Yoga teacher and organic farmer Teruko Maehara from Japan visits Native Place.

Yoga instructor and practicing organic farmer from Hiroshima, Japan visited us in February.  She shares her experience:

My yoga friend Ivan Stanley from India told me Native Place was definitely a nice place to visit. Its India but not the India we imagine – people find India crowded, chaotic and noisy but that is the city – this place is a tranquil space. 

Being close to Pune – Iyengar centre she found it convenient and practical to visit the Iyengar Yoga Center in crowded Pune and return to the peaceful atmosphere at Native Place

Its good for permaculture, meditation and yoga.  Local food, garden veggies good for yogis.  One can also have a paragliding experience

My travel -  I took a plane to Delhi and a domestic flight to Pune. The guesthouse organised a taxi to pick me up from Pune airport – one hour’s drive. So, it was all very convenient. Not difficult at all for a single traveller.

I hour from the crowded city of Pune Native Place is a fresh oasis of green. Filled with many beautiful native trees and lots flowers, birds and overlooking has lots of greenery. It is dry and brown outside but a fresh green oasis here.

What to do here - If you wish farming, cooking, paragliding, swim in the lake, enjoy the sunset by the lake or from the terrace, join a workshop is one is going on. There are many hidden places to spend quiet time and be alone. To read a book or meditate when you need Or enjoy conversations with other guests from all over the world and local people . The air is fresh and unpolluted, there is lots of place for kids to play so it’s good for families as well.

Most can speak English, so it makes it easy to converse with guests and staff.  I would think / recommend it as a good place to escape the winter for people from Europe and Japan. I came end of January and it was sunny in the day time, dry weather, I could walk barefoot. In the evenings and early morning its cool and fresh.

 I found people visiting the Native place to be like a family – Saturday night reunion of paragliding pilots and friends, a community atmosphere, chill out, catch up with each other.  It’s definitely a  nice place to meet people as well.

I’m really happy I came and spent a quiet week here – my next stop is the Vipassana center in New Bombay after which I travel back home to winter in Japan.

Millet and Traditional Cooking Workshop at Native Place with the ' Cooking Pilgrim'

She is  passionate about cooking traditional dishes and using fresh organic produce and this sentiment led Latha Sagi to become the  Cooking Pilgrim, wandering about the country visiting organic farms where she can harvest fresh local seasonal produce  and turn them into into balanced nutritious tasty dishes. She shares her knowledge and her passion with generosity and her ability  to feed and to serve led to her being fondly called 'Latha Devi'.

Monday morning 4 excited women arrived at Native Place for a 3 day cookout only to find that the kitchen had been cleared out.  It was a classic Oops moment but after an initial shock we settled down and began to see the plus points of cooking on hte tandoor terrace ( temporarily set up as kitchen) the place was a mess but the big bonus was it was like cooking in the outdoors,  we had lots of space and great views of the garden. We even had some cheeky bulbuls come by to share a few crumbs.

3 days of  popping grains other than corn ( that was a whole bunch of fun) experimenting with various grains and oilseeds and pulses , making dosas , idlis, khichdi, payasams ladoos,  a variety of chutneys,  cool refreshing  and warm beverages. We made use of  many ingredients from the garden including flowers, , local grains and oilseed – so much to learn so much to taste – it was a sensory feast..

Our 3 day cooking bonanza did not stay just that – we found time to explore the garden, walk in the rain, visit Palikade, admire wild flowers and wade in the monsoon  streams.  An idyllic time it was.
Thank you Sneha for organising it all, thank you Latha Sagi for your generosity and warmth , thank you Tejal for your unflagging  exuberance and thanks Anushree for finally coming by 
Was a great weekend girls, lets do it again soon

To see more pictures check check the Native Place Facebook Album

Astrid Rao
www.nativeplace.com

The Mahua Yatra comes to Native Place

A while ago i was talking to my friend Samiksha Agarwal who lives in the buffer zone of the Kanha National Park and she mentioned to me that she had a visitor over who was on a trip around the country visiting places where mahua grew, interacting with the local people sharing recipes on cooking mahua flowers and fruit in an attempt to revive the wild food foraging habits that are fast dwindling.

I was instantly intrigued -  Mahua is one of my favourite trees and although i was aware that alcohol was distilled from the flower  and until not long ago the villagers collected the seeds and expressed oil to use for cooking purposes,   I was not aware of it being used as food in our area.

A series of coincidences led to Aparna visiting us and putting Native Place and Kamshet on the Mahua Yatra Map  - but that’s a long story.

What I’d like to share with you here is that  we discovered that in one village in our area the tradition of  storing the fruit and eating it as a vegetable still persisted albeit by a few.

We had a wonderful two days of sharing recipes – Aparna introduced us to the art of cooking with Mahua and guided by Pasaba we showed her a few wild edible traditions in our area.

A wonderful time it was! The beginning of new food traditions,  a celebration of the forests and the abundance of nature.

The Mahua Yatra travels through 10 states  interacting  with farmers and tribal communities to learn and share and celebrate Mahua (Madhuca longifolia),the tree of life.

For more info on the Mahua tree click here 
For more pictures check out this the Native Place facebook album

Astrid Rao
www.nativeplace.com
www.flynirvana.com

Cormorants Galore!

