Walking the bees home

Just two days after Mian and I captured a swarm, the bees swarmed again. And this time,we had no hive conveniently ready to house them. So Mian and I called G, to call a young man we knew who had recently lost his bees and wanted some more. Instead, G came over in the afternoon. 'It is time I learnt, Madam' he said. I am vain enough to think that our efforts helped demystify beekeeping for him.

Our 'new' hive

He had come with bee keeper's tools-a veiled hat and a basket- borrowed from a friend. The hat was standard gear, the basket was homemade. Over here, it is considered essential for capturing a swarm. Rather than 'plopping' the swarm into a box, as the admittedly uncouth pair of us had done, the local beekeepers invite the bees in. The 'basket' is a woven cone covered with jute fabric. Honey and wax is rubbed into the fabric. The bee whisperer then holds this basket close to the swarm and coaxes them to move onto it.

The swarm-catching basket

Once he had seen the bees, Mian, I and G scurried around to complete his outfit. In lieu of beekeeper's overalls, we scrounged together a cooking ladle, Mian's bomber jacket and my gardening gloves for G. Mian and I followed in our shirtsleeves, Madhu was far more circumspect.

G scopes out the swarm

G sat down close to the swarm and held the basket almost touching them.

Introducing the bees to the basket

Some drones got interested enough to check it out. Soon, he began slowly directing them to the basket with the ladle. This was a gentle unhurried process with the ladle being used more to show the bees where they might like to go than to push them there.

Gently coaxing the bees in with a ladle

The relaxed pace means that the bees stay calm, but it also takes a while. G's arm rapidly tired but he refused all offers of help.

Waiting for the bees to make up their collective mind

Finally, after more than half an hour, the queen moved to the basket. While we could not see her, we knew it by the change in pace. Suddenly, the basket was the happening place to be and the workers could not get there fast enough.

They make up their mind. At this point, the bees are walking in by themselves

Soon, they were all in the basket, and a tired but triumphant G was holding up his new friends.

All aboard!

And then he turned around and trudged off for the kilometer-long walk home. Carrying a few hundred bees in an upside down basket.

The long walk home. Good thing he's got company. Lots of it

Our garden wakes up

Just yesterday, Mian and I stood in the garden and thought, 'It's coming together..slowly, but it's happening.'
That 'it' of course is our garden. Still very much  a work in progress, still with too many 'placeholders' and blank gaps, still too many failures swaggering in front of me.
But now it is spring and time to celebrate the magic of flowers.
Here is  what is in bloom in my garden at the moment, starting with the gifts I have been given- the wild flowers on our land.

The autumn olive (Eleagnus sp). Not invasive here and fills the orchard with its fragrance. Butterflies love it!

Kilmora (Berberis Aristata), has interest all the year around, attracts pollinators and birds.

I have taken to spreading those two shrubs around our garden, and they thank me so prettily.

Another inherited flower- the 'wilson' apple. A variety with a fascinating history. And oh, the fragrance!

 And now for the plants in my garden

Lady Bank's rose (Rosa Banksiae) . Such a cheerful flower with a direct link to the interesting Joseph Banks

I have struggled with this rose.When I first planted it four years ago, I covered it with shade thinking it would protect it from scorching. Result- it never grew. And though I removed the cover later, somehow  that rose never did well. This year it has put on a massive show. Perhaps the worst is over?

Sweet peas! finally!

Another plant I have struggled with. I followed the instructions the first year and planted them in spring. The poor little seedlings got scorched almost as soon as they poked their heads out. And then I came across a passage by Gertrude Jekyll in which she boasted of getting sweetpea flowers six weeks before her neighbours by planting the seeds in the autumn. And that's what I did. I planted the seeds, G fashioned a cover for them. And throughout the frosty weeks, those peas got coddled. Well worth the effort I think as I inhale their fragrance.

An old dependable..The 'iris bed' I had planned under the pear tree is finally recognizable as such. 

I got this iris from a kind neighbour. Such lovely colours and a deep, musky fragrance.

So that's my garden right now. And everywhere there's lots of promise. Borage, and nasturtiums have sprouted and doing well. The roses are displaying fat buds. Spring, it is here.

In which Mian and Chicu astound themselves

G warned me a couple of weeks ago that our bees would likely swarm this month. Apparently, they do that after a year in the hive.

