Eating is an agricultural act - Wendell Berry

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

the relentless heat and other news

since september 2016 till date - over 240 days, our area has received exactly ONE day of recordable-level rain and another 2 days of sprinkly drizzles.
during this time, cyclone vardah demolished madras in early dec 2016, jaya amma died, jallikattu protests rocked TN (mostly forgotten now, i think) and more memorable events have transpired.

the failed north-east monsoon of 2016 is already in the record books as the second worst ever in 150 years.

and through may 2017, several parts of tamilnadu have received good summer rains, but a strip of width approx 30-40 kms along the coast from madras to pondicherry has missed out.

through may 2017, we have had at least 15-18 days of very hot (>40 deg C) days.
a scorcher of a month, never before experience by us (in 8 years).
even our well shaded house with high levels of ventilation is barely tolerable.

we had a sub-par agricultural performance in our main season from aug 2016-april 2017. yields remained low for paddy, dals, sesame and abysmal for groundnuts.

through all this tough times, our well has stood strong and we have a good level of water. we are eternally grateful for the previous owners to have picked a great spot and dug such a bounteous well.

as the south-west monsoon has set today (30th may 2017) over coastal kerala, we pray that we get some respite  over the coming month(s).
otherwise, some serious tragedies loom in the neighbourhood.

we have also taken on 4 additional family members, 2 oldish cows (kamala and her daughter haasini) and one female calf (abirami). kamala was scheduled for the meat market, but the kind owner was happy to let us take her away and tend to her till her time comes. haasini still has some mileage left and will go back to the owners in some time. abirami may stay for a bit till she goes through her first delivery.
and lastly sg kittapa aka kittu, a mongrel pup walked in seeking shelter and is currently 3 months old and a tyrant in the making.

one thing that all of us are looking out for - a respite from this relentless heat.