Looking forward..

In the blogging front, I had only one goal set up for the year 2017 and that is to keep the blog active as much as possible and to keep it focused on positive things. I am happy I did that. Personally I close this year with mixed feelings and I was introspecting a lot as the year came to an end. Out of pure chance, yesterday evening I joined my nephews and niece for a movie watching session. They were watching Kung fu panda 2 for the first time, I had watched it once before and did not care to join until the climax and thought of sitting with them for a minute finally and that is when I heard this dialogue. It was as if he was speaking directly to me...It was as if the Universe was sending me this message.

Po: Shen, you've gotta let go of that stuff from the past because it just doesn't matter! The only thing that matters is what you choose to be now.

This is what I will take from 2017.What I choose to be now!. No more fretting of the past, no more complaining. My conscious effort to improve will someday come to fruition and I hope in God. 

Thanks to every single person who visited this space this year, especially to those who kindly left a comment and said hello. Enjoy the new years eve and I will see you in 2018. Bye for now.

Books read this year

A quick post on books I had read this year. I had always been an avid reader. I try to read anything that is on print and that comes into my hand. I remember back when I was in school I used to read every bit of information in the package covers. Those days they mostly used only old newspapers for packaging groceries and once my mom had unpacked all of the groceries,she would hand over the interesting ones to us to read.I used to revel and feel very happy whenever we get packages done with the siruvar malar paper. And from there I moved on to weekly magazines and comics and then small novels and my reading habit slowly grew. I always make sure I have a book in my bag whenever I travel. As this year comes to an end, I started thinking what all I read this year. I had indeed bought many books this year but I could read only a very few.I opted to read leisurely and only a few pages at a time this year and read only in those late night hours when I couldn't catch some sleep.Normally it takes me only a week to complete a book. This year having taken it slow,here is the list of books I completed this year..

1.Agatha Christie:

Three act tragedy : A quick read and though I did not guess the murderer right away I had a hunch which turned out to be right at the end. 

Lord Edgware dies: A good mystery, liked the way Poirot solved it but felt a little dragging in the middle.A strong start and the finish made it a worthwhile read.

Hercule Poirot's Christmas : Guessed the suspect right away and proved right at the end. An average and a one time read,maybe because I had high hopes before I started reading it.I was hoping the novel will detail many festive scenes but it was very dry.

2.PG Wodehouse;

Right Ho Jeeves:  Jeeves decides to leave Bertie's employment.Bertie stays in a country house where he meets his ex fiancee whom he decided to help without Jeeves assistance. A hilarious read as usual from PGW.

The girl on the boat : I did not enjoy this one as much as I did the other PGW books I had so far. But still made it through till the end.Luckily this was an ebook and I did not spend any bucks buying it.

3.  A lot of TINTIN comics and TINKLE books : When I was searching for good ebooks I came across a blog which turned to be treasure trove for quality ebooks and one of the links had all the TINTIN comics in the ebook format. I was elated, it even had the very first TINTIN comic that ever got published. I downloaded them all and read one per month, so six done so far. In the book fair that happened in the city I was fortunate to find old tinkle books for a reasonable price. I had good time reading them through out this year.

4. The alchemist : I bought a tamil version of this Paulo Coelho novel and gave it to my mom. She enjoyed the book. I read it too even though I had read the english version loads of time before.

5. Sacred hearts : I wrote about it before in a post, listing it here for the count.

Thats all I could recall, I think I am missing one but the mere fact I couldn't remember it should say a lot about the the content of the book so its best to leave it,me thinks. So all in all , an average year for book reading but I had originally intended to not read anything at all this year, so I am happy with the average count.

Calvin and Hobbes

This will be the last of my Calvin posts for this year. Here is one that got published on a Christmas day (1988)..

It's Santa...

Published Dec 24,1987

Bird watching

Though I had spotted many new(i mean new to me) birds all through this Summer and clicked a quick snap too, I never had a chance to blog about them.So let me show some of the pics from my collection before this year ends.

First, the brahmini starlings. I had spotted quite a few of them this year. They were always flying together as a bunch(atleast seven in number). Here is a couple that were sat on the neighbor's water tank.

A yound Shikra sitting in the drumstick tree and this will mark my first sighting of a bird of prey in wild.

A black drango in the electrical pipeline. He is not shy,always on the lookout for worms and never gets scared of the camera.

A woodpecker that often comes to feast on the papayas growing in our neighbor's tree. So far I have spotted only a couple of them in my area.

Indian Robin.Though I have seen plenty of them around, it is very hard to photograph them. Very rarely they oblige with a non-shaky photo. This particular robin was sitting in a far away pole and thankfully did not notice me roaming around with the camera.

I might have a few more bird pictures lurking in some folders,its just a matter of finding and posting them.

Calvin's Snowmen

Published Dec 15,1995

If you are new to C&H and wondering who the ''she" here refers to, it is his mom.

Mushrooms

Last week I went on a long drive outside the city to visit a temple and feel really pleased that I did the trip coz for the first time in my life I saw a wild mushroom. I have seen plenty of small mushrooms coming up occasionally in the garden containers but never one growing in its natural habitat. I have earlier written in my garden blog about my fascination with mushroom foraging and how it is very difficult to go for edible mushroom hunting as I live in a place very remote to wilderness. 