'Mine, all Mine. And they will stay that way', said I and sent him off to 'borrow' a hive box from A and D.

And then I left for a week-long workshop in another state.
I got back yesterday and noticed that the box had arrived. I decided to spend the next afternoon cleaning and mending it.

The bees had other plans.  As Mian and I sat drinking coffee today I noticed a lump on a peach tree. A curiously vibrating, shimmering lump. Our bees had swarmed!

 A cursory search on the internet revealed that this is when bees are most docile. Apparently, it is easy enough to drop them into a box. When I called G to share the good news of the swarm and our plans to capture it, he was adamant. 'You absolutely will not do this, Madam. I will send someone.'

Humph.

I busied myself cleaning the borrowed hive of all the muck of its neglected past. It was washed, dried, sunned and still no bee whisperer.

In the meantime, Mian had done his research. We decided to go ahead with capturing the hive.
Now in the mountains, women are not supposed to touch a hive. But of the two of us, Mian has far stronger biceps. So he got the job of holding the hive box under the swarm while I scraped the bees off the branch using a stick. They fell in one mass with a plop, accompanied with a smothered yelp from Mian. He got  stung on the forehead. But considering both of us had minimal gear- sun hats (no veil) and gardening gloves, I am  impressed with the single sting.

And after that, it was sit and wait while we made sure the queen was in the hive and the swarm was content. As of now, they seem to have accepted their home.

Our tasks today?
Move the hive into the fenced garden after sunset. Replace the panels. Remove old wire from one entrance. Secure the box lid with wire.
And I am so very very proud. Think of it. Beekeeping here has a mysticism. there are three bee-whisperers in the area, and they are the only ones who handle hives. And here are Mian and I, amateurs sans gear, who managed to hold on to a swarm. I am happy.

A mulch of money

After I wrote the last post, I emailed it to my family, sat back, and waited for congratulations. They did arrive eventually, but the first reply was not what I expected 'you spent 40K and don't even have walls', she said.

Ouch. 'I wanted it very much' , I replied. And then I thought about it.

The photo that started this chain of thought

 My reply must have seemed arrogant It probably was.
I definitely do not regret the toilet. It gives me great pleasure, it feeds my garden, it has removed a lot of tension over water, and I get a major kick just dreaming of all I will do with the compost. I would do it all over again, and happily.
But that conversation got me to thinking about my spending on the garden. Is it too much? How does one estimate whether spending on a hobby is justifiable?

This amazing display, all gifted by a friend from her extras

 As far as possible, I am a DIY person. The 'make do or do without' philosophy is entrenched in me, or so I thought. But now I wonder.
I don't spend on frills. My garden has no tchotkes, none of the fancy gear that is considered indispensable. My bird table  is a plank wedged into a tree. I propagate my plants. I handwater using a can and a pipe.
But the list of what I consider 'not-frills' is increasing. I spend a lot on labour. I got the patio-wall resurfaced, the veg garden fenced in, the upper fields ploughed. When Mian goes to the States at Christmas, he always goes accompanied by a list of seeds. Not all of them survive.

My seed stash. Part bought, part collected. Mian doubled this stash with his annual spring gift

 I now am in contact with a supplier of bulbs in Kalimpong and 'treated myself' to an embarrassingly luxurious order last fall.

Part of my luxurious bulb order- on the resurfaced patio wall

 I want a golden azalea, I have decided. I want a proper rose arch, not my current jugad one. I want a proper path down to the house. I want garden furniture to sit in. I want. I want.

The 'jugaad' rose arch I want to replace

But the rose couldn't care less. Definitely a 'want' and not a 'need'

And there are two things running through my head now. One is from a book  I am currently reading, which says that gardeners who don't have creative capabilities try to cover up deficiencies with 'a mulch of money'. And the other is what a friend had told me once, when we were discussing the concepts of 'high maintenance' women. 'You are the worst of both worlds' she said. 'You look low maintenance, but are high maintenance'

The bestest toilet ev-AH!

 I rapidly grew tired of throwing away water and of losing nutrients. Especially when we were short of water, the idea of flushing away excellent compost fodder began to grate on me.

Finally I wrote to a friend asking him where I could find me a compost toilet pan. 'I'll send you one' he said, and he did. The village post service being what it is, it was many months till I came across the pan lying in a neighbour's garden.

