Organic farming in Auroville

The whole thing is rather intriguing, and in my personal opinion it is bad because there are alternatives to eradicating malaria. We don't need to kill off mosquitoes to do it, distribution of netting in mass quantities is a better option...I also lived with thousands of toads whom I kind of like, ants ants ants and there is a constant chorus of birds, and some really mangy dogs. Its an experience. We also only run on solar energy, and are in the process of building a windmill!! The only time we really even use electricity is for pumping water to irrigate, and then at night there are two lights in the kitchen. I think thats basically it. I use candles and my headlamp at night. Recent projects have ben the windmill, harvesting sweet potatoes, a little weeding, and my all tiem favorite peanut butter processing!

We are the only farm in Auroville to grow our own organic peanuts and then make PB. Here is teh process, plant the peanuts this time of year (which I wrote about earlier) then harvest them after the monsoon, then dry them and replant the good seeds, seperate the bad ones, about 15% aren't soo great, they mess up your liver adn can kill!! So then on Friday Lowell and I made some fires outside and slowly roasted a ton of peanuts. No oil, no honey, no salt, just straight peanut loving.

Then, this is the fabulous part, we put them in the peanut bike!! It's basically a stationary bike hooked up to this grinding contraption. So you pour in some slow-roasted peanuts and then someone pedals and you get peanut butter! and its really really tasty. and we are selling tons of it!! Like 25 kilos or something. It's the health freak dream come true. exercise AND health food at the same time. We need to hook lance armstrong up to one of these bad boys...As travellers around here are very very free and open with the bowel movements, as in discussion of them, I thought I would just say, with slight embarassment, that I cannot give up toilet paper, hard as I try. The water thing just doesn't do it for me, I end up getting my pants really wet and the whole thing is rather unsatisfactory. Just an FYI....hahaha

And lastly, book updates. This site is like my personal book group...I love love love it! I finally finished Cracking India, a novel about the division of Pakistan and India as told by a young girl. It was ineresting, slightly informative, a bit violent in a subtle way, but it never really grabbed me. Meanwhile I have also been reading 'Sri Aurobindo or the Adventure of Concsiousness' Sri Aurobindo is the guy who Auroville is built upon, or his teachings. So I thought it would be good to read it in order to understand Auroville and it's concepts a little better.

As you can imagine, it's a bit thick, I don't know if I will finsh is before I leave. I also just started Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf, this morning. I have a bunch of other books in line....no time to read though! sadly...I read A Room of One's Own this fall and loved it, so I thought another Woolf would be a good idea, although this is more novel and the other was a speech. And now I am just trying to answering all the wonderful loving emails I got!! love maddie maddieg (maddieg) wrote,@ 2006-02-20 10:25:00