Ketti beauty

Let's start off with a quick intro to Ketti. It's a village about 8 kms southeast of Ooty. The terrain is hilly, covered with gigantic eucalyptus or tea plantations and the valleys with paddy fields. The hills and valleys are dotted with colorful houses. Days are cool, even the sunny days. When it rains, it pours and gets cold. Nights are freezing.

August 23, 2019
This was my second visit to Ooty and Ketti valley, not a vacation but on work. I stayed at our client's weekend home. The house is situated on a steep slope, it has a fantastic view, looking straight into Ketti valley and the opposite slope as well. The valley is open on the eastern side, far away hill range always shrouded in clouds. The house is made of steel, wood and glass. Yes, the outer walls are all clear glass. Day or night, sunny or rainy, you have an unobstructed view of the surroundings. I particularly liked the evening, night and early morning times. The silence is sweet. The twinkling lights from the sky is a glorious sight! Dawns are simply mesmerizing when the first rays touch the horizon.. shades of red and yellow turn blue and yellow. This particular picture is from my first visit in February 2019.

I would get out of the bed early, watch the horizon from predawn to the moment sun rises above the horizon. Then step out for a walk. Its a refreshing feeling to breathe in the fresh chilly air. The landscape is filled with vegetation, amazing varieties of plants.. oh those colors and diverse forms of the flowers! The beautiful power of Mother Nature!!

The pictures below were shot within a distance of 250 meters from the house. The first one being the clump of grass with bright yellow flowers. Notice that some of the blades have blunt edges? That's the result of bison biting off the tips. Bisons can be seen often. grazing silently. During my first visit, I saw a lonely bison, what a lovely beast it was. I did not venture too close to it.

A closer look at the five petaled star-shaped flower. This is how plants and insects co-exist peacefully unlike the present day human who's always in conflict with anything and everything.

Two for joy. They look like a perfect couple. In the background are little white-yellow flowers.

Ball like buds of another variety. This has more than five petals, retains its form for few days even when dry.

This one seems like a group of small single petaled flowers.

This picture is more about the blades of grass. I liked the graceful curve of the dry blade.

This white star has 'peace' written all over it. See the green star bud in the bottom left side.

There were so many varieties of yellow flowers, many on trees. A mild wind was blowing, did not bother to shoot the shaky ones. A small break from yellow, we have a violet flower. These flowers turn into round fruits which are used to prepare a spicy sambar.

As I looked down at the ground, something magical was happening above. A army of small cotton-ball-clouds marched across the sky.

Another type of yellow-star. The petals are kind of thick and strong.

The slope on one  side of the path I walked on was covered with tea plants. Until I saw this white beauty, I never knew tea plants flowered. The petals has a matte surface, like hand made paper. Tea plants don't seem to grow too many flowers, it was a rare sight.

This violet-white beauty is quite complex. Even the bud seems like a flower.

These groups of tiny beauties. Each flower cant be more than 5 mm wide. The subtle combination of white, violet and yellow..

Flowering plants thrive without care. That's the beauty of these hills.

 A red star, looks kind of wild, fierce.

The wild one's bud. This looks peaceful.

Yellow rules again. There's some pattern to the randomness in this flower.

 Yellow cups. The left one is few days older than the right one. The fifth picture in this post- yellow ball - is the bud which blooms out to become this flower. This has a look of a lotus.

 This orange flame lit up by bright morning light is planted in the garden around the house.

The garden has a little greenhouse for strawberry creepers. This is the first time I ever saw one. One picture shows a bud, flower, unripe and ripe strawberries.

I'll call this a post. There are some more pictures I would like to share later.
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