The real festival of Lights

It was a bit chilly and windy than usual this year but we braved through it and had an excellent Karthigai Deepam celebrations.I think Karthigai Deepam has become my favourite in the recent times and I am thankful for having yet another good one.

It was a quiet day from the morning, did not have much to clean up,the lamp cleaning started only in the evening.Everything that was needed were bought earlier on, fearing the onset of Vardah storm but thankfully it did not even rain in our part of the state.

After a cleaning the lamps, it was time to draw the rangoli.Mom planning the kolam in paper

which came alive within a half an hour in the frontyard,attractive to look at any angle I would say!

Every year we plan to have something new in the deck.Our new addition for this year Deepam were these which we bought in a sale during Deepavali.

Soon the sun set and the moon arose, the first lamp was lit and then all followed suit..

first the kolam was decorated

then some on the footsteps

and many on the compound wall

the lamps had the task to brave the blowing wind

Many went off often but lit again within an instant in our constant watch

the second day, the kolam planned was of a smaller size as is the norm

but the lamp counts were the same on the many compound walls to my delight

I spent eons watching the glowing lamps..

..feeling grateful for the peaceful time.

Winter Solstice

The winter solstice happens today,meaning, today will be the shortest day for this year.I remembered it early morning and Google confirmed it for me.The weather is also mild and moody making it a pleasant day.Winter solstice doesn't mean much difference in the day-to-day activities here,for a place that is nearer the tropic of cancer, but knowing it is the shortest day makes a difference to me.Not much but just knowing it makes the difference.

For some days recently I was meaning to write about my stargazing experience for this year.I will take this day as an opportunity to do just that. I was eyeing for another meteor shower view all through this year but it seemed to never happen at all-atleast until late August. Thats when Perseid meteoroids fall and this year was supposed to a peak year for them. It looks like the peak year happen every ten years or so.I tried for the first few days when the fall started but I was late to the party.To see the Perseid meteor shower,you have to be in the terrace at the hours just before dawn. Like at 3 AM but all I could do was get at five-ish only. Another thing with the 3 AM hour is the mosquitoes. Looks like they never sleep. After my first day attempt I started dabbling odomos before stepping out and even carried the tube along.Thank God, Perseids happen in August so no fear of midnight cold. It was actually pretty humid at that hour.

The third day I was very alert as that was supposed to be the peak day.My dad gave me company on the third day and we were there in the terrace at around 2.50 am.My father is also interested in stargazing and everytime he keeps me company for a shower view,I will be ready to hear his story about his experience as a kid. My father had witnessed a meteor shower when he was a kid(could have been six or eight year old)but not like anything we do these days to see the shower.Those days there were no common transport and so they make long journeys by foot even to reach far away places.They usually start the journey around evening to avoid sunburns and walk entire nights and reach the destination by morning. My father was once making such a trip with his grandfather,walking through a farmer's field and suddenly he saw a bright array of meteors falling. He describes it was just like a rain but only with light. He and his grandfather stopped the walk and saw the shower in all its brilliance and then resumed the journey.I had tried to work out the facts in the story and tried to pinpoint when it could have happened and what meteor shower(there are atleast six prominent meteor showers in a year)he actually saw. After some research and guesswork,I think he had indeed watched an Perseid shower.I always love to hear his experience and imagine what a luck, to sit in the terrace and listen to his retelling at that hour when the entire town is sleeping.

This year we did not have to sit watching the blank sky for hours.This year truly turned out to be peak year for Perseid shower and we saw meteors streaking past every minute and sometimes three at a time.My father asked how these showers happen and I went full fledged explaining,as the nerd in me was waiting for him to ask me that question. We also discussed about the planets and the stars and lamented about how the weather and climate is spoiled by man these days. After a while, my sister too came and joined us and we had our usual fun of counting how many meteors each of us saw fall.Thinking back, I would say that is the best stargazing experience I have ever had in my life. I did not have much luck after the Perseid till day but I am content. And that night was enough to keep me motivated and grateful.

Just realized this post is going to be picture less so I will include a mind blowing video from Youtube.I wish I had come across the facts in the video when I was in school.Have a nice day!

Garden update -- Herbs

The garden is now delivering something to the food table every day. The ornamentals always do but only now we have everyday produce from something or the other in the veg/herb department,especially the herbs.

We do not have to do anything to propagate in a new container. Just place the new pot nearby and they will 'hop'

An usual day's haul

 My long time efforts at growing mint in container has finally come to a great success. We now have at least four containers of mint keeping us a steady supply.We have done mint repotting twice for all of the containers. I will talk about mint repotting in detail in my next month's garden post.

Early morning harvest,like at 6 AM

This is a good weather to grow methi/fenugreek. I sowed in three small pots and some seeds here and there and now we have methi supply guaranteed for atleast a month. We will be sowing some more like this until late March and stop after when the weather gets too hot.

I have my doubts for them..gardening is a game of wait and watch

Lastly,I have again started to try my hand at growing coriander. This is a tricky herb to grow and we have only 25% success rate till now for two years. Luckily we came across a store selling good quality coriander seeds,they sell for culinary use but when tried to sow, all the seeds germinated to our delight. Two pots of just germinated tiny coriander plants and all our fingers crossed.

