Day 13: 21/1/12 - Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

This day was a real village day. About 5 years ago, the SLWCS started "Project Orange", a pilot project that gave 70 families- from 2 villages- 10 orange plants, each, to grow around their properties. If used strategically, orange trees are known to act as natural fences against elephants because of their thorns and the elephants' general lack of liking for them. These trees also allow the land owners to make a profit if they know how to gain a sustainable yield from their orange trees. 5 Years later we returned to these villages to check how effective the project has been.

People's responses were exceedingly mixed. Some farmers have made the effort to bring up the trees well and made large profits. Others are unsure of how to grow these unusual trees in this climate and have poor yield. Many make little effort with them. In the meantime, electric fences were put up about two years ago. As a result, we can't really say how effective the trees have been in warding of elephants. But most of the residents of the villages are very pleased that they have had no elephant attacks since the electric fences were put up.

The most successful farmer in the area, both in his own crops and the oranges

Another Project Orange Family

Some oranges refuse to ripen

The orange plants given to the families were grafted onto lime plants. As a result, occasionally the farmers ended up with deformed hybrids such as these

At his best :P

This area loves their corn. We once again got some free for the road

Wushu Academy in the middle of the jungle

The occasional cute puppy

Reeve's Babies

The evening was spent as always - in the treehouse. There were no magnificent sightings like the night before. But i am getting better at spotting these magnificent hiders in the trees :)

Lastly, I can not leave out how the day began. We decided to start early on this particular morning as we had a long day ahead. So we packed everyone and everything into the jeep and were about to start the day. Chintaka puts the key in the ignition and turns it. The battery decided not to give in. So at this point, the jeep in parked facing down a slope towards the house. We all hop out of the jeep and, the motley crew we are, start pushing the huge land cruiser up the hill and around so it faces the exit. We succeeded with this after many many attempts. Finally the jeep was allowed to roll down the exit hill to a start. We resumed our day 45 mins late.