Monsoon arrives

Last week went in a jiff. I am trying to recollect what happened in a week. The sunday started off with taking the kids of Nishtha for bird watching. The kids, I hope had a good time. I showed them the swallow nest and I had a lifer- Speckled Piculet. Noticeable change is the weather from past one week . Monsoon arrived and the weather is very humid. So we are getting used to a routine of bright mornings, overcast and rainy afternoon and clear evenings. I have been told that come July, it rains almost all throughout the day. But the sights of the hills and mountains are different now, with clouds playing hide and seek with the mountains and prediction of rain gets tard easy - Snow-caps not visible- Rain is arriving, Clear- Snow caps- No chance of rain for next 1-2 hours

Since the rains started, the water supplied through pipes gets murky and we started bringing water from a source from where many people in our neighborhood bring. Here is the picture of the cleaner and portable water source

Apparently the source of this water is from under the ground not a lake up in the hills as told earlier to me,  hence the water won't be murky despite of heavy rain.We boil this water and have it for drinking to be on safer side as the rains arrived. We regularly watch people go here to bring drinking water in the morning and the evenings. Kids join adults in bringing water home and they do help them in the farm too.

On Wednesday, our aunty finally announced that they are sowing seeds in their farm and I was more than happy to join them. I had my breakfast while they had their heavy breakfast and around 10 we reached the farm. By then uncle had started getting the field ready with bulls hauling the plough on the soil that was soaked with water. Here we go out to sowing

 I was expecting to sow some paddy but then they explained that they follow a different process where soaked paddy with sprouts are sprayed around. So step 1 was to clean the water filled portions of the field with a plough that has a flat and wide end. The fields were already plough-ed with the regular one, one week ahead.

As the flat-ploughing completed, we started step-2 where we jumped in and cleaned up the previous crops leftovers pulled out by the plough and we bury some of the leftovers under the mud and some we dump on the bunds that separates the portions of farm. We worked for an hour bending our backs and I got a hang of how they collect them by wading ones hands through the mud water. (reminded me of a "Pied avocet" feeding- google for it). By then dark clouds gathered and I had to take break for lunch just when it started raining.

Later in the evening, I joined them for step-3 is where we sprayed the seeds all over the place with hands. I was told that after 20-25 days, they plough the land and then align the sprouts in a linear fashion and add dung and goat, sheep droppings as natural fertilizer. The yield will be ready by December and they need to monitor the fields regularly but the major task is done.

Mid-week, we decided to cook some chicken. Since we live at one end of the village high up, so walking down and hiking up is tiring, so we decided to go to the next village further up to pick up chicken. So I ended up hiking 4 kms to get half kg of chicken. Phew never did I worked so hard to get some chicken.

Meanwhile I started taking english  classes for few students at Nishtha and it's a good experience.
Working with Nishtha also helped us understand the problems of the community. Domestic violence and alcoholism are a major problem which often resulted in single women striving to survive. Nishtha and jagori,  the two ngo's in the village work towards women empowerment, especially those of single women who were either deserted by men or those who chose to live a better life being single, away from the abuse. I have heard multiple instances of single women who deserted their husbands after surviving the violence for years and now living in dignity earning a decent livelihood in the village. They are sure an inspiration to many more. But the violence does have an impact on the young minds, especially the teenage girls who do not have a great opinion about marriage.

This week we are planning to go to Dharamkot a village further up from Mcleod ganj and stay there for couple of days. More birding and some regular tourist like sight-seeing on the cards. I am looking forward to the experiences :)

Birding - Rainbow- Farming-Doc visit

The heading pretty much sums up the last few days. I have been able to bird almost every day. Mornings starts with watering the plants at our mini farm and then off I go birding to the close-by place. I had some interesting sightings and lifers. I could not stop myself from walking higher up anticipating to see more birds.
I could see roads and I see the paths used by people and ponies ferrying goods to trek up the hills. Although little tiring the traditional routes enables you to walk further up the hills quicker. I have met herders, school going kids, workers, job goers all taking the paths and few of them inquired what I am up to. I shared my binoculars with some and explained to others about my interest in birds. Overall I never felt threatened or intimidated at any point of time. Warm people and beautiful land enabling experiences

Few days back we had a thunderstorm followed by a rainbow. At one end we could see bright sun setting and another end a storm that was about to finish it's task. The skies were beautiful with clouds and bright colors all around. I tried capturing it but felt like having a wide angle lens.