I do not have a picture of the curry plants (trees!) that provide with us fresh leaves everyday,so not including them here. We also have different types of keerai growing in very minor quantities like manathakkali,ponnanganni,mulai keerais'. I will try to squeeze a picture in my next month's herb post.

I will sneak in a pretty picture although they are not herbs. We were blessed to have fresh flowers from the garden to decorate the lamps for Karthigai deepam day.I was mesmerized by the freshness of these chrysanthemums.I bet you would be too...Enjoy and have a wonderful day!See ya in next...

A crochet work to show..

..after a very long time. My niece celebrated her Birthday recently and I took up the opportunity to crochet something. The girl is crazy about snowman and after a long search in the youtube found a tutorial for making a tiny stuffed snowman.The tutorial was elaborate and looked easy to make.As I had all the things needed handy,it took only 45 minutes to complete the snowman and his hat and scarf.

The snowman turned out to be only 2 inches tall and while the tutorial recommended using 3D paint for nose and eyes, I crocheted a small nose in wool and stitched it in place.I also made a change to the hat's design.

We put some cotton to resemble snow in a box and sat the snowman.I am still learning when it comes to various crochet techniques but am happy my first effort at a stuffed toy turned out well.My niece was very happy with this tiny gift that I made.

October skies

Guess game...is this sunrise or sunset?

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Guess what,I would have bet a 1000 bucks for this to be a sunrise if I had not been the one who took the picture. This is a glorious sunset that happened on a pleasant evening in October.The sun was appearing full (like shown in the below picture) at around 5.26pm and quickly started disappearing into the clouds at 5.33pm as seen in the first picture.Well,October skies are always special to me--when the evenings are mild and foggy and the southwest monsoon breeze blowing with a mild hint of cold and the sky being usually clear with a full view of the sun--an excellent opportunity for skygazing.

It was just like watching a magic trick -where did the clouds come from?where they were always there waiting for the Sun to come and cozily nest in them? I did not care about it all..I was just feeling blessed to just stand there and witness the magic.

Ornamentals

As I said in my garden blog, I would be posting updates on our gardening efforts over here until I get time again to maintain a fulltime garden blog.I was wishing to post a garden update for the month of November but it never happened.So I have decided I will split the garden entry into three categories -herbs,vegetables,ornamentals and do three posts per month,this way it will save time as well as limit the picture counts per post.So today let me start by showing around the ornamentals currently decorating our garden.

The roses have bloomed all through the year,thankfully, but they look the prettiest in winter.We have more than 10 plants and I'll restrict myself by showing only a few.

The mums have started their magic.We planted this mum in mid April and the sapling had only a few leaves and the vendor assured it is a yellow one. We were surprised when the sapling soon developed into a big massive plant and put up loads of buds around September.Got to know from mom that this variety of chrysanthemum is called 'saamanthi' in tamil and very different from the usual 'chevvanthi' variety.We like them a lot. We are picking a dozen every other day.

Apart from the wearable ornamentals, we do get other flowers from the garden to decorate the Pooja room. We get atleast one big basket full of these every single day.

Finally I want to show the marigold that has finally agreed to grow in the garden. We have tried for over a year to grow atleast one marigold plant but they never worked.We sowed many but none germinated, then we borrowed a sapling from our native village but it died quickly. Last Summer we found a seed vendor that sold viable seeds and we have now four plants growing. The buds are very tiny compared to a regular marigold flower size but we'll take it. Something is better than nothing! 

Santa is here

With the heavy rains pouring and the climate being doom and gloom, I and my niece decided to do a fun filled Christmas project to conjure Santa to cheer the mood up.We do not celebrate Christmas at our home but when there is a little tot at home and the TV commercials all start showing Christmas themed ads and shows,there is no escape but to answer the umpteen questions being asked about the upcoming holidays' season and about the thatha(grandpa) in the red suit.Santa is synonym to jolly and cheer and so when we set to make a fun project, Santa was the one who popped in our minds.

A quick google search led us to this website and since we had all the materials that is needed to make, we instantly set out to work and after just 20 minutes we had this beautiful Santa salt dough ornament in our hand. I would never have imagined to make a Santa face out of a handprint but there you go-he is the most handsome Santa I've ever seen.

I did not use warm water as given in the instructions.I forgot about warming the water and added just plain water and even the cup measurements were different but still Santa came out perfectly. I also altered the time I microwaved the dough.Ours was in the oven for 6 installments of 10 seconds totaling a minute in whole.I just cut a piece of wool from my crochet stash to make a small thread hanger and now the Santa is hanging in the TV showcase giving his big broad smile.

This project is so easy to make and such a good one and we really enjoyed making it.There are no bounds to my niece's joy in knowing that it is her handprint that is used in making the Santa face.She is proudly showing around the finished item to everyone and every time describes how the handprints came to be :o).This is the funnest artzooka we have ever attempted in the recent times. And yeah, Christmas has come to our home in a sort...

