Coconut Harvest

The sight of the tall, imposing coconut palms, swaying gracefully, indeed soothes and delights the beholder.  We take the sight so much for granted, so it is hard to imagine the excitement and awe that it can generate in someone who has never seen coconut trees. Of course in today’s age of virtual travelling, it would not surprise many, but in the words of Fanny Parkes, the English woman who lived and travelled in India between 1822 and 1846, “....surrounded by high trees; among these, the coconut, to an English eye, was the most remarkable”.

An aerial view of a coconut plantation.

 

Well, for us, the sight of the coconut tree climber at work, is still an exciting, awe-inspiring event.  Every 3 months, we need to harvest the coconuts from the 100 odd trees that dot our farm.  So, enter Lakshmana, the 23 year old, tall lanky youth who lives in the little village of Heggade about 7 kms beyond Chitrapur. 

Family circumstances and the lack of a local secondary school cut short his aspirations to study beyond class IV.  He took to tree-climbing to supplement the family income and is a member of this fast diminishing tribe of dare-devils.
 

He zips in on his bike at 8.30 am sharp. In 15 minutes, he has changed into his shorts, sharpened his sickle on the stone next to the tap and readied his gear.  His climbing gear is nothing but 2 loops of plastic sacking and a rope around his waist which has a special hook for hanging his sickle.  One loop of sacking goes around his feet and one goes around his hands and there he is... like a monkey hauling himself up....up....up... till you,  standing safely on the ground,  start to feel dizzy, just looking at him perched high up, close to the crown of the tree. 

 Clutching the tree with his legs and one hand, the other hand reaches behind and grabs the sickle. Slashing away the dead-wood, dried fronds, panicles, totally unmindful of the dust that goes into the eyes and leaves even us on the ground blinking and red-eyed, he reaches out to feel the coconut from a large bunch. A slight twist of his wrist and he knows whether it is ready for harvest or not. Out comes the sickle again, a single slash and down comes a giant bunch of coconuts decimating everything in its path. The bunch lands with a resounding thud and the nuts break free and bounce around in a radius of almost 10 metres.

Ouch!  My delicately grown garlic greens and little marigolds. I am just looking around to assess the ‘damage’ and he has already slithered down and is ready to climb the next tree. Within 20 minutes, he has completed 5 trees that is an astounding 4 minutes per tree.  After about an hour and a half, he looks exhausted.    Drenched in sweat, he takes a small break.  He has kept a bunch of tender coconuts aside and slicing them open with lightening speed, he hands one to us and gulps down one himself. And he is ready for some more climbing. Over a span of 3 to 4 days, all the trees have been harvested. Picking the scattered coconuts and carrying them to the storage shed is a mammoth task.  

The harvest with the dehusker blades - one in the foreground and one on the right

Many machines have been designed for coconut shelling, but these two prefer the old blade-in-the-wood contraption. This is a heavy block of wood with a sharp pointed blade sticking vertically upwards. The coconut is impaled on it with a swift stroke, a crunching turn and one third of the husk is off. Twice more and the de-husked coconut is tossed onto a steadily growing pile and the husk is tossed onto another pile. 


The husks; when dried provide fuel for heating our bath water in the old fashioned copper 'Bhaan'

Pile of de-husked coconuts


 

This time Lakshmana is in a hurry to complete the de-husking and brings in two of his friends to help him. The three of them de-husk 1200 coconuts in 3 hours making it a 100 coconuts each in an hour – amazing speed, amazing people.  By afternoon, the de-husked coconuts are all packed into sacks and lined up next to the weighing machine. Lakshmana whips out his cell phone, arranges for the Pick-up vehicle and is ready with his cell phone calculator to add up the weight of all the bags. Swiftly the sacks are weighed and loaded  into the truck and then Lakshmana hops onto his bike with his two friends riding pillion behind him zooms off. He has to begin work in yet another plantation tomorrow.

Rain in a  coconut plantation - a lovely sight.

The hornbill's favorite perch atop a coconut tree

 

Sour....Sourer........Sourest.... Bilimbi Bonanza.

Just one tree and a million Bilimbi’s.  This amazing little fruit also known as tree sorrel, Irumban/Chemmeen Puli or Bimbul  grows in abundance in almost every backyard in this region. 

