Tuesday 25 November 2014

Biota_06



My lila magic beauties! 


Unseen most of them. 


What we see is green weed spread everywhere. Especially during monsoon our garden grows wild. 


But then, when weather gets dry I start to pluck the wilderness … 


… And when I bend down, the many little colorful spots of tiny flowers make me wonder … 


… and present my day with such beauty of nature … 
That‘s why I don‘t pluck all and give them their space along the wall … 


Some of them have a size of just few millimeters! 


Each one an artwork … 


Our eyes are not made for seeing even all details …


What a gift, our garden around Sylviander House is full of these wonders! … 


… but visible only for such people being curious to take the effort to bend down and look … 



Sunday 9 November 2014

Baby Cat Moojoo



After baby cat‘s siblings had died, however been eaten by craws or a male cat, and now lived in the paper box under my stitching table, of course it felt lonely. When ever hearing my voice it called me: take me out of the box! I put it in a shawl tied around my waist while cooking, which it was couriously watching, and afterwards I took it upstairs to let it sleep on my lap. 


Often it was flundering wildy as repeating the horrific moments of its trauma, when the to siblings next to it were attacked and then took away. I touched its jerking body with my hand to console. After some days, these nightmares slowly vanished. 


Without thinking I called it Moojoo. This was the sound, which I felt when cuddling and talking to it. And soon we saw, it was a girl. 


Was it the shock of mama cat Bianca, that she came rarely to feed her? Most of the time she spent with Mia – meanwhile more than 4 months old – and allowed him to drink again. 


One day she had a very bad wound near the tale, which seemed to get worse and bigger with every day. I mixed a homeo medicine, which has an effect of antibitotic, among her food and every next day the improve was visible. This incident was an additional reason that she rarely came to feed her kitten, obviously she wasn‘t well. 


When the gap was to long, I fed Moojoo with diluted milk in a pipette. I had searched in the internet, what to do. All informations I could find were from the West, where animal shops sell cat milk powder, which I wouldn‘t find in Kerala. Anyway, during this research I‘ve learned about to sweep the kitten‘s belly with a cloth after giving milk until it urinates. 


At least during night mama Bianca came to feed her. Since a male cat comes regularly near or into the house to attack Simba, we close the windows downstairs during the night. When Bianca was so unwell, she wasn‘t able to climb up the coconut tree beside the house as she did before. She found out an easier way to reach secretly the verandah in the first floor, from where she walks then down the staircase to the stitching room. Before climbing into the box she made a very special sound and waited until Moojoo answered. 


Still today even in the deepest sleep, Moojoo will react on the mother‘s call. Then, only after her kitten replied, Bianca climbed into the box, where she was loudly welcomed by her baby. This habit I only observed here with the wild cats. 


As a child I was growing up with a cat, also friends had cats and kittens, which I took care while they were in holiday. But these cats in Germany are real house cats even they can go out. They don‘t need to be cautious, when they have kittens at home, they don‘t know dangers or threatenings. Of course there are exeptions, but mostly they have made good experiences with humans. 


After around 2 weeks Moojoo wasn‘t in the box anymore when we came down in the morning. Shortly later we saw her playing under and behind the bed there. I understood, she can‘t stay in the box anymore. I made a cosy corner in my writing room, which they accepted both immediately. 


Simba didn‘t like at all this situation and avoided to being with us in my writing room during evening as it was our ritual. He played the jealous one. All night he spent somewhere out on the verandah or hided in the chaotic artist‘s wilderness, Alexanders studio next to our sleeping room. 


Moojoo develeoped the same favorite spots in my room as Simba-Meeyoo did … 


… playing and sleeping in the drawer of my writing table … 


 … sleeping between my legs under my laptop! 


… And when awake playing and biting whatever to find … 


When Moojoo was 1 month old, we woke up of a crying Bianca at 3 am. She was missing her baby. Searching together with her, even beside Simba actively looking for Moojoo, we didn‘t find her. It was a shock to Bianca and to us. Simba seemed to be happy with this situation and became the old one again, enjoying to be close to us. 
Fantasy troubled us, what could have happened to her. Did a male cat followed Bianca to steel her kitten and then eat? Did Moojoo somehow manage to climb up to the low window board, jumped on the verandah, running around confusely in the dark, fell down, then panicly runnng through the garden to somewhere? Is she still alive … 


I was surprised, how deeply her loss pained me. She had already become a part of our life, even beside this jealous guy Prince Simba-Meeyoo. But we had been confident, that for sure he would get used to the additional family member and then accept his little sister … 


My days were troubled by controversal emotions: Is Moojoo alive, is she dead? Even Alexander missed her a lot. In the sixth night after her disappearance I saw her in my dream, full of dirt, but coming back home … 
Story will continue. 

Tuesday 4 November 2014

Biota_05


White beauties! 



Can you see the tiny creature on the right side? 


With my bare eyes I couldn‘t see! 


As many times happened, only after loading the photographs to the computer and enlarging, details of life in microcosm becomes visible … 


… same with this very tiny flower, which I didn‘t see while taking the picture! 





Does this ant look angry? 



These are my white beauties as part of my »biota study«, all found in the garden around Sylviander House … 



Once started to open the eyes for the small tiny things in nature under our feet, discoveries and surprises are never ending … 
There are some more white beauties waiting, also violett-lila-rosa beauties, which will come as next … 

Saturday 1 November 2014

culinary joy: passion-fruit jelly garnished with curd and lemon balm


A delicate dessert on hot days is a cold fruit jelly garnished with self made curd and home grown lemon balm. 


The milk for the curd we get from a neighbor cow, which is fed by the organic grown grass of our Sylviander House garden. Sometimes we make smoothies from this grass, mixed with some medicinal herbs wildly growing along the wall in my ‘weed cultivation‘, then drink it in the morning before breakfast. 


How fast our 3 passion fruit plants grow and spread, we never expected – we planted it last year … 


Passion fruits we can harvest from May to November – right now slowly the fruits are getting less. 


When there are not many passion fruits, I mix the jelly with pineapple which we get all the year or with Mango which we get on the market from March to June. 


This fruit jelly with curd and lemon balm sprinkled with some sesame we can also combine with a crispy Roti, which is a kind of keralese pancake without egg. This is a nice breakfast too.