Sun at this time of year

At this time of year, at dawn and at sunset, the sun seems to shimmer with an intensity not seen at other times of the year.  Often there seems to be wisps of blue cloud about and sometimes the sun is hidden behind this hazy cloud.  Yet still it seems to shimmer with intensity.

It is very hard to get shimmering intensity into a picture.

Bittersweet day

Today is Peter's death day and when I went out to a really beautiful morning I could have cried.  I felt that if I wasn't careful I would get completely overwhelmed by what happened 18 years ago.

A group of students came to experience working in the garden and they were really lovely.  They were bright, interested and focused and seemed to really enjoy themselves as well as soaking up everything I had to tell them.

Peter used to be a teacher and I know he would have loved this group.  

My new glass bottle!

I've wanted one of these for quite some time - ever since I realised that the plastic bottle which I have used for carrying my juice around was probably not very good for me.  The plastic went very red and I wasn't sure that some of the plastic chemicals weren't leaching into the drink.  Although there was no peculiar taste or anything like that.

I thought it would be good to have a glass bottle, glass being very inert.  I looked around for one in various places but couldn't find one either for sale or just lying around.  Then today I saw this one in Foodlink that had been bought to be sold for those customers that want milk.  They also provide plastic bottles but they are very difficult to sterilize properly after they have had milk in them.

Sivakala makes me hibiscus juice for lunch and that is the red liquid in the bottle.  It looked lovely when the sun shone through it but I was unable to take a photograph that did it justice.

Amazing how the things I really need turn up in the most unexpected places.

My home

I went to Foodlink farm this evening as I wanted to see how they were getting on.  It was really wonderful as they had managed to plant half the fruit trees and quite a lot of glyricidea as well as doing half of the fence.  I took a lot of pictures but this was the one I really liked.

I think it is something to do with the quality of the light and the shadows,  but I also like the line of palmyra trees.  There is something about it that makes me think of home, which is where my heart is, which is here.

Everything spinning

On Thursday I had a really bad vertigo attack.  I was sitting at my computer in the evening and working very intensively, feeling at times that my eyes were out on stalks.  At one point I looked up and then everything started spinning.  

It was a horrible sensation that made me feel very sick and my stomach churn.  I lay down and the only thing that would stop the spinning was to look at something and not move my head.  My stomach felt bad for a while so that I couldn't eat any supper although eventually the spinning sensation stopped and I felt fine the next morning.

What I have tried to express in the picture is the spinning sensation of everything within my eyes and head and how everything looked rather blurry.

Fortunately everything has been fine since then but I guess if it happens again I will have to go and see someone about it.

Foodlink farm

This is a picture of the four people involved with the starting  Foodlink farm.  The Farm group has had this land for two to three years but nothing has happened - mainly because we don't have proper funds for the well, pump and store room which are the minimum infrastructure needed to start a farm.  Finally Vivek and I thought we should do something just to get some activity going on the land.

The problem is that there is a dispute over the fencing at the other end of the land from where this group are pictured.  The owner of the land next to Auroville land wants the fence two feet inside the Auroville boundary and Auroville is refusing to do this.  It will start a precedent so that every other neighbour will want the same.  The problem is that herds of cows come in which makes it impossible to grow anything.

We therefore decided to make an internal fence around a small area where we are going to plant an orchard. The holes have been dug for the pillars that are lying on the ground and we had the meeting to talk about how we are going to plant the trees.  Since there is no water we will have to have it brought in some how and we want to have different methods of irrigation on show.  Eventually the farm will function as an information hub about farming in Auroville and the bio-region.

Once we have something growing we are going to take people around the land as a way of raising money.  Vivek is also going to do a farm planning course during the first week of January.  I am going to start a blog and eventually put up a website.

No signals coming my way

My internet went off suddenly last Saturday during the very heavy rain and has stayed off ever since then.  Yesterday we went to the Telephone office to get another WiMax system (we need two) and hoped that if there was something wrong with mine we would put up the spare one.

We tried all the things they suggested at the office and nothing worked so then we put up the new system and that didn't work either.  It must be because we are not getting a signal.

Why did it go off so suddenly? And why are we having such problems with our internet when we need it so badly for the work we do?  I have to make sure I have at least two back up systems otherwise I cannot manage to get all my work done.....

Why won't the signals come our way??