 

The lush evergreen tree sprouts tiny red flowers right on the trunk itself.

 

 And within a few weeks,  bunches of shiny bilimbis are visible. 

 

 You can use them as long as they are bright green and crunchy, but the minute they start yellowing, they turn mushy and inedible.   

 

And no, they cannot be refrigerated/ transported, their shelf-life is just a day.  So what can I do with so much of it?  I tried sun-drying the slices and they turned out nice. The sambar gets a perfect tang and I can do without the store-bought tamarind.

 

And I churn out  a few bottles of Bilimbi pickles.

 

 The aroma of home ground spices and the tart, crunchy bilimbis make a great combo in these pickles.

 

Varan-bhat and pickles any one?

Moonlight and Music on the mountainside

If there is one thing that I miss from our city-life, is the choice of  Music concerts that we had.  What with Karnataka- Sangh’s Sunday morning musical feasts,  Pratha-swar at Ravindra Natya mandir, the numerous shows at Nehru centre – .....sigh...  So the other day I was just mentioning this fact to an acquaintance here and he promised to inform me about any concerts in the vicinity. Sure enough, he called up the other day to tell me about an all-night music program, at a place called Karikaan Parameshwari temple about 10 kms from Honavar.  I had never heard about this place so I took down the directions. He warned us about the steep road to the place and asked us to carry some warm clothes as it was an open-air concert from 7 pm to 7 am.

 

 

So Saturday night (the first Saturday after Magh Purnima) we decided to leave after our usual farm-chores and an early dinner. The ride on the almost empty NH-17 was a real pleasure. I had googled the place and got the precise distances, so we could spot the narrow road leading to Areangadi town quite easily. We had to travel about 6 kms and then we would see an arched entrance leading to the temple.  Most temples in this area have elaborate, brightly lit decorated arched entrances, so we almost missed this one- it was  a dull grey square entrance leading to what looked like a forest area, with a barely legible  name painted on it. This is when my Kannada reading skills come to my rescue. The whole area was deserted so I could gawk and decipher it laboriously. Yes –this is the place I stated to hubby who looked rather unconvinced – he expected some banner or some some indication of the Music program – but there was none. Are you sure you heard right .. is it really today?......  Aw come on – if not, let us enjoy a ride in the wilderness I replied.

So we set off onto the road which got increasingly narrower and steeper. Several hairpin bends later, not a soul in sight, in total darkness as the forest cover obscured the moonlight and even I started doubting whether I had got the name and the directions right. Temple names can be very confusing in this area. So, we continued up the road. Ocassionally the forest cover would open up, displaying a brilliant moonlit view of the valley.  Only 2 kms more I said peering at the speedometer – well 2 kms on a narrow gravelly road with steep haipin bends can seem pretty long when it is getting close to midnight.   But then, google maps are right most of the times (thank heavens) and indeed after 2 kms, we reached a clearing which appeared like a parking lot with scores of cars and 2 wheelers parked. We  walked out in the chill night air. The entrance to the temple was abuzz with people. The melodious strains of Raga Kafi kannada rose as we removed our footwear in the designated area and walked in.  The music seemed to be coming from the upper level, so we walked up the narrow flight of stairs onto what looked like a terrace. The musicians were seated on this, and in front, an amazing sight greeted our eyes. The audience was spread out on the rocky hillside all of them bundled up in shawls and sweaters. We picked our way carefully up the rocks and found a comfortable place and sat down. What a view!!!! The whole valley lay before us bathed in the moonlight, the musicians were weaving out their magic and the enthralled audience lay sprawled on the rocks. It was a night to remember.

 

We enjoyed every bit of the 2 hours that we spent there. It was tempting to stay on till morning to watch the dawn break over the landscape and listen to a few morning ragas, but morning at the farm is the busiest and we had to get back. 

 

A view of the temple during the day

 

An Expanding Vocabulary



The other day a group of labourers whom we had hired for some farmwork were discussing something  loudly and the word “ALGOL” kept popping up.  I strained my ears to hear it clearly – could it be that these folks were actually discussing the merits of some 3^rd generation programming language?