And then the building started. I did not want it just for me, but I also wanted to share the concept with the village. A suitably prominent place, next to the village path, was chosen. I wanted it to be pretty, we decided on bamboo.Prakash, Bhuvan, Ganesh and I were all learning how to build it. Many measurements were taken, and many mockups assembled. We all blushed furiously as I tried to explain in my hindi just what the various holes were for and how they worked.


The cost? It came to around 40K, excluding the pan. I still have some material left over, and we pay a premium to truck stuff in from the nearest town. For the pan, I'd add another 10K including transport.

Would I do anything differently? Not for myself, I think it is perfect as it is.But as a demonstration unit, I'd go with a pan cast at home rather than one procured from outside. It would make it seem a lot more doable.

But now it is ready and it is stunning. Seriously. I have not seen a prettier one. The walls are bamboo, the roof is bamboo overlaid with tin. There are tall slits in the walls upto waist level to let in plenty of air and sunlight. It sits below an oak tree, and soon grasses will be planted along its base. The floor is prosaic concrete, but sprinkled with glass beads.

But  don't just believe me. Here are pictures

View from the front.We have a curtain instead of a door, which G rather disapproved of at first

This is the view from the house. Soon, I will plant grasses along the base.

The inside. Note the sparkly floor and the rustic TP holder!

I started off with dried leaves in the base.Not necessary, but I thought the carbon would do my compost good!

Here's a detail of the 'door' (hung on a sunflower stalk) and the 'windows'

Not a cakewalk

'Aunty only loves me, she doesn't love you' the small boy jeered. 'She gave me cake for my birthday, you got a great big Noo-oo-thing' he continued while his sister blinked back tears. It was all my fault of course. I had gone off to my mum's last year and missed G's daughter's birthday.

And so, this year, I had to make up for it. As per custom, I baked and frosted a birthday cake. My guilt for the last year led me to make a tall, tall layer cake. It was when I was making a swirly pattern on the sugar tower that I realised that 1.5km of mountain road lay between me and the birthday girl.

So the cake was on a plate, which was on a baking tray, which was in a fruit box, which was covered by stiff paper, which was taped down.

Which led to this contraption:

The first rest-stop was needed before I walked 50 metres. The others followed at similar intervals

 As we slowly made our way to G's house, Madhu and I picked up a little band of merry followers. I am not vain enough to think the kids adore my company, but I thought that Madhu was the attraction. And then I heard one child call out, 'Is the cake coming?'

Priorities, the kids have them sorted out.

Our walk back was blissfully carefree. And we received the gift of a moonrise.

A bitter story

When a good friend ran out of bitter marmalade, she called me. I was the only person she knew who could be trusted to give her traditional marmalade. An acquaintance had gone on a trek last year, in the course of which he dropped in to visit Mian. His chief memory of that long day is that he had eaten whisky-laced marmalade at our home. In a few hours, two young men are coming over home so that I can teach them how to coax lemons into marmalade. So I have a bit of a reputation for making the stuff. And I make a LOT of it.

Which is  why it is surprising that I do not enjoy the jam-making process. Is it the tedium of chopping and stirring, you wonder? Is it the hours spent over a stove knowing that if you look away, the gloopy mess will suddenly burn? Is it the dipping of hands alternately into cold lemon pulp and hot water with disastrous results? Ye-es..all of that does have a place, but the real reason is different.

I detest marmalade-making because the process is the equivalent of the nosy neighbour who visits to pass judgement on your housekeeping. Marmalade making is the pious uncle who discovers that you used your 'no-aromatics' chopping board to cut onions because all the others were in the sink; the  aunty who spies the mustard seed you spilled into the sugar the day you were juggling chai and khichidi; the other uncle who points out that you have 12 jars and 8 lids; and worst of all, marmalade-making is the pesky brat who announces to everyone that you miscalculated the recipe and tried to cover it up by stirring hot water into half a jar of marmalade.

Thankfully, all these jars have lids..

For me, the source of distress all of last year was the case of the  Ginger-Garlic-marmalade. I had opened a fresh jar and immediately smelt it- ginger and garlic where there should have been only lemon and sugar. Hastily, I shoved it to the back of the fridge and opened another jar.

