Trip to 'YALA' – The second Largest wild life reserve forest in Sri Lanka.

Our office annual trip was over and great memories remain. We were taken to the second largest wild life reserve forest in Sri Lanka named ‘Yala’. It is 378 sq miles.There was no rain for about five months to this forest so not so greenly. But wild life was abundant.

The safari jeeps…

A great tree … Species is ‘Ficus benghalensis’

The first to appear was an elephant. It came so close may be a feet from our jeep and made us absolutely speech less. We were even afraid to click photos. Follows some shots of him. It received a watermelon from my colleagues …

Then came the wild buffalo with it’s great horns. Those horns are about 2 feet long each.

Then some pelicans … and a crocodile. Water levels are very less in these water reserves in the forest since lack of rain.

Eagles … such magnificent birds.

Butterflies were plentiful. Follows only 2 of them…

There were many deer, but at one time we saw a large heard of about 200 …

The only wild rabbit we saw…

Some of other birds we were able to capture with our weak cameras.

Then the greatest surprise happened. The jeep in front of us was stopped and they were signaling us to be silent and pointing their fingers toward the jungle. And we searched for few minutes before we spotted the object of their attention. It was a leopard. The species name is ‘Sri Lankan Leopard’. It was about 100 meters away from the jeeps and was snarling and running in to the forest. Our cameras were not good enough to capture the true beauty of that magnificent animal.

After that there was three more elephants before we reached the end of the route. It was memorable. 

Pillow cases for an aunt of mine

One of my dear aunts asked me to embroider six pillow cases for her. Simple embroidery I had done on five of them are following…

For the sixth one I ironed glued butterflies given by a dear friend …

African violets are blooming…

I posted about propagating African violets in a separate post at November 2013.

And now those propagated plants are fully grown and flowering for second time. I’m so happy. Take care friends.

Fruit season in our island

Apologies for no update for long time. I had a hectic time both in personal and professional life. Now somewhat sorted out.

Fruit season is under way in our tropical island. Mangos are finished their annual fruiting cycle. Rambutan (Nephelium lappaceum) is in the middle of its glory now.

  

 

Some half ripe Rambutan from our trees…

Guava is seen fruiting all year-round, but this time of the year they are in high.

Avocados are in the prime now

Papaya is also bear fruit all year-round. These are not ripe yet.

Progress crazy quilt No.2

I included some ribbon embroidery to this quilt too. I love to fill the space up. So following are two of flower compositions I added to the quilt.

Crazy quilt No.2 progress

I was absent from blogging since my grandmother passed away end of January. I was at my parents’ home at that time. Then came to work and got caught by work load and my research work. I was blessed with 2 free days at last weekends and began to embellish Crazy quilt No.2.

These were initial embellishments.