NOEL ELLIS' GOOGLE BLOG

    LT COL NOEL ELLIS   12/IX/2025   ‘Gnawing’ can be very annoying for a gardener. As the heading suggests, this piece is all about ‘gnawers’ in the garden. By who, is the question?   Well, the rainy season has come to a close. Plants are becoming bushier and lush. New shoots are jutting out. Fresh leaves are spouting. Bulbs and tubers are emerging but then tragedy strikes. You find half eaten flowers, leaves pockmarked and sometimes just the ‘midriff’ left. Leaves and flowers of the citrus variety are the main targets.   It has been a month since butterflies have been making rounds in the garden. They look so lovely flapping their wings enjoying nectar from flowers. They are welcome as they pollinate.   They lay their eggs in this season which grow into caterpillars. From their nascent stage, caterpillars go ‘chomp-chomp-chomp’ on leaves like there is no tomorrow. What an insatiable appetite they have! Imagine, if one caterpil...

 The moon🌕 through my lens this morning. 🤍Dil Khush 💛

  It was cloudy but still one could take some photographs of the Blood Moon and the last Lunar Eclipse of 2025

      LT COL NOEL ELLIS   04/IX/2025   It is fun to write my blog. It helps me muster my thoughts, enjoy a few events, funny and not so funny situations, something different and unique which touches my life. It is enough to trigger memories and finally it translates into an article. So here goes……   People ask “kis Chakki ka khate ho”. Our Chakki is located in the local ‘dhaan mandi’. I also pick up ‘bajra’ for the birds from there. This time I had to be specific, “Bajri chaije, peesiora koni chaije”. During last visit, by the time we returned to the milling area, he had ground the bajra seeds.   As we were driving home, there is a Mela on the roadside. Village folk sell rock salt, lassan-pyaj in trolley loads, huge teddy bears, plastic chairs and water tubs. A few vegetable and fruit shops have also mushroomed alongside.   My mind was working on my waterlily tub which had been badly damaged in a storm recently. It has crac...

  LT COL NOEL ELLIS   02/IX/2025   The other day while I was clearing the pots of weeds which had grown taking advantage of the rains. The wet soil assisted me to pull them out with their roots. That is a better way of eradicating them, instead of trimming them from time to time.   Just then I noticed a ‘dead grasshopper’. It was around two inches in size and one felt bad that this creature had to die in our garden. As a rule, we leave them free. Though they chew so many leaves with their strong jaws called ‘mandibles’ , they are left alone to enjoy the spread.   Though, grasshoppers are pests, if left uncontrolled like Locust. They can polish off an entire field within no time if they come in a swarm. But these ones are my friends. Last year, we had Mr Hopper, who looked like a war veteran without one leg. This year, it looked like an able bodied one.   They become breakfast for many birds, lizards, and chameleons in the garden. Bulbuls, tailor birds, King...

 

    LT COL NOEL ELLIS   28/VIII/2025   “Touch me not” or “Chui-Mui” has fascinated folks from my generation. I am not sure about the Millennials, Zillennials, Gen Z, Gen Y, Gen α and β. Do they even know of this plant? I doubt it.   We are from the “Baby Boomers” generation. We had only a radio, no TV, or mobiles. Computers were heard of but kept at arms bay. Today, things are available at a swipe of a finger.   For us, a class of Botany was the ultimate guide to flowers, its parts like stamen, pollen, xylem, phloem etc. A leaf was scanned under a microscope for understanding its cellular structure. Biology class used to be very interesting.   Time has moved on. We the ‘oldies’ are still in love with some of the childhood favourite plants. One of them is “Mimosa Pudica”. Funny as it sounds, it is funnier in its behaviour.   Once we knew of it, then during summer vacations we would search for as many we could. They used ...

  ELLIS' GARDEN https://youtu.be/Xtp0fKIJvIs

 https://youtu.be/RqqLayUV728

    LT COL NOEL ELLIS   26/VIII/2025   It was another cloudy and rainy day today. Since yesterday it has been drizzling in tiniest of droplets called ‘Jhirmir’ locally. When it rains intermittently it is called boonda-baandi or a scattered drizzle. When it rains continuously it is called ‘Jhari’. When it rains very heavily, they call it Moosladhar or Jhama-Jham. Now you guys know the difference. Today, it was the first one.   Here, the rain is delayed. The crops were parched and needed rain desperately. Our rain lilies too were waiting to erupt again after a break in the rain. They just stole my heart away when I saw ten different colour buds popping out of the plants. All the hard work which went into getting them to flower was showing the best results. A “dili tamanna” is that all 26 different rain lilies should bloom together.   By the way, I do not look for subjects to write on, the subjects come to me. Here is an activity which I enjoyed indulging in. ...

    LT COL NOEL ELLIS   25/VIII/2025   In my life I have written so many obituaries for the people I have loved and were very close and dear to me. Bidding them the final farewell is very heart breaking but that is what destiny is all about. No one can stay forever.   She came to my life almost forty years ago when I had started my life as a 2Lt in the Army. Life in the army gets quite lonely sometimes. You need friends who can keep your secrets and give you company. Let me confess, there are no personal secrets between good friends. He/she would keep everything deep within her/his heart.   Once you poured out what was there within you, she would just hold them tight. You could use them as memories or when you remembered something. She would willingly let you retrieve them. You even left the room unlocked; she never divulged them to anyone.   Every two years she would be given a new coat. Mind you, she loved ‘black’. Your name and rank were etched in w...

  LT COL NOEL ELLIS   23/VIII/2025   Some days are lucky and some are the luckiest. With a chance encounter with Baya the weaver bird, it was time for another encounter and nothing could be more amazing than this. Here goes the story.   Our maid was busy mopping the floor and went out to change the water from the tap outdoors and left the door open. She is a quiet person and keeps a ‘ghoonghat’ when I am around. I was sitting on the sofa and catching up with social media on my mobile when excitedly she started shouting Uncle ji, dekho….   She couldn’t have called me, I thought but then in an enthusiastic tone I heard “chiri maye ne aa gayi sa”, (a bird has entered the house). That was what she meant. I looked around and saw nothing. The first thing that struck me was to check the fans. Luckily, they hadn’t been switched on by the maid or else before she starts wet mopping, summer, winter, autumn, and spring, she has to first switch the fan on.   She st...