Many months later, Mian reached for a new jar and I watched his face change as he uncapped it. 'Oh is that the garlic one?' I asked blithely. 'That's for when we make sweet-and-sour pork.' Mian, bless the man, did not ask any more questions but put it back in the fridge. As our stock diminished, that jar became more and more prominent till I finally emptied it out, popped the contents into the freezer,and washed the jar.

For this year's batch, I had learnt my lesson. I used two buckets of hot lemony water to scrub every surface and every utensil in sight, I boiled jars and jar lids, I did not eat or cook anything till everything was sealed away. I even used a new dish sponge for the occasion.

One of the 5 batches..plain lemon and lemon + cocoa

And today I opened a jar and there it was..ginger garlic marmalade. Turns out that particular  jar is haunted by the spirit of Kimchi past. I had made it once, and it's ghost lingers in the plastic lid. I had to toss that. Thankfully, it is just the one jar and after 5 kilos, I have declared that marmalade season is Closed.

I've barely made a dent in the tree

A friend has bought me 3 kilos of cabbage. They want to try my Kimchi, they say..

I, damsel in distress

It was when I was already at Dadahu that I realized what I had set myself up for.  Even worse,  I had not called up the hotel and let them know I was coming.  

Sitting in the bus then I began frantically to look for their  number while willing the Internet signal to stay strong enough for this most essential of searches.

Head down, I was staring at my phone when someone tapped at my window.  it was the bus conductor.
'quick,grab your bag and follow me' he said. 'I found you a bus that will take you to your hotel.'

Not only did he take me to the bus, but he also handed me over like a registered parcel to a group of men and instructed them to make sure I got down at the right place.

These guys instantly took me under their wing. They gave me a seat and fussed around me. When I pulled out cash for the ticket, they told me on behalf of the conductor,' you hold on to your money. He won't charge you for such a short distance'. 

At my stop, I got help with my bag and many good wishes.

And the next morning, I met the kindest truck driver ever. But that is another story.

Chasing pumpkins

This begins, like most of our stories do, with Madhu Bhaloo. She had been waking me up several times in the middle of the night, and with good reason. There were ominous rustlings in the pumpkin patch. I went out several times with a flashlight, but saw nothing. Alone, I sat and fretted.

That pumpkin plant, and the one in our kitchen garden marked a turning point in the life of our garden. Since we moved in, Mian has been bringing  home the seeds of sugar pie pumpkins for me to sow. Every year, they have failed. Our soil has been too poor to raise a crop, the critters have been faster than us, we did not know enough about raising pumpkins.

Promise

But all this time, our garden was falling into place. We got chickens which provided us with manure, we set up a rainwater fed irrigation tank, we fenced in our kitchen garden, we learned.
And this year the pumpkins rewarded us. The sugarpies flourished magnificently and gifted us 8 pumpkins. It was the volunteer that the village was oohing and aahing over though.

This seed, probably thrown into the compost, grew till it took over the slope facing our bedroom. First there was one, and then there were six large pumpkins.

These were what the mysterious visitor was after, and concern for them was  keeping Madhu and me up. Mian saw me online late one night and asked me what was the matter. 'Something is chasing our pumpkins' I said sleepily. After a short pause, the gentle Mian tried to reassure me, 'well, it can't be very fast then, can it?' We laughed long and loud then, but today I was vindicated.

The 'pumpking' when still a young one

The giant pumpkin broke its stem, trampled the supports we had placed around it, and disappeared. Madhu, I, G, two men who are presently tilling fields for rye, and one woman who was cutting grass for our household all joined in the search. We found it at the very bottom of the orchard, miraculously not shattered to a pulp, but cracked enough that I could not store it for the winter.

This made me a little sad; I had been looking forward to seeing it gently ripen on our roof. But no matter. I cut it up and shared it with all who had joined in the Great Pumpkin Hunt. There was enough for all..the pumpkin weighed just under 9 Kilos. And I was not perfectly fair in the sharing out, our fridge has a 3.6 Kg wedge of the finest (if not quite ripe yet) pumpkin waiting for Mian to return.

