Grass Cutting, Forest fires and events last week

To prevent forest fire we engaged labor to cut the grass on the hilltop. We did this using Honda's grass cutting machine. The machine runs on petrol and has a flexible wire which rotates at high speeds to cut the grass blades. It has taken more than 30 man-days (two men at work- one to operate the machine and the other to observe/help so that saplings do not get cut) so far to clear the grass in the 8-10 acres of land.

As a result of the grass cutting, we not only prevent the fires, we also improve the accessibility to the saplings. The grass is cut and is not taken away (however clear in the part where there are saplings) resulting in improving the soil fertility.

Two incidents of fire were reported near the hill slope approaching Sutar Dara.  This is obviously as a result of some miscreants students / idle tresspassers who loiter on the hilltop. Wounder how we put a control on this. Involving people in the nearby slums / locality and explaining the benefits is something that might help in longer term.

The Sungaurd event went quite well. I am quite sure that some of these employees will return to nurture the saplings that they planted and will be part of the group. As a result of this event, we managed to place the drums donated by ARAI near the sapling and got them filled with water. We will have to continue watering from this source a least until the time, drips are installed.

The next activity to be taken up on priority is to place the water tanks donated by Tata Motors to be installed and the drip quotation gets approved as soon as possible. Hope to get the drips installed before the summer heat turns on and the dry spell starts in Feb.

God bless the saplings......