eat mangoes till you drop

this was the invitation floated by ananthu.
an offer too tempting to let pass by.
a glorious day of mango eating unfolded.
the location was leo farm in tiruvallur district in north tamilnadu.
the invitee was bharathi, the owner. a remarkable man.

spread over 150 acres, this farm is one of the few places where the beautiful cycle of nature plays out.

the visiting crew. karpagam, sumathi and ananthu.


with the remarkable bharati...


the tree and the fruit in close up.


eating, drinking, slurping...


tired from all the standing and eating, now sitting and eating...


let me get to explaining the cycle which i referred to earlier.
since bharati uses natural farming systems, there is obviously no usage of any form of chemicals.
and natural farming theory clearly does not label. so there are no 'weeds'.
and so the farm is full of wild growth.
(please do notice the beautiful rain clouds building up in the background.)


of course, this could overrun the place. so here is the control mechanism (aka the weeding crew).


a team of over 150 goats, cows, horses, donkeys graze the succulent grasses and shrubs. with no supervision.
here is the beauty, they are free to eat the mangoes too. no restrictions. bharati says evocatively, "we sell whatever remains after the animals have their fill."

and here comes the double beauty. as the animals graze, they drop dung and urine all around the trees. this encourages the explosion in the population of the insects, worms and a variety of micro-organisms. they converge onto the dung and convert it into nutrients back to the plants and trees.
in the meanwhile, the leaves shed by the trees forms a thick carpet under the canopy and as they decay, the earthworms come into play and voila, vermicompost generation in-situ.
this healthy soil makes healthy plants, which bear healthy fruit, which we eat till we drop.

and bonus shot as we invade the privacy of a couple of grasshoppers.


superb.