Everybody else's share

Our share

Lush

That word sums up what I want my garden to look like. I want it to be exuberant, to reflect plenty.
It has been tough going.. Plants take a long time to establish themselves, I didn't have enough compost, the summers were mean. 
And when I did get the chickens as a source of compost, they proved to be garden destroyers. I had to protect all the plants with chicken wire fences. That repressive prison environment was exactly the opposite of what I wanted.
And yet.
There are things that do work. Parts of the garden that in the here and now, are what I want them to be.

self-sown kidney beans and amaranth climbing the apricot tree

I see us growing more amaranth next year

Despite its atrocious location (behind the compost pile) this 'saptrangi' rose always delights. First with its multi-coloured flowers, and then the nice fat hips

Here's a closeup

For 4 months every year, the fern wall is as lush as I can wish for

Here's a closeup

velvety purple salvia behind pink phlox. Not sure what Mian thinks of this combination, but I like it!

Getting there, getting there

Hope

I was sitting and chatting with a friend yesterday when the topic turned, naturally, to the madness that is sweeping over India. 'At times like this, you just want to dig a hole  and crawl inside it' she said. 'Sometimes, just digging is enough' I replied. Passionate gardener that she is, Mrs.L smiled agreement.

Gardening is hope. And forgiveness. And love. Reading gardening books and talking with my gardener friends tells me that there are some things that are common to all gardeners.

We look at our gardens with the eyes of love. Most of the time, we see things not as they are, but as they would have been in a state of perfection. And therefore the new advice is  to photograph your garden and look at it as if it is not yours. But most people I know do not do that. Why would you want to consciously seek out warts in the face you love?

And there is always a next time. No matter what you do, the garden does not hold  a grudge. The year rolls around, and you get a second chance.

And right now, I am plumb in the middle of  the season of Hope. The Monsoon.  That magical time when a broomstick stuck into the ground will put out shoots. Mian  bought me a jar of  rooting hormone powder (that most romantic of men- he knows what will get his wife weak-kneed!) and I have been going a little crazy. Lavender, rosemary, roses, hydrangeas- next year, my garden will be lush!

Here are photos:

Lavender and rosemary. For the south wall in the yard.

Hydrangea. I tried rooting cuttings for three seasons but they all rotted on me. This time, I filled the planting hole with sand for drainage. They are alive so far. What did  I say about forgiveness?

Doesn't look like much,but there are 14 plants of 5 different types in there!

Lily bulbils. Mrs.L gave me scores when she learnt I don't have any tiger lilies. In 3 years, my garden will be on fire!

Avian woes

As I write this, I am sitting on the porch with a spray can of water next to me. The can is both for protection and for assault. Protection against the rooster, who is programmed to attack anything other than his hens. And assault against a drongo.
I normally like these cheerful agile little birds. Their antics as they catch flying insects is fun to watch. But  this one is the smartest and laziest drongo ever. S/he has found a convenient perch just outside the beehive. All the bird has to do is sit there, beak agape, while bees offer themselves up. Well, not on my watch.
But bird troubles never end. I am driven to write this now because my nose nearly got taken away by an aggressive winged thug. I wish  I could name something like a falcon, but it was a dove. I was walking past the chicken coop, and it shot towards me, with murderous intent. I am so glad I ducked.
Not all the birds we have are malevolent. Some are ailing. One of our hens is lame, which  means she cannot hunt for her lone chick (all the others died). Besides which she does not allow me to inspect her.
And finally, one of the chicks in the other brood has a deformed beak. It is shaped like a hook, which is fine if one is an eagle, not so much fun to eat seeds with. So I need to be mindful about spreading seed on the grass for her where she can pick them up- she can't grasp seeds scattered over stone.
Who would have thought that adopting 4 birds would lead me to being obsessed with the innards, sex lives, and territorial drama of an 11-strong flock?

My real mother.

My mother's most cherished photograph of herself is the one where she is wearing a tightly cinched National Cadet Corps uniform. In the post WWII years, the NCC was serious stuff. She relished climbing telephone poles to 'tap' the messages shuttling back and forth, she learnt to shoot, she showed off during drill. Her adventures had begun well before college and the NCC. In school, she was the tomboy of the class- preferring to exit school from a tunnel under the boundary wall rather than through the gate.

Later, she worked in the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research as a 'scanner girl' looking for electrons. In those days, that was the most technical job a woman could have. She talks with joy of those days, of smuggling her friends into the scientists' lift, of talking to Homi Bhabha, of the foreign scientists who would visit.

