Infinite variety

Some people assume that a homemaker's life is humdrum and yawn-inducingly boring. One of my young cousins recently asked me, "What do you do with all that time?" I decided not to deluge her with my repertoire of activities and adventures. Of course, yes, part of it is routine work, like in any profession - cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, etc. But being in the middle of the country side gives me more scope for adventure. 

For example, two weeks ago, DH decided that his afternoon nap needed a bit more comfort and decided to switch on the AC. All was well until a few droplets of water came dripping into the room. Soon, ice-cold water collected in a pool on the floor. I went out to investigate. I poked an eerkkil into the vent and out came honey bees - the tiny non-stinging kind called cherutheneecha in Malayalam. Suspicious, I tasted a little of the sticky goo at the end of my eerkkil and yes, it was sweet! The service men came out last week and extracted this...

That is one end of my poking tool stuck in the wax. Fortunately, the hive had not become big enough to cover the cooling pipes or there would have been more trouble. This comes of not using the air conditioner for over eight months!

Yesterday morning brought home two workers bright and early. One of our coconut trees had succumbed to a rotting disease and lost its luxuriant head. For a few months it had been pointing an accusing finger at the sky right beside our gate. Passersby were careful to come in and tell us (another country life quirk!) that it was a hazard to the power line, our gate and our wall if it fell towards any of these. So our usual yard helper Vijayan Chettan brought along Mr. Mahin, a professional tree feller who in his heyday had worked in almost every district of Kerala. We also requested him to trim a bit of the jack fruit tree in the front and a cashew tree at the side, both of which were touching the house and were providing easy access for creepy crawlies and some creatures of the slithering variety to our upper floor.

One of my greatest hobbies in childhood was trailing around and being an assistant (read nuisance) to any skilled workers who came to our home - electricians, plumbers, carpenters, bricklayers, stonemasons - nobody escaped me. I would trail around them, fetch and carry for them and pester them with umpteen questions. I am sure that this habit has helped me with the home repairs I can do today. For example, in 2018, we got a kennel made for our half-grown puppy. The workers went away and after the required curing, we moved her to the new abode, only to find her jumping out through one of the several "ventilation" holes at the sides of the kennel! I bought some cement and tools, mixed up a batch with sand and used broken bricks to block the holes partially. Our Houdini was thus contained. 

Even today, I love to hover over specialized workers seemingly supervising, but in reality, gleaning new knowledge and listening to their professional lore. For example, all such workers will have at least one story of a miracle tool that was just perfect for their job. Mahin had one too. He recounted the story of a perfect bill hook he once had - he rhapsodized about the temper of the iron and the perfect condition he used to keep it in, only for some one to steal it from him. When he climbed the jack fruit tree to prune it, I cautioned him about my precious passion fruit vines that had finally deigned to give us fruits after four years of growth. He assured me that nothing would happen to them and here they are, intact...

Next he knotted a thick rope at 10-12 feet above the ground around the trunk of the coconut tree and had us assistants hang on to the other end after drawing it through the fork of the jack fruit tree. He was very careful in judging the angle and distance. Exhorting us to pull steadily on the rope, he hacked the base with an axe and made us tug experimentally once before cutting all the way round. Then he cut the other side too and rushed to us. We all grunted mightily and tugged with all our strength  (I forgot to yell "Timber!") and the coconut tree fell straight in to the sturdy arms of the jack fruit tree. The two of them used two thick trimmed branches of the jack fruit tree to lever it off from the tree's embrace. Mahin then chopped the tree into several parts and rolled them off to one side...

You can clearly see the top part that was rotted from the inside. Part of it broke off when it hit the tree as it fell. The marvel of Mahin's work is that no power tools were used - only rudimentary things like a ladder, pieces of rope, an axe, a bill hook etc. I really admired the way he sat down after each stretch of his job to use a file and sharpen his tools. So yesterday evening I hunted up my own file and sharpened my dull bill hook before hanging it up with a gleaming edge.

A homemaker's adventures do not stop there. I am trying a new crochet technique called tapestry crochet. For my first project I chose a bag that I saw on YouTube and purchased the pattern off Ravelry. It went along quite well till I reached the sides. The bag in the pattern's picture had chevron rows up the side, but mine was coming out in diamonds...

Usually I work with written patterns, but this had no color A, B etc. in the written part, only in the diagram. I couldn't make out where I went wrong. So I unraveled back to the point where the pattern began to look different from the picture and I can tell you, unraveling crochet in one yarn is a snap, but a headache with two yarns!!! Then I kind of made it up as I went along and now it looks like this...

That's more like it. Distinctly chevron-y. 

Culinary adventures are a whole another set. This month, I tried making Medu vada or Uzhunnu vada as it is called in Malayalam. All my recipes said "Use as little water as possible to grind the soaked grain" and I succeeded only in heating up my mixer. The resultant vada was perfect in shape, but also was tough enough to fell ripe mangoes from trees if need be. In my second attempt, I used my electric stone grinder and ground the dal very finely, but found that more than the stipulated amount of water is actually required to make the dough/batter fluffy enough to make soft vadas. This time, they were crunchy and tasty, but looked a little wonky...

But then as my DH says, tasty beats wonky every time...😁

So to answer my cousin and several other people who ask, "What do you do at home all day?" I would reply, homemaking is a never-ending adventure of infinite variety - if one chooses to make it so!!!