A few days later we were planning a trip to the market (O yes we actually ‘plan’ a trip to avoid multiple visits to the market) so I asked our farm hand whether we needed to buy anything for the farm.  “2 Daab and 1 Argol” he replied in konkani.  Strange. What in the world were these things?  Well, he elaborated – Daab is a specially entwined  nylon rope used for tethering the cows to the metal ring in the cow shed.

A Daab - used to tether cows - available at all the little shops that dot the marketplace.

 

 

 

And Argol not Algol is a 5 foot long heavy metal rod with which you can dig up the soil specially when you want a very compact but deep hole – useful when you want to make a live fence.  A live fence?  What was that again?  --- Oh that is a fence made with branches of the very fast growing Glyricidia tree – 2 feet long stout pieces of the branches are pushed into the holes made by the argol a foot apart around the border of the farm.  The cuttings catch on and start growing and if you reinforce them with some wire you have a good strong ‘live fence’ that keeps growing and also provides  mulch for the compost pit.








A Live fence


 

 

 

 

 

And so we keep hearing and learning new words many of them borrowed from kannada and used freely in the local Konkani language.  And our maid speaks a bit of Hindi  - just a bit, and sometimes my instructions to her are met with a wide eyed confused look and I realise that she hasn’t understood, or that I have used the wrong word. Like the other day I instructed her to clean the “Mankirkee” well.      Blank look ....  Oh not Mankirkee  but Marigee – for  Mankirkee is a  large cane basket (which doesn’t need any cleaning )  and Marigee is the channel in the cow shed into which the fodder is placed for the cows (which gets quite messy and need regular cleaning). Not exactly similar sounding, but trying hard to learn Kannada gets me confused sometimes. 

The Marigee

A Mankirkee



 

And the script is another thing altogether. When I first started on it, I got  a set of picture story books – so that I could read and correlate. I tried to get Revati our maid to listen and correct my reading but she just couldn’t   stop giggling as I struggled to differentiate between all the squiggly script!  Now I have finally improved to a point where I can read out stories like “The goose that laid golden eggs”,   quite fluently.... but talking in Kannada?   Ah hem, well.....  not yet! 

My first Kannada Reader

 

So I have created a filing system now and all the new ‘farm-words’ which we learn have been filed in it systematically.  But sometimes my brain pushes this system right behind my usual techno-jargon filing system and I am left fumbling for words. But then at times it does reach out and flashes out the right word at the right time. Like it happened the other day – a group of men with bundles of wires and a lot of equipment, - probably workers from the KEB  came asking for our farm-hand. Most people know that we can’t converse in  Kannada  so prefer to talk to him. He had just left for lunch so I signalled to them and said ‘Oota’ which means ‘lunch’. So they turned to go away. One of them said to the other “Why don’t you ask her for the Argol?” The others smirked as he mumbled back what sounded like “Are you serious, she does not even know kannada ...how do you expect her to even know what it is”    But I had caught on to the word and I asked them “Argol Beka?”  - Do you want Argol?.  They turned around surprised and I went into the tool shed and fetched it for them.  The smirks were gone and did I detect a faint tinge of respect for the fact that I could understand more kannada than they thought I could?

 Aww   no – I just kid myself!    

 

Read the fine print

Read the fine print.

Read the fine print.

 

Foot-and-mouth disease claims 2,060 cows; afflicts 16,573 head of cattle  :  The foot-and-mouth disease has claimed 2,060 cows and affected 16,573 animals in 1,304 villages in 19 districts of the State .

Scientists confirm serotype O leading to outbreak of foot and mouth disease :  As officials struggle to contain the spread of foot and mouth disease among cattle, scientists at the Project Directorate on Foot and Mouth Disease, have released initial confirmation that virus serotype O is responsible for the outbreak......    "The virus is airborne and could travel 250km per day depending on the climatic conditions......

High alert against foot-and-mouth disease  : All check posts along the borders with Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala have been alerted not to let any cattle in from those states. All Deputy Commissioners across the State have banned cattle or sheep fairs.

