Planting November 2009 Day I

  Who will come?

  I SMS-ed plenty of friends to come over and plant trees if they wished.  Lots of rains since several days; so i had everyone confirm as i could prepare snacks accordingly :)

  It was pouring on saturday.  They day i had chosen as pits were ready to be plated .

  woke up in the morning with heavy showers.  i had to plant those trees to benefit from the showers.  Told everyone if it pours do not come!

  I had several courageous brothers and sisters come over.  It was fun.  It was so wet.

  i was so unprepared.  i had to play host, organiser and distributor.  As people trickled into Lumière i realised that it was actually happening that day.  Tea i prepared to warm up everyone.  B, our first candidate, came cycling; excited to plant more trees as he already did a whole bunch the other day at Samriddhi.

  Muthu and Dean brought breakfast.  Sweet of them.  Aurosylle and Ishana too made it in between an interval of rain.  Pleasant sight to see Ishana excited to get to work. right?

  Everyone wanted to get down to planting; when i thought while they were having tea i could catch up with distributing the plants to their pits - plan failed.  I ran with the wheel barrow with plants to get them started planting which is the fun bit - i mean planting not running with a wheel barrow :)  All this mind you, in pouring rain. wow!

  Effective they were. i had to keep running from nursery to pits to keep the pace going :)

  fun it was.  i believe they enjoyed it to!  we planted 400 trees that morning.

  Raja, Muthu's younger brother, discovered a quick method to make hole for plant.  Step into the filled pit, already with compost mixed, making a hole big enough for plant.  WIth knives made out of the palmyra, sharp and effective, the plastic of the plants were easily removed.  The old man's idea!  traditional.

  Everyone was happy, smiling and rejoicing the lovely rains.   the morning ended with them kids throwing mud at each other..i was their last victim - red earth it was splashed all over! good memories.

  A remaining 600+ trees are to be planted..The Auroville Clean Group will come Sunday.

  Let see how that goes.