Last week at Native Place i happened to go up to the terrace after breakfast and was rewarded by the sighting of a huge flock of cormorants hunting for fish. A whole swarm of them were encircling an area presumably there were lots of fish there. From the distance they made a magnificent sight – the surface of the water was disturbed with their flapping wings as they swirled around creating a huge circular cauldron, diving in, running on water and flapping about. A few straggler egrets added to the drama creating a black and white canvas against the blue waters.  

I checked out this new phenomenon that seemed to be unfolding right in front of us for the next few days just to be sure and yes – it was happening every day. Wow!!!  Such a wondrous sight!

For the first time one can see what seems to be the entire colony fishing together and it makes quite an impact on the senses.

Cormorants have been a common sight by the lake shore at Native Place. Through the year one could spot the odd group in the mornings by the lake shore, diving for fish and perching on tree tops and bushes by the shores wings spread out to dry in the sun.  During summer evenings one had these exhilarating sightings where one looked up by chance to suddenly spot wave upon wave of V shaped flocks akin to migrating geese as they flew back to their roosting spots for the night (or so i believed)

In the recent years an entire colony has  taken to roost in a grove of acacia trees on a narrow spit of land that juts out into the lake  just a few years ago becoming our neighbors. J

Since then we have had the pleasure of watching them at sunset time as they circle around the area and then head for a tree. Lots of squawking and shoving goes on at sunset until they go quiet for the night.

It’s lovely to have a pristine water body before you and spot lake shore birds but to see an entire colony intently at work circling low over the lake is surely special!

The pictures above simply don't convey the largeness of the phenomenon - you have to see it to feel it ! Come connect with nature at Native Place.

More about Cormorants: - Cormorants are large black, fish eating birds with a long,  hook tipped bill.They  are daytime feeders that hunt alone or in flocks.  Cormorants feed by diving and swimming underwater. They can dive to depths of 5 to 60 feet below the surface and stay under water up to 70 seconds. They eat mostly fish and sometimes small invertebrates. Cormorants use their webbed feet to propel them underwater. Cormorants run along the surface of the water to gain enough speed for flight.  Watching these diving birds by the lakeside is a wonderful way to spend time.

Connections: - Recently i came across an interesting piece of info relating the presence of cormorants to tarpon fishing -

When you eat like a cormorant — which is a lot — you poop like a cormorant — which, again, is a lot. This potent concoction falls from the cormorant's precarious perch, entering the food chain only a few feet below. Bacteria then grow in this enriched, (let's call it fertilized) water. Soon the plankton count their lucky stars while feeding on this heaven-sent bounty. Small invertebrates and protozoa’s gorge on the plankton, and on and on it goes up the line. Shrimp, crabs and sardines bless father cormorant before gorging on the millions of minute krill or the collected organic detritus they leave behind.

At the top of this food chain are the tarpon. They come for the bounty the cormorant droppings provide and, with the tarpon, come the anglers. It is simple math: more cormorants mean more food for the tarpon's prey. More guano creates more food and more food means more tarpon.  

Perhaps we shouldn't be so judgmental about cormorants and their greedy eating and pooping habits. Perhaps we should be glad these ancient avians do their digesting where they do. Perhaps we should be glad they haven't better mastered the air. Perhaps we should be pleased they only use flight to get to the fishing grounds and then trundle home again, straight for the mangroves.

Some guides in Mexico say that they kill cormorants because they eat baby tarpon. Gentlemen … haven't you learned by now that it is best not to mess with Mother Nature? Let her be. She has things pretty well worked out, and her devices usually work to the benefit of the angler. Mess with her, and you just may be killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Although in this case it may not be a goose, but a cormorant, and it may not be an egg, but a pile of … OK, OK.  You get the picture. So let's all bless the cormorants.

 Astrid Rao 

www.nativeplace.com

Food Gardens

It has been more than a year since my last post. I have neglected the garden choosing to paraglide, bird and butterfly watch and take long walks. During this time the native place garden has been left to its own devices. Since we did not have any delicate plants but mostly native plantings the garden took care of itself managing to go by with infrequent watering, pruning and weeding. i got used to the unkempt look. The climbers and shrubs around the house stood by us and flowered profusely wowing the guests and this only made me more complacent.

Consuelo sent me some herb seeds from Italy in December and i planted them in the new year. Now my excitement began to grow and each weekend as i approached Kamshet and Native Place all i could think about was running into the garden and checking on my seedlings. This led to a complete makeover of the garden. We had loads to do in terms of cutting back, pruning, clearing, manuring, and watering.

Today we have loads of basil, oregano, thyme, chamomile as well as some sage, tomatoes, beans and pumpkins growing well. Have also planted ginger, garlic, sweet potato and got a new rotating composter. I feel on top of the world - i have always wanted to grow my own herbs and this is a dream come true for me. My attention has now turned to growing food and using every tiny area in the garden to grow edibles. It's amazing to make the link from the garden to the kitchen and onto the table

Peace Bliss & Happy Landings

Astrid Rao

Summer Fruit

Mangoes, cashews, love apples, papayas, lemons, chickoos star fruit, jackfruit, bananas ... my little haphazard orchard filled with the trees of my childhood are all bearing fruit. I planted most of these trees about five years ago. Five years of tending has borne fruit. Walking through this tiny patch filled with little fruit trees ... feelings of achievement, bounty, happiness immense satisfaction and gratefulness to nature fill my heart