Spotted! Owlet at Children's Park.

Dec 18th - Children's Park - Nizhal Marghazhi walk

Had a delightful stroll with a large bunch of adults and kids through the Children's Park, Guindy.  Everytime I visit the park, I love the walk through the trees, and despite the hordes of people and buses in the car park, they all seem to go to other parts of the park!

A spotted owlet, spotted because it "blessed" one of the walkers right below!

The soapnut tree with lots of nuts.

The inky marams were in fruit too.

Ouch!  And why do they have to nail the boards, so?

Still more walks coming up:

Semmozhi - Dec 25th - Sun 10.30 am and Jan 7th - Sat morn 10.30 am


Children's Park - Dec 31st - Sat 10.30 am and Jan 8th - Sun 4 pm.


Panagal park as well - Dec 24th - Sat 4pm and Jan 1st - Sun morn 10.30 am


Dont miss them!

The Nizhal Marghazhi walks are on

Nizhal has a whole bunch of tree walks planned for the month of Marghazhi.  The first one at Semmozhi Poonga was today morning.  It was led by Arun-of-the-turtlewalk-now-afforesting-Tiruvannamalai fame, and there were around 20 of us, several children.

The weather was fabulous, and the poonga not too crowded.  The nux vomica was in fruit and the ducks have had babies.  So if you missed today's walk there are several others to attend.

The tree walks are in three of the city's parks, and here are the dates and times.

Semmozhi Poonga - RK Salai

======================

Dec 25th - Sun 10.30 am

Jan 7th - Sat morn 10.30 am

Children's Park - Guindy

==================

Dec 18th - Sun morning 10.30 am

Dec 31st - Sat 10.30 am

Jan 8th - Sun 4 pm.

Panagal Park - T Nagar

==================

Dec 24th - Sat 4pm

Jan 1st - Sun (new year) 10.30 am

My lunar eclipse

10th December.  Chennai, from our balcony.

6:57 pm

7:20 pm

7:40 pm

8:48 pm

9:48 pm

It was lovely to see the moon fully eclipsed, like a cheese ball, all reddish brown and yummy.  Or was it more like a gulab jamun?!

Next one in India - 2018.  

Composting diary - troubleshooting

Just as I was feeling smug about my trouble-free khamba debut, I ran into my first "trouble".  I had not checked on the bottom-most, empty (thus far) pot, since it was well empty, no?

With two pots filled with composting garbage, it was time for the semi-composted middle pot to move to the lower pot.  When I peered into it, it was far from empty - it was filled halfway with water, and there were maggots swimming merrily in the watery sludge - EWWWWWW!  The water was rain water, which I should have realised would have entered via the side openings when we had our monsoonic depression and heavy wind and rain last week.

Emergency action!  Take the pot down slosh it all out, clean well and sun!

That was yesterday.  So, today I went and refilled it (dry and clean) with a little sand at the bottom.  This is Unit C.  Moved the dry, semi-composted Unit A stuff into it and moved Unit B above it.  With all the rains, Unit B is more wet than I like - it will definitely breed more maggots, so I have added more dry leaf.  Let me see if this works.

Should add even more dry leaf tomorrow I think.