Dec 5 - Cows are Moved to the Barn

Dear Devotees of Gita Nagari!
Please accept my humble obeisances. All Glories to Srila Prabhupada. I pray that you and your families are well.
The last few weeks since we communicated have been filled with the last bits of preparation for winter.
I am in the process of installing an energy-free freeze-less water trough (kindly sponsored) for the milkers, which was meant to be a straightforward process. Instead, as I had to dig below the freeze line (3 feet), I encountered other complexities with the various water pipelines, requiring unplanned hours of work. It required that we hire a backhoe, which was a great help but also took energy operating. We finally got to the root cause and are in the final stages of the installation.
Bali Maharaj prabhu, Damodara Rati and Jagannatha Kripa served tirelessly, covered in mud in the ditch, throughout the entire installation. Purnamamasi, Premanjana, Krishna Priya and Damodara Rati have been moved into the barn as the babies are due soon. I will move the rest of the herd in the next few weeks, depending on the weather. As we have a lot of milk, if any of you are interested, we have milk, yoghurt and curd for sale - please contact Mother Sri Vrndavana on 527 4837 or 527 4101 with your requests. We may require a few days on the odd occasion to supply the yoghurt and curd, but the milk is always available immediately.
The boiler and heating system is finally fully functional - thank you to Nandakishore prabhu! The Temple room, and entire building is well heated. There were many late nights here too. Bhagavan Rsabhdeva prabhu is steadily assisting in keeping the wood supply and boiler well fed. Some outstanding work is still required to increase the efficiency of the system such as insulating the boiler, some pipelines, and the heat exchanger.
Bali Maharaj prabhu, Damodara Rati, Jagannatha Kripa and I also spent many hours fixing the large barn doors ensuring that they are functional. This was also a whole project in itself! While we did this, Vrindarani and Muni cleaned up the last bit of metal scrap lying around.
We had an ecstatic program at Ajamilla Prabhu and Mother Purana's for Thanksgiving - they were great hosts, as always. I was thankful to have had that time and togetherness with the community of devotees. And Mother Yashoda Mayi always keeps us delightfully engaged in Krsna conscious games! And the feast of course was delicious!
It was great to see Mother Mayapura-lila and little Vrindavan-lila at the Thanksgiving program, after their travels to South Africa. We missed Mother Kaulini at the program and in Gita Nagari in general, as she was due to be here for Thanksgiving. She will now visit us sometime this month. And it is also wonderful to have Mother Kartamisa back home in Gita Nagari.
The Brahminical Council and I have had three meetings up to this point in time, sharing and addressing many important aspects of Gita Nagari. I am very appreciative for their perspectives and advice.
You may have noticed that the prasadam/dining hall is in the process of a make-over. It has a fresh coat of paint and color. We plan to procure over the next many months, based on sponsorships we may get, some good tables and chairs, furniture for a refreshment kiosk/centre and furniture for the multimedia centre.
All other Temple services are continuing sweetly by the devotees. I have been involved in cooking the Sunday Feast, finalizing an alternate solution for tulasi care for the winter, dealing with an excessive amount of administration around certification matters (garden, kitchen, milk, etc), and my other regular services. We have also entered into a contract with the pest control experts to clean out the entire Temple building, of pests.
Today, as many of our community devotees are either in New York with HH Satsvarupa Maharaj for his vyasa puja or in Washington DC for the funeral of dear Jeanette, daughter of Mother Indrani, we had a small but sweet program to honor HDG Srila Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur. In addition, Mother Astanga, as always, cooked a scrumptious feast, including her famous donuts! And it was also wonderful to have GangaNarayan prabhu and Mother Varsana back after their travels to the dhama, joining in today's program.
Till we chat again... Your servant Dhruva maharaj das