appudu has moved on

nearly 7 years ago, appudu (appu) entered our lives.
our first experience with pets. he entered as a rat-control remedy but he remedied us big time.
he was all things one has seen and read about pet cats - only a bit better on most fronts!
he taught us much and we are far better human beings because of him.

he protected his turf fiercely from others of his kind of others of the slithery venomous kind.

once, we had erroneously overdosed him while deworming. we took him to the chennai veterinary hospital and he overcame much odds to survive and in the process became a case study in the students' academic course work.

we attempted to move him from pR with us to our new location, but he moved back to his comfort zone and continued his reign over our hearts - from a little afar.

he died a couple of days ago. he will stay alive in other dimensions.

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.

ammu is a boy!!!

our inexperience in ex-identification and the late development of organs in cats, make it difficult to clearly mark out the sex in kittens.
baby ammini, as it turns out, is a boy. we are retaining the name 'ammu'...

our desire to give appudu a future mate, has supremely egged our faces and now we will have two boys isolated and looking for female company very soon.

point return's body guard - chokkalingam

after many deliberations and delays, we finally got our stray/mongrel - Chokkalingam aka 'chokka'.
2 months old when he entered our home, a week ago.

many thanks to 'organic' krishnan and priya nagesh at Theosophical Society for this stunning 'chocolate' coloured boy-pup.

all 3 are well adjusted to each other and even eat off each others plates.

baby ammini is home

ammu, for short, is a baby female kitten, is the latest addition to the menagerie at pR. she, like all kittens, is a bundle of energy and a source of joy to all observers.

the boss of point return...

...is our little black ball of fur - appudu.

he has first claim on our laps and whatever we may be doing, he is likely to cozy up.






appudu was conferred this 'boss-ship' after he beautifully cornered a russels viper one night.
this spectacle patterned slinky fella had wandered into our lower floor (probably chasing a frog/looking for warmth).
appudu (and most cats) likes strings and he must have got attracted to the twisting tail and faced-off with Mr RV
we hear a series of whooshes (like air escaping from a cycle tyre) and came down to investigate and come across this dance.
poor Mr RV could not move in any direction and we were forced to knock him dead (as he is a dangerous fella and was right in our living space). a pity as he was quite beautiful.

currently he is the only domestic animal in pR.
we do plan to start a wild animal series like we have started with butterflies.

sharing habitats

we had a serious problem with the rats and adopted a shock-n-awe approach.

but this new fellow is in an altogether different league.


scorpions, like rats, by virtue of sharing the same habitat as humans, run into serious conflict.
snakes on the other hand prefer to live in their own places.
others like lizards, frogs, ants, etc share our habitat, but are harmless and can be easily ignored.

back to this black lissome stinger. we sighted her at around 11 pm in the night of heavy rain. we immediately increased our potential energy and from that vantage, we observed her perambulate casually.
over 2 mins of frenzied parlays, it was decided to get 'rid' of her. and i chose a long plywood and did a steve waugh slog sweep over mid-wicket. i could not bring myself to stomp on her...

we found out that she is not an impulsive stinger and her first mode of attach is through her pincers (painful as it is) and has a 'no-first-use' policy with her stinger.
so we tread with a little less fear.

rat-a-tata

the rat poison worked. it was a popular MNC brand.
am not that thankful to plug it here!!

even though it popularly known that rats are cautious eaters of new substances, 4 rats bit the dust.
all of them died indoors and hence were buried - thus thankfully avoiding secondary poisoning.

rodent attack

rats are quite the common presence in our habitat.

as as human activity grows, they move into the human spaces.

not only are they attracted to the human-activity-led food wastes, they also partake of the harvest directly from the fields.

we have comfortably shared the pavilion space with care that we stay off each others routes and avoid contact. this philosophy has worked very well with the toads and frogs.

over the last 2 weeks, they have become really brazen.

the lamp shade has been chewed up, boundaries are becoming blurred and toe nibbling has increased, much to our chagrin.

so i immediately consulted ratbehavior.org (really, not kidding).

but nothing really to explain why they would choose our toes over the tons of vegetables that are growing in the fields (maybe there are predators outside).

so we took the 'necessary' step of extermination via rat poison. this was 2 nights ago.

and as the nibbling continued over last night, the most amazing sight greeted us when we awoke with a start in the middle of a nibble.

a flutter of wings and lo, behold - we spotted an owl (a baby one most likely). inside the pavilion.

and owl sighting itself is rare, and inside a house is rarer still.

inside the pavilion is not the best hunting ground - too many corners and easy, fast hiding spaces which a bird will find difficult to maneuver. cats will have much better success.

it was most likely a spotted owlet. so we spotted a spotted owlet.

owls love rats (as food, of course) and owl populations are facilitated as a measure towards rat control in open fields.

this is another superb lesson in how nature sets the predator-prey chain in action.

hope the poison does not kill off the owl also :-(

that will be a sad outcome of our unnatural attempt....

my earlier brush with rats also ended up in their misery and my attempted penitence.

handling a bull run

the master trainer - look at the stance and the poise.


learning the ropes




going solo (after 10 mins of training!!)






this is ballelaka at its most elemental.

and action photography at its best.

our co-resident

the first installment of co-residents of pR covered the more sedate species.

here is a close encounter with a beautiful slithery resident - a huge beautiful rat snake.





regular readers will be familiar with my encounters with snakes.

toads, tadpoles and assorted frogs

we have a large pond at pR. and a few other minor water bodies.
post rains, i am imagining that the amphibious creatures must have had a blast.
jan-feb would have been the massive hatching growing scene and we have had to share a significant portion of the bathroom space with them.

after the initial and partial squeamishness (remember the many times you spotted one in your city home), we allowed them into our lives (they had already allowed us into theirs).

as summer grows and the water bodies shrivel up, their populations are now stabilising.
while k and i were discussing their presence, she highlighted a significant point.

the toads, tadpoles and assorted frogs are the sole reason, why we do not (repeat DO NOT) have any mosquitoes at pR. (remember the All-Out mosquito repellent ad)

with a plethora of the aforementioned water bodies, it is but natural that mosquitoes too must have had a blast post rains.

this is the beautiful balance of nature.
the prey-predator cycle sets up and it is fascinating to see it unfurl.

bhairavi - our own black beauty

this is bhairavi.


she has been a pR regular. we fist saw her in mid january a bit weak and bruised/scarred.
as we have been more long staying, she has more or less plumped pR as her home.
we could never be sure as we would miss her out on some nights.

we have noticing that her overall health/looks kept improving as she spent more time with us.

now all our doubts are cleared.
she had her litter of 4 pups today morning.

here she is delivering one (you can see the umbilical cord - white colour) and the newly born lovely little one.


here is a feeding/feeling frenzy and bhairavi after the exhausting ordeal (approx 3 hours).
boy - did she lick her pups to keep them cool/warm and clean.


now realise how abodh (of welfare of stray dogs) must feel at his kennels.