 The ladies finger seeds didn't sprout up as much as we wished to as it rained heavily the day after we planted the seeds. So this week we planted some chillies saplings. So my routine every morning and evening would be spending 30 minutes watering them gently.

Last week also made us visit the clinic run by Nishtha as our son started vomiting. He recovered in a day but still a little tender. The clinic run by Nishtha do not charge for consulting  and charges for medicines alone. It's a decent clinic in a nice building with few beds for those who needed attention.My frequency of visits to Nishtha and interaction with children increased and this weekend sangita- the nishtha volunteer and I are planning to take the children for a bird watching session.  

Water, hikes and farming

As the overnight storm lulled down, day broke at 5 am and the himalayan bulbuls started off the calls for the morning as more and more birds joined the fun. Finally we had a first long power outage and here I woke up early and sit down to type my thoughts.

Last 3 days were interesting. Our house does not have a motor to pump rather as water is carried through a small 2 inch diameter pipe, the sheer pressure of it flowing down from uphill takes it all the way up to the storage tank. So 2 days back we ran out of water to realise that our inlet water is jammed. The owner of our house Mr.Naresh who is trained by Didiji as architect in mud housing came and started to set the supply straight. After tracking pipes it has been diagnosed to mud jam inside a pipe and it's corrected. The next day we had another jam and this time we had to cut the pipe only to find a plastic toffee wrapper jamming the narrow pipe. Talk about ill-affects of plastic and we had a demonstration!

The homestay provided to us by Ghoomakad has been a big breakthrough for us. Our hosts sulochanajis family are warm and helpful. They helped us find our house for rent . They supply us wheat and potatoes from their farm, eggs from their hens(our son loves them)and milk from their cattle. Wheat and potatoes are  locally grown with no chemicals added  we procured them locally, so effectively no carbon foot-print :). They love our gugloo (as they call our son) and supply him with a constant stock of chocolates and no wonder he loves them too.

I had to update you on water. The water in aqueducts is not safe for drinking since people wash clothes and carries the upstream mess, so people in our locality walk a little distance to another supply line where water from a natural lake up the hills is drawn for drinking purpose. They proudly claim that this water can be directly consumed and has been proved to be good after tests by "foreigners"". We consumed them and they are right! Our house though had an UV purifier so we use it, but I will try to go find the source of that natural lake uphill.

Yesterday I spoke to sulochanajis family on farming. They are cleaning their harvest now (wheat). I asked them if they would allow me to grow vegetables in their compound and they are happy to offer me their space and I am all set to grow our own veggies although it will be sometime before I could harvest them.  I learnt that they grow potatoes in November along with wheat, so I would end up planting some beans and few vegetables. By the way they principally agreed to let me work with them for an hour or two everyday when they sow paddy next fortnight as the monsoon becomes active here and how much I am looking forward to that experience.

Two days back, we were invited to Didiji's house for a small party. We visited her house and boy we are impressed is an understatement.

 Mayaji, her eldest daughter and her care taker now ensured we had a good time with pakoras, plum cake and icecream. She was happy to engage our son with her dog ginger and her cat. Our kid was happy petting them. They had a rescued broken winged parakeet at home which can speak few words and
can eat anything that Didiji offers him

We made new friends and walked further down to Sindbari to the nearest ATM. Wifey was happy to do a mini shopping and we walked all the way back 2 km uphill to our house and boy it's a test of your endurance. We managed to do it in an hour holding the kid as he was dozing off. My wife learnt what is it like doing a mountain hike :)

We decided to explore the places around together on foot everyday. So off we went yesterday for a 2 km trek uphill and we were rewarded with beautiful views.

The best part is our son stopping by whenever he sees the sheep or a goat and wishing to touch it and play. He derives pleasure out of throwing stones into the aqueducts and we let him do it, but he keeps us on toes as he walks to the edge of the road to discover the valley below... phew! Watching septuagenarian citizens walking up the hill on virtually no roads puts our fitness to shame and we resolved to work on it. So these walks/hikes are helping us spend quality time as well as improve our fitness for future treks in addition to doing my birding enroute by yours truly.

Closing this post with technological point. I played with wordpress website building the other day and i realised what a beauty they created to build a website and more importantly to manage the website with ease by anyone with a little technical help. I am looking forward to building some websites with wordpress in near future. Did I tell you how the himalayan vultures soared past our home from close quarters the other day! I cherished the experience and our excited son is ready with camera asking me to click more photos.

That's it for now and it's time for trying hands in growing veggies for self, off I go to our little farm.