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.

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.