Foot-and-mouth disease

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 

Foot-and-mouth disease or hoof-and-mouth disease (Aphthae epizooticae) is an infectious and sometimes fatal viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids. The virus causes a high fever for two or three days, followed by blisters inside the mouth and on the feet that may rupture and cause lameness.  ............. Though most animals eventually recover from FMD, the disease can lead to myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle) and death, especially in newborn animals.

 

 

........Especially in new born animals...........................................................

 

How often our eyes skim over headlines like these, scarcely registering its impact on the affected.   And so it was to our ‘city-brains’  that I hardly  gave much thought to the news that a lot of cows in Chitrapur have been afflicted with the disease. And our hectic November schedule had us shuttling between Chitrapur and Chennai twice , a trip to  Mumbai, and Munich. All this hardly left us any time at the farm. When we returned from our Chennai trip, I noticed that Kalindi and Balaram had caught the virus. We went into overdrive, cleaning and disinfecting their feet, cleaning the cowshed thrice a day, spraying neem emulsion and diluted dettol to drive away the flies.  We had only 5 days left for our Munich trip. Could I drop out and stay back?  But no, we had registered well in advance for the training and it was imperative that I attend it. So I spent most of my time in the cow shed, cleaning it, ensuring that all the calves had a dry area to sit and really got rid of the flies.  So everything seemed in control.

The  night before we left for Mumbai, it was almost 11.30 pm by the time I was done with my work.  Should I take a last round and see all the animals? But I had checked on them at 9.30 and they all seemed fine. Besides when I enter the cowshed with my torch, all of them dutifully get up, so I rather let them rest.

The next morning, I woke up at 5.30 am with a very uneasy feeling and rushed to the cowshed, even before I made the morning coffee.  All of them seemed fine and perky. The sores on Kalindi’s and  Balaram’s feet had healed well and they were already chewing on some hay.  Bhuvan – Madhubala’s 20 day old calf seemed fast asleep on his side – he often did that unlike the older calves who never stretch out and sleep on their sides.  But was he really asleep?  “bhuvan – bhuvan” I called  out and shook him, but there was no response. Terrified, I shook him again and shone the torch right in his eyes – no response again. I raced to the house and woke V and  we both tried again – but ......he had already reached a distant world  from where there is no return.  I called our farm hand- Manjunath, who promptly came over. “He was fine last evening” he said his voice breaking.  My heart wept for Madhubala who was looking across with her large luminous eyes.

And so Bhuvan, the little stocky buffalo calf who looked so incredibly healthy succumbed to the dreadful disease.  He was a gentle playful visitor for a short duration of  just 20 days.   

And a calf is born!

Although we have been on the farm for almost 2 years now, and have had 4 calves being born, we had not witnessed a single birth. Our farm hand Manjunath, with his unerring knowledge of such things, has always warned us a couple of days before the actual birth.  “Just a few more days to go..”  he would warn us. Godavari, the first one to calve, just a month after we moved in, gave birth to Gomati when she was out grazing in the forest nearby. Manjunath  seeing that she did not return at the usual time, went in search of her and brought her back along with the little calf.

 

Gomati - born in the forest adjoining our farm 

 

Shravani  was born when we were travelling out on work, and so was Balaram. 



Shravani and Gomati both a few weeks old



Balaram enjoying some sunshine while Phoenix and Zuki watch over him protectively

 

 Kalindi’s birth was the quickest, because although I was checking on Kaveri, every hour, she had shown no signs at 8 am, but by 9 she had delivered the little one and both were already up and perky. Incidentally during that time we were getting the cow shed renovated and all the cows were tethered out in the farm.

 

Kalindi born out in the farm where the cows were tethered during the renovation of the cow shed

 

The Cow shed before renovation

 

The spanking new cowshed inaugrated by 5 day old Kalindi

 

 