She also had a non-traditional sense of style. With her first salary, this girl from Mangalore walked into a fancy jewellers and bought a stunning single strand of pearls- like the Hollywood actresses. She would wear none but printed silk sarees and sleeveless blouses. I remember a nightie of hers that I would play with as a child; she probably decided she didn't want to wear it after Baba died. It was nylon, I think, with a front made entirely of lace. It was a very 'mumma' thing to me then, now it strikes me that I only own one thing that even comes close to the risque-level set by my mothers nightie.

She was a part of the audience during a strip show. It was out of the ordinary, but not too much so for this fun-loving girl. When single, she would always be surrounded by a court of devoted and gallant admirers. When she got engaged, my dad and his friends simply joined the club of those who admired Saroja.

Much much later, she found herself a widow with two children and a hospital. That girl stayed alive though. She shone through in impromptu holidays, in movie marathons, in riverside picnics, in a love for rum-and-coke combos.


I need to remember this woman I know, my mother.

The apple of my eye

Well, no. But you didn't expect me to refrain me from making that pun while talking of my beloved iris, did you?
Nothing's quite as magical as a bed of iris backlit by the morning sun.

 

And this is the most spectacular one I've seen:

 But there is lots else happening this spring.

The Amaryllis:

 The Azalea:

And everywhere, the promise of more sweetness to come. Here is the honeysuckle over our window, waiting to flower till Mian is back home.

The little stone house

I suppose I always knew it existed. It alone knows what  it was in the beginning. Before Mian and I moved here, G briefly used it as a place to store fruit. But it was already rundown and he quickly gave up the attempt. And for 4 years it stood there on the edge of the orchard and on the edge  of my consciousness.
 
Till a couple of  weeks ago when I walked past it  with eyes newly opened by David Culp's stunning book  about his garden. When I came across the little house, it was early morning and the sun caused the house to glow like honey. The ferns were cool, the air was scented with apple blossom.

The stone house. Perfect just as it is

Charmed, I visited the house several times. I saw the lovely exposed rock face with ferns growing down it and reflected that Gertrude Jekyll would envy me for that 'ready-made' feature. I looked at the rose growing in the corner and thought of how it would scent the area with a little encouragement. I carefully noted the moisture and sun available in different areas and fantasized about planting arrangements.
And then I spoke about this to G. He was deeply suspicious of my plans.'Saheb' he said, meaning A whose orchard it is, 'wants to use it for something.'  I showed the stone house to Mian. He was ecstatic, but not quite in the way I was. 'What a lovely guest house this would make! Just need a roof. and a floor. and a little straightening.' humph.
I would do it, I decided. I would make me a walled garden, alone if need be.

And today when I was pulling up the weeds, G came by. He stood warily while I explained that I would plant things so that the structural integrity of the place was not compromised. And then I spoke of the rose.
'I am planning to string wires between the walls,' I said. 'and train the rose along it, so that in a few years we will have..'
'A white roof!' breathed an awestruck G
Together we stood and smiled at the nodding clusters of roses we could see so clearly.
I think I might have an ally.

A fireplace. Revealed after an hour of pulling weeds

I have a face.

I am at a workshop these days, with some old friends and some people I've just met but find fascinating.

Today morning one of them walked up to me with a pendrive in his hand. 'Here is my pendrive' he said. 'That's nice', replied I. 'What do you want me to do about it?' 'Oh' he said 'not you. The other woman'.

The other fat woman he meant.

Not bothering to learn my colleague's name or look at her face, he had just looked at her body and walked up to the nearest person with the same body type.

And later in the day, I spoke about my work on the Ramganga. During the tea break after, I was surrounded by a small group of people who wanted to know more and let me know they appreciated what I said. I was gratefully basking in the nice comments when one person said, 'you speak like Vandana Shiva'.

 'eh?' I was confused- while I appreciate what Ms. Shiva has done for the visibility of India's agrobiodiversity, we don't share an area of work and certainly not a speaking style. What he said next made his thoughts clear. 'You also look like her. Actually, you also look like Usha Uthup. And Shubha Mugdul.' 'Ah.I see.'

Look, I know it might be confusing, this proliferation of large and loud women. But here's a tip. We have different faces.And we do different jobs. Focus on those two things.