Awesome Supermoon

I too had the luck to watch the recent supermoon,yes-the one that happened this month which is the closest supermoon in history since 1948.To say I was mesmerized at seeing the moon that big was an understatement.I was downright seduced by that orange disc that was sparkling in the sky, appearing bigger than any full moon sighting I could ever recall(scientifically right too :o).I longed to stay in the terrace watching it for hours but I blame only those damn bugging mosquitoes that chased me inside. So for the short hour I was on the terrace I was able to take a few clicks.

The sky was very cloudy until the afternoon and I had almost decided that my plan to see the supermoon was a goner but luckily it all cleared by evening and a clear sky emerged just for a few hours. After giving such a dazzling view,the moon soon disappeared into the smoky clouds.

The moon will not come this closest again until 2038, so I am pretty chuffed it all worked out fine for atleast a short while. Three cheers you, Supermoon!

Not so common around here

I earlier said in a post that my nephews and niece are good spotters of birds and it was proved again. One day my niece called me out to the frontyard with a hurried at the same time hushed tone. I knew it could mean only one thing and so off I ran with the camera and saw this beautiful creature..I would not have seen it myself!Kids do have a keen eye..

The pretty bird was not bothered by us watching, honestly never noticed we were there and kept plucking the grass out.Initially I mistook it for a woodpecker but woodpeckers do not go out digging soil,do they? So after a little research found out that this is Common Hoopoe known as கொண்டலாத்தி/Kondalathi in Tamil.Its tamil name sound very charming. Then I recalled I have seen this bird in the recent Jungle book movie.I also found out a good site that had interesting facts about Kondalathi with astounding pictures. Strongly recommend it for a read.Who knew this is the national bird of Israel?

Catching up with the celebrations

Suddenly its been over 15 days since I was here but I could not fathom how time flew by.Our Deepavali went euphoric as we celebrated every minute of the great weekend..

Wish I could describe each and every of those minutes of fun but it would not suffice a single post. So I will resort to sharing some pictures of the delicious snacks that is the main part of Deepavali celebrations.

We made two kinds of Murukku which  is the the signature dish of Deepavali, One using our traditional kongu region recipe and the other the trichy way,although I am very fond of only the former. I made laddoo for the first time in my life(with help from mom) and the outcome was flawless although I was very doubtful whether the shape will hold well but thankfully it did and tasted awesome.

Vadai is always my mom's signature Deepavali dish which she made on the D day morning. It takes a huge effort to make fresh vadai on that busy morning but my mom never fails to make sure it is made no matter how pressing the morning goes.Kudos to her!There were a few plateful of Somas involved too.. made with the entire ffamily's combined effort. Mixer,mysore pa,coconut delish,gulab jamoon,adhirasam were in the menu too..
There was a Bday celebration on the Deepavali Eve day.. I was very happy to join the Bday boy in his celebration.I agree I was eyeing for the rose left in the cake decoration :). 

And then what ....

the entire day was spent munching and lighting fires..we did have a photo session as usual we do on Deepavali but I could not share them here.. So let me end with showing the 'sangu chakram' we lighted..

I am amused how this turned out to be a foodie post ;o)..So I will leave the food aside and talk about birds in my next post..

A sneakpeak..

...into how our Deepavali preparations are going on.

A little perusal of the Deepavali special books.They arrive home when it is a couple of weeks to go for Deepavali and from then on,a quick sit down often to read through the interesting articles is the order of most days.

The unravelling of the roll caps...they are the first crackers that we fire every year.We would then graduate from the roll caps to the bijili vedi's and then to the still bigger ones as the days to Deepavali get close..but for now we are only in the roll cap level.

 Then comes this mandatory,at the same time most enjoyable,task of drying the previous year's crackers. Our loot for this year is yet to arrive home but the leftovers from last year Deepavali is now drying in the terrace..

Let me add a close up look :o)

Here is one more as a bonus :D

Oh..I can't wait to lay my hands on them.Just four more days to go..Yay :o)...

Our Ayutha Poojai

Maavilai thoranam at home after a long time

Vazhai maram which will be always present on this day

Every Ayutha Poojai evening, we take grest joy in decorating the doors and furniture 

Even the dolls and showcases are not missed :)

This Ayutha Poojai went very peacefully for us.These days I take this festival as an opportunity to be grateful for all the things I have and dust the old habits and welcome new things into life with God's blessings.As a rule you should not read on Sarawathi poojai day, so we had the entire day to clean up the house and decorate the house and the furnitures and the vehicles, perform the poojai,sing and eat sundal and then peacefully take rest till the next morning.The first thing we should do on Vijayadasami day(the next day) is to read a study book which we smartly did. And then off we went to shopping for Deepavali.

Mom says that people in our native town used to have a saying 'Maha Nonmbi brings along all other nonmbis'.Nonmbi is the kongu tamil term for a festival.So Maha Nonmbi literally means Mega festival which is the nine day long Navarathiri.

So yes, Deepavali has started for us with the onset of shopping and soon sweet preparations and firing crackers will add on.Oh I can't wait!