Surya and silk worms at field base

After a whole day of rain on Thursday Nicky was suffering withdrawal symptoms from vitamin D. In a desperate attempt to banish the rain clouds and bring out the sun she has printed off a picture of the sun god Surya. She has been praying to Surya (below) ever since…it actually seems to have worked, the sun is shining and we have had no rain! It’s a miracle!

Yesterday, before setting off for Bangalore to pick up the Project Managers all the advanced team had one last outing to the silk production facility in Mysore. We were shown the process of how silk comes about from tiny larvae to chrysalis and then to silk spinning. In just 25 days the silk worms grow to about three inches in length.

The tiny larvae.

The life cycle of silk production.

The silk worms in Mysore are fed on Mulberry leaves and produce 80% of the Mulberry silk in the whole of India.

We were given our own (not so) little silk worm to take back to field base. We named him Hasivu meaning hungry in Kannada, the language spoken in Mysore.

He is being looked after by Kath (above) and will soon be a chrysalis. It’ll then take him three weeks to become a moth and break of his cocoon so the venturers may just get to see him in his cocoon before he emerges.

A cocoon in the silk production factory with the silk being unwound.

We are actually saving this little chap from certain death. In silk production the cocoons are subjected to extremely high temperatures, which kills the silk worm inside. This is done so that the cocoon isn’t damaged when the moth emerges and the silk cocoon can be soaked and the silk extracted. So Hasivu has been saved and will be free!!!