Then finally this May we were expecting Kaveri to calve any time. We took turns during the night to check on her every few hours. At around 5 am, it was V’s turn and he came back rushing to say that Kaveri seemed extremely uneasy. Both of us rushed to the cow shed.   Kaveri, although uneasy,  appeared in total control of the situation. Most of the times, these animals do not need any help with their delivery.  But still . .....niggling doubts  assailed my mind. What if it was a breech presentation? What if the hind legs appear first, what if........?  Should we call the vet right away?   If there was a need, it would take him at least an hour to get here.  But fortunately all seemed in order. Two little hooves appeared, followed by a tiny limp head.  Does the head always look so limp?  Is it alive?  The eyes were shut tight. Then a slight twitch of the tiny nostrils!   Yes it was alive.  The miracle of birth was unfolding in the quiet stable with a whole bunch of unperturbed cows silently chewing their cud.   A few more minutes and the calf was out!   Come on folks aren’t you all going to applaud?  But no,  the new member of their clan did not yet merit a second glance.  The dark brown, ungainly little creature, still damp struggled to look around.  Large eyes blinked as I shone the torch to examine it.  All seemed in order.   The mother nuzzled it and it responded by craning its neck in her direction.  She proceeded to give it a rough rub down, licking it thoroughly and it seemed to get more and more alert and perky with every passing minute. I took a gunny sack and did my bit of rubbing the little one. In a few moments, it was ready to try out its legs.  The floor was too slippery but this little one was not to be deterred.  It raised itself up and promptly slid down with its long skittle legs going in different directions. Worried that it might injure itself, we spread a thick layer of dry hay  around it. Yes, that did help and on the fourth or fifth attempt, the calf actually stood up and nuzzled close to the mother.  Now the mother and baby could be left alone. As the first rays of the morning sun began to light up the world, the little one gave a tiny barely audible bleat.  A baby born at dawn – the only name I could  think of was Bhairav –the beautiful morning raga which heralds the arrival of dawn!   And so Bhairav completed the trio of male  calves – Bheem, Balaram and Bhairav!

Kalindi has a little brother now - Bhairav

 

Moving a Mountain.

I pushed and heaved and pushed again with all my might.  I might as well have been trying to move a mountain, for the large grey expanse in front of me refused to budge even an inch. It was Madhubala our buffalo who had broken free and walked out onto the pathway. It seemed as if hours had passed since I had  been startled by the sudden rustling noise while I was  giving  the 4 dogs their evening meal. The noise sounded very close and I could only make out a large heavy shape in the darkness. The dogs were barking thru the small gate.

The small gate which opens onto the pathway leading to the big gate which is on the left.
 

 

 

 With a thudding heart, I took the torch and went to see who the intruder was.  It was a relief to see that it was just Madhubala. But there was no way that I could leave her out of the stable the whole night. So began my struggle to get her back in.

I did not want the dogs to scare and chase her so I put them all inside first. I switched on the porch light, the stable light and the newly installed light near the gate. Now I was prepared to lead her nicely into the stable. But what I was not prepared for was her utter stubbornness!  First I tried pulling on the rope which hung from her neck. But when she raised her head and lowered it with her eyes still on me, I chickened out. What if she gives me a little thwack with her huge head? With hubby out of town and no one around, I didn’t want to risk annoying her anymore. So I tried pushing her from behind. I don’t think she even registered the puny push and continued grazing on tufts of grass. Every few minutes, she would seem to move a little so I continued my efforts. But after some time i realised that we weren’t going anywhere. Probably I could tempt her with some feed. So I went into the stable, took a tub of feed and walked thru the side path.

The side path with its uneven steps, leading from the stable(the white tile-roof structure) to the main pathway

Now this side path is a narrow path leading to the main pathway which in turn leads to our big gate. I would have to entice her with the feed down this narrow lane and then into the stable. The narrow path joins the large one in a series of uneven steps and is overgrown with bushes. So when I stepped out of it right in front of her with the tub of feed, she was startled! She took off in a gallop and if wasn’t for the big gate being securely closed, she would have bolted out of sight.  She ran upto the gate and seeing it closed , tried to find a way to escape. The wall separating our neighbours compound is uneven and at a couple of places, she looked over seeming to contemplate jumping over the wall.



The big gate at the end of the pathway, with the low compound wall on the right.

Now this was too much for me to handle. So finally I called our farm-hand Manjunath  on his son’s cell phone. He had just finished his dinner and said he would come immediately.  I stood watch over Madhubala to ensure that she doesn’t escape into the darkness. The dogs having lost interest in the proceedings curled off in their respective places to sleep. Madhubala continued grazing on the little tufts of grass growing along the wall. The night owls hooted back and forth a couple of times and the stars and the fireflies twinkled merrily.  The moon gazed over the dark shadowy landscape.  The calm silence punctuated by distant hoots of the sentinels of the night and the gentle breeze, Madhubala seemed to enjoy this bit of freedom... 

