Rangoli-16

Here is another design 13 to 7 dots....

Below is one more design

Its Spring time in my garden

Its spring time in my garden. Most of my plants are blooming as the veil of winter is slowly sliding away from the face of mother Nature. Its the time for the birds and other little creatures to make most of it as the Sun is warming up for a hot Indian Summer. This is the time when, we have our plants and trees blooming their best and  mango trees flowering. 

I love the tangy smell of flowers filling the air and it brings back my childhood days of lovely leisure. We children gearing up for the final exams and then pure bliss of two and half months holidays. Though the summer time is hot and humid we children were only too happy to let off from the routine, playing, drinking glasses of cool sherbet or spiced buttermilk, eating chunks of palm fruit, tender coconut, mangoes, water melons and musk melons. Sucking the ices of different flavours coated with herbs, sago or vermicelli. Robbing our granny's kitchen of raw mango pieces readied for pickles and eat it with salt and chilly powder. Hmmm..... as we grow older all this magic is lost some where in the tensions and tribulations of daily routines.....

Oh! Here are some of the pictures I want to share with you...I love sitting with my mom in my small garden, early in the morning, sipping a hot cup of coffee and talking to each of my plants and trees...best way to relax...

 

This is the Bay leaf tree. I used its leaves in one of my recipes, instead of the dried ones. It was much better in taste. 

  

Here are the little birds which visit me morning and evening when I water my plants. They are very active and keep on jumping from one leaf to another chirping incessantly calling to their buddies and wetting themselves in the droplets of water . They don't seem to like using the water I keep for the birds in a bowl.

  

Here is another one of the birds. It was very difficult to photograph them, as they don't keep still even for a minute.

  

Here is the bird feed i keep out in my garden. I try to feed a variety of grains one on each day like rice, wheat, millet, lentils, sometimes bread crumb etc. Pegions, crows, sparrows and other birds whose name I don't know visit it. Ants also have their fill here, carrying grain by grain and hoarding them for the Monsoons which follow the summers. How hard they work..I love to watch those tiny creatures.

  

These are yellow chrysanthemums flowering in bunches.

  

 Here is my Bougainvillea in bloom. This is being trained as a Bonsai and is forming very beautifully.

  

 Here are the bunches of flowers of the same.

  

These are the first buds of Jasmine, which flower only in summer. I love them. Their scent is something which can be enjoyed under a night sky with full moon...I need to work on these creepers. lot of pinching of leaves and pruning is required to make it bloom in bunches. There single and multi petaled varieties. .It is the Queen of all flowers....

  

 Here are the flowers of Night Queen. Their smell is so heady, it fills my home when ever there is a breeze.

  

A close look at one of the bunches of the flowers. They are small star shaped and white in colour.

 

Here is the queen of all the Magnolia flowers...White Magnolia.... hmmmm its smell is so divine. The plant is very young and flowers very rarely. But when it does its a beauty...

I will share some more next time... Hope you have enjoyed them as much as I do..

Torans-1

Beads Toran


Torans (in Hindi) and Toranalau (in Telugu) are valences that are hung across the door ways. We Indians decorate our door ways with Torans. Torans are valences. They are usually made of Mango leaves and marigold flowers for festivals and auspicious occasions. The colour green denotes prosperity and the orange or yellow of the marigolds stand for happiness.

Apart from the above traditional ones, people use torans made of other  real and fresh flowers and artificial things. It could be torans made of plastic flowers, papers, wool or silk threads, fabrics like silk, velvet, cotton, embroidered with zari, mirrors, stones, pictures of Gods, goddesses, animals like the elephants, horses, birds, like peacocks etc. They could also be made of various beads, cowrie shells, coins etc. there are also crocheted ones. I am going to introduce to you various torans made from a variety of materials as the time permits.

So here I share one from my collections.....

 

Here you can see the one made by my aunt very long ago. Its made of plastic and glass beads. You can see the peacocks and parrots. I was privy to the making of this one. The design was first drawn by my aunt on a paper. Then this was drawn on graph papers, marking each bead, colour by colour to get the desired shape. Then this was actually executed. It was a long and tiring process. Any small mistake, it had to be corrected before proceeding further. But the end result is very beautiful. as you can see it decorates one of our door ways.

So, What do you think of it? Please leave your comments....