Ha.. finally one of my wishes came true.These mushrooms were not found near our destination but actually on the way where we decided to stop for a minute to take rest. I stopped under a tamarind tree which had a patch of grassland in front and not far from my vehicle,were these mushrooms snuggling happily together. I took a few pictures and cut a few of them off their roots(hope thats what they are called) and bagged them to take home for proper investigation and possible identification. The mushroom had a mealy smell (means like a wet flour) so I guessed it could be one of the good ones.

Later on at home, after noting down the color,gill structure and the stem shape I went online searching its name and all pointed me to this ..Calocybe Gambosa. I tested the characteristics listed for this mushroom against the one I had and all checked okay.

1. A cap that is initially round, becoming irregular when bigger

2. A cap that is slightly inrolled at the edge

3. A stem that is stout and bulbous at the base(the latin word "gambosa" means "club-footed").

The most important things to check are ...

4. Flesh is firm and cream-coloured and does not change colour when cut - CHECK (did not change even after a day)

5. Gills that are cream, very crowded and "emarginate"  - CHECK (I had to search and find what does emarginate mean but it matched as well)

6. A white spore-print - CHECK (cut the cap off,lay it on a clean paper and leave it for 24 hours and observe the spore color and pattern)

7. The smell - very mealy and very distinctive - CHECK

Calocybe gambosas are said to be edible and a very tasty one at that and apparently much sought after by chefs. I did not try eating it nor will I do ever in the future without getting a mushroom expert's opinion on it first. The ones I took home, I have tossed them randomly in the garden and in the frontyard grass patch in the hope that the spores spread and the mycelia starts growing in this area.

I do not know if they will ever grow in this method but I can be sure whether they do or not in a year's time provided it rains plenty as well all through the year. Lot of ifs there but I just wish and hope these spores take life in the garden. I have also marked the place where I found it growing, so I will be surely checking it out the next time I go there.Even though I have said it twice above, I will say it again I am very pleased that I found this mushroom. I just like the simple pleasure of having a keen eye and the luck in spotting a good one at my very first opportunity.

Calvin and the Christmas tree

Its Friday evening and here I am with another one of my absolute favorites...Calvin's dad's sense of humor at its best.

Published 1989 Dec 4th...

At their best

Looks like the new arrivals to the container garden that are the rose plants are loving this rainy season.A single day's haul pictured below and I am actually wondering if I could make a bouquet and put them in the vase. The only problem is the plants are still very small and dont have that long stalks to stick out of the vase. Sooner or later I will try making one and see how that goes..

Pretty aren't they...

Supermoon 2017

It was raining continuously all through the week but somehow the clouds cleared on Sunday giving us a glorious view of the Super moon.

With the Karthigai Deepam lights sparkling everywhere and the moon glowing in the sky, it all made for a wonderful experience yesterday. I was able to take a few pictures of the moon with my mobile phone and all turned out to be a little hazy.This is the best of the bunch, nowhere compared to what I clicked last year. Well, something is better than nothing, right..

Visiting the native town pt 1

During my childhood days visiting my grandparents house for the Summer holidays had always been a regular fixture. Later on as we moved to the higher standard classes we could not visit the place often and the visiting gap slowly grew to months, a year and then many years.Very recently when I learnt my parents and my siblings were planning a trip to the native town to attend a function I felt I had to join. After-all this kind of journeying together as a family has become a once in a blue moon occasion these days and I do not want to miss one such opportunity.

We met many of our folks and relatives(whom I could not remember very well) and spent a day well chattering and pondering around. But the main highlight of the journey for me came the day after when my brother suggested we visit the vaaikaal(canal) nearby. When we were kids we had spent many a happy days and hours playing and bathing in the canal river. The canal was atleast a kilometer from my grandparents house and we used to walk the entire distance to reach the canal. Most often we would be accompanied by our grandfather and my parents will also be with us. All those memories came flushing in my mind at the mere mention of the canal and I never imagined I would have a chance again to go visit the river canal after all these years.

Later on I suspected the plan to visit the canal might get dropped so I borrowed a two wheeler from my uncle and with my sister accompanying me set out to see the canal.I did not go to the exact place where we used to jump in but knew the river is easily accessible at place called Moolavaaikal(nearby the NH) and drove to that area.I had heard the curve where the river flows at moolavaaikal is a beauty to look at but never imagined it would be this beautiful and scenic.

When we were there a couple of kids were fishing with a hook but could see they did not have any luck till then. We used to try fishing too when we were kids and sometimes we were successful too at catching some small fishes.The river still has many fishes teeming nearby the banks just like the olden days.

I was pining to get my legs drenched but we didn't as we weren't sure of the current of the river flow.Well I am happy at least I was able to see the river without any prior planning and surely hope another opportunity will arise in the future to visit the good old place and jump in.

So close ..

I wanted to do a quick post and when I was thinking about it realized I had not shared even a single Calvin post this year at all. My love for Calvin and Hobbes knows no bounds and I love especially the strips that detail Christmas time at the Calvin household.Fortunately I have all of the Calvin comic strips that ever got published (Calvin ran from 1985 till 1995) so it is easy to read a few whenever I wish. I am planning to post one Calvin strip each Friday all through December.

Today I pick year 1988 and the strip published on December 1st (29 years ago on the same day) ...Enjoy.

Oh poor Calvin..!