in the past weeks but I have been really worried that we would miss planting cashews.  At last the cashew seedlings arrived (from quite a distance) and they are being planted in the gaps in the cashew orchard.

 

 


Monday 2 November 2020

20201101

 

This is a picture of the first custard apples of the season.  They are a really good size, presumably because of the rain.  I love the different colours.


20201031 New paths

 

Today I did  a lot of grass cutting especially in the orchards where I cut paths through the grass.  This is a picture of where I did it in the Pryog orchard.

Its lovely to walk along these paths as the grass seems to encourage the butterflies that fly all around as I walk.