The moon throws the tall  jamun tree into an imposing silhouette

Finally Manjunath came. He is a man of few words when he has his betel leaf in his mouth. A sharp clicking sound and a  loud hmmm and a gentle prod is all Madhubala needs to follow him meekly back into the stable. He ties her with a spare cord, replacing the earlier frayed one, gives her an extra bunch of hay, which awakens all the others in the cow shed, so he gives them all a little bit and walks back to his home. I switch off all the lights – porch, gate and stable and get back to the kitchen to prepare dinner and catch up on my work. The clock has moved ahead by a whole hour and I have a lot of catching up to do!      

Colours of Harvest

The endless variety of farm produce never ceases to amaze us.  The first year that we were here was a real learning experience for us.  We made countless ‘Farm-visits’ to well established farms to learn more about managing such a farm, browsed the net and read thru pages and pages of ‘Cultivation  Manuals’  gleaned great information from the websites of the Spice Board of India, TamilNadu Agricultural University(TNAU) and so many others. We learnt to manoeuvre  the long ‘Harvestor’  (which is a basket with a blade tied to the end of a pole) thru the branches and tug at the ripe fruit. It needs more skill and strength, than we imagine to neatly hook the fruit and pull it off without damaging the unripe ones near it. But we are slowly getting good at it.

 

The Harvestor at the end of a 15 feet long bamboo

 

The cashew needs to be plucked as soon as it ripens or else it falls to the ground where the fruit is eaten by the cows during the day or the wild boars at night. The nut which contains a very abrasive, acidic oil is slit open and eaten by the porcupines – probably the only animal who eats the cashewnut. Even the monkeys throw the nut, eating only the fruit. So apart from plucking the fruit from the trees, we have to check the ground below to pick the nuts. The fruit is then separated from the nuts. Bucket loads of the fruit which in Goa would have been converted to Feni, is given to the cows. Oh what joy to see them slurping and chomping on the juicy tidbits, they just love it!

 

The Cashew fruit with the nut on the outside

 

We learnt how to make Organic fertilizers like Jeevamrut and Panchgavya which have shown fantastic results – for instance we had four really tall  Clove trees approx 17 years old.  The Clove Cultivation Manual had stated that cloves buds appear on the trees in January and need to be harvested (hand-plucked) before they flower. Clove is valued only when it is dried in its bud stage and has the globular tip (remember Promise Toothpaste ads?).  Of course we scarcely notice this when we dunk cloves into the frying pan while cooking.  So well, the first year that we were here, the whole of January had me scanning the trees to see if flowers had appeared.  No luck!  Finally our farm hand Manjunath sheepishly admitted that these trees had never produced any cloves all these years.  Well........ Anyway we kept up with the Jeevamrut and Panchagavya spray all through the year.  And surprisingly this Jan we had a great harvest of cloves. 

 

Clove buds just harvested

 

Sun drying the clove buds 

 

The majority of the farm produce is harvested in the hot summer months, nature’s great timing at work so that we can sun dry most of the produce and store it for the  whole year. So as you can imagine, the work multiplies multifold.

Fresh Kokum fruit (Garcinia Indica) 

 

 Kokums need to be cut open, the seeds extracted and the outer peels are sun dried.  The pulp surrounding the seeds  has a lot of juice which needs to be  squeezed out.  Each evening, the partially dried kokum peels are soaked back into this juice, to be squeezed out next morning and dried again.  4 to 5 days of this treatment and the kokum is ready to be stored in bottles. This method imparts a really rich lovely colour to the peels. The seeds are dried separately and used for making Kokum butter – a product which has been used since ages in India and is now gaining popularity in the western cosmetic world.

 

 

Basket loads of Vatamba



The ‘Vatamba’ , used as a souring agent , a fruit that I had never seen or heard of before, grows abundantly. The first time I saw it, our farm hand Manjunath explained that it needs to be sliced thin and then sundried. He had harvested a basketful and I took half of it to the kitchen. It was far tougher than I thought and by the time I finished slicing the pile, my hands were quite sore. I went back to the outhouse to see a staggering pile of harvested vatambas. How on earth was I going to slice all of these?  But Manjunath  was prepared with a very sharp traditional cutter ‘Adli’ and sliced his way through the pile merrily chomping on his betel leaf&nut mix.

