TWENTY FOUR -Tanshika Spice Farm at last

We got to the spice farm eventually. It is on the edge of the Netravali Wildlife preserve. There are no signs until you are almost there. although we now have their leaflet with a sketch map ad their web site.
The young lady who is running the farm with her husband, gave us some lemon tea and conducted us on a tour of the plantation. It is 15 acres, and they grow chiefly coconuts and betel nuts, plus cardamom, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, lemon grass, pepper and chilli.
We were told how difficult it is to produce vanilla pods, as each flower has to be polinated by hand, at the precise moment, it is a vine which grows up the palms, and has to be trained downwards. I bought two pods later. The cardamom too is interesting, as it is a rhizome based plant, growing with large leaves but the flowers spread along the ground like runners.
We were shown the compost pit, and the collection of wooden toys some obviously over 100 years old, and found in the family house. Figures on horseback. Also some various kinds of small beehives, the miniature bees about 2 millimeters big, and still living in the tiny ball of the nest
All the plants are cultivated organically, and the compost is enriched with cow shit (her word) over layers of chopped palm fronds and stalks, and other vegetation.
Then we were conducted round the house, in the family of her husband for about 200 years. It is a 'mud' house, in other words made of clay and dark grey in colour. The corners of the house are reinforced with large stone blocks. It is very large and has a courtyard right in the centre, rather like the middle of an old Spanish casa, and in the centre is the rectangular alter place, with a holy basil plant growing there, in a pot. The lady of the family would go there early morning to offer prayers before starting the day. This is a Hindu family.
The outer room, the oldest and coolest of the rooms, is long and dark and has a cow dung floor. Our hostess explained tht twice a year cow shit is put on the floor to preserve it, make it cool, and soft and yielding to the feet.
After the tour, we had a vegetarian lunch, tasty and refreshing, and departed with a small collection of their spices