 



All sliced and out in the sun

As for some of the other items that we get from the farm, see the pics below.


Nutmeg (Jaiphal) with its red, delicate outer aril which is the exotic spice Mace (Jai-patri)



Nutmeg and Mace being sundried

 

Stacks of freshly plucked Betel Leaves

 

The worlds largest 'Sprout' - Coconut sprout a rare delicacy. We were lucky to get a couple of these when the stored coconuts got drenched in a heavy shower resulting in some of them sprouting.


 

 

 



Farm Visits

 

A large part of our ‘learning’ about agricultural practice has been through ‘farm-visits’.

Shy little kids watching their father take us around his farm

  There is quite a Green-Organic movement here and most local farmers are very willing and happy to share their knowledge and experiences, the language-barrier notwithstanding. They happily explain in kannada as they take us around their farms and the visit always ends with the curious question “Why did you leave a city like Bombay and come here?”.  

Taking us around the farm

The Organic farmers mostly use the standard composting method since they invariably have a small herd of cows. 

The compost pit behind the cow shed just topped with a layer of dry leaves

 The variety of crops grown is also similar across this area – Arecanut and coconut intercropped with Black pepper, Bananas, Pine-apples and the occasional Vanilla.

 Yet each farm visit shows us something different, opens our eyes to things which we never knew before and could never hope to find even in a million google searches.  The hardiness, perseverance and resilience of these simple folk is worth admiring. While we lament about small inconveniences, these people take daunting events in their stride. One farm that we visited was located in the forests enroute to Sirsi.  About 12 kms from the tiny village of Katgaal,  the young lad Vishwanath who helps his dad to manage the land was enthusiastic about our visit.  As he took us around right to the edge of his farm which was several levels lower than where we had begun, I noticed all the pineapple plants looking battered. The ground too was much squelchier in the lower level. When I asked him about it, he pointed to a swiftly flowing beautiful stream just beyond the boundary of his farm.

Swiftly flows this stream

He explained that after every heavy rain the water in the stream rises and floods his land.  The arecanut plants are not too badly affected but the smaller ones are.  And hence he could not use the lower levels of his land for any other intercropping.  It was sad because there could have been a good source of income  from the intercropped plants.  I asked him about his education – he could only study till 4^th standard as the closest school offers only that. Beyond that, he would have to either move to a relatives house or shell out almost 25 rupees a day - bus fare for the 30 km journey - something that they could ill afford. Yet his sparkling humour and happy nature shone through. I asked about the bus connectivity to his farm.  “Like Doctors medicine – 3 times a day – morning noon and night” he laughed. His knowledge about vanilla cultivation, medicinal plants and herbal pesticides was amazing.    We returned with a wealth of knowledge and a large collection  of plants, saplings and cuttings for our farm.

 The other noteworthy visit was to a farm in the fairly developed village of Sorab near Sagar (of the Jog Falls fame).  Here the father and son duo manage their farm without any outside help and have been mentioned in local Kannada newspapers as the “Ideal Organic farm”.  The 72 year old father is one of the first to convert his farm to totally Organic. He is passionate about Jeevamruth – the best fertilizer for plants and agreed to explain the procedure on condition that we actually put it into practice. “I am fed up of people coming and asking me out of curiosity and then totally forgetting what I have said” he lamented.  But I was ready with  my notebook and pen and had a most interesting biology lecture on the merits of helpful soil microbes, and  creating the perfect liquid fertilizer which allows these very microbes to multiply exponentially thus enriching the soil and eliminating the need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides. As we discussed I was amazed to know that he had attended one of Masanobu Fukuoka’s Lecture Demonstrations and also read his book “One straw revolution” which has been translated into kannada.  As we walked around his farm, we understood the true meaning of ‘Sustainability’, how a sprightly 72 year old who has seen his land turn fallow with chemical fertilizers succeeded in turning it around into a green Organic-Certified Wonder!