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The earth, always the best place to learn, is the cradle of all life. Taomi is such an area that we can get closer to the nature and farmers, cherish the ecology and love our mother earth.
“Taomi” is a beautiful village surrounded by mountains, with rivers and creeks flowing by; it is endowed with bountiful ecology and the villagers were mostly farmers in the olden days. Earthquake 921 in 1999 destroyed Taomi. Later, the residents rolled up their sleeves to work together for reconstruction with the assistance of experts and scholars from Endemic Species Research Institute, Council of Agriculture, New Homeland Foundation, National Chi Nan University and Shih Hsin University. The residents in Taomi gathered their love and passion for this land and learned to plant trees, beautify this land and record the ecology, and restarted with “Taomi Ecovillage” to develop agricultural recreation that integrates ecology. Some residents renovated their houses and turned their farms into orchards for B&B business; housewives in the community brained storm and took advantage of the local food materials to develop feature dishes; and all the residents worked hand in hand to build a ecological primary school, establish the low carbon tourism, and environmental education so that every visitor can get to further experience the beauty of Taomi.
Coming to Taomi, visitors can watch fireflies and butterflies, look for frogs and know plants as well as take part in agricultural activities. Visitors will receive the great hospitality of the residents in the mountains.
Going to the nature to observe the ecology or go stream hiking
Taomi has created a biodiversified environment so that flowers and grasses flourish, frogs croak, dragon flies and butterflies are everywhere. Every corner is an outdoor classroom. The symbol of a lovely frog indicates the entrance to Taomi, with the docent’s guidance, we began our journey in the ecovillage.
In Taoyuan Elementary School, butterflies such as blue tigers and Euploea were flying around; seeing this beautiful view, visitors couldn’t help exclamation of surprise. Taomi Agricultural Leisure Area plants the source of nectar, Kusukusu Eupatorium, with a plan in mind, so to attract butterflies and visitors are able to observe them up close and personal. “And-You Nature Park” has Dragonfly Transport which visitors can take as if sitting on the back of the dragonfly and flying over the pond, how exciting! “Maobukeng Riverside Park” is built by eco-engineering method, the endemic animals and plants on both sides of the river bank are also objects to observe. “Riverbank Park” is open in summer. Both adults and children have fun in the free water playing pool. Taomi Agricultural Leisure Area integrates the ecological resources and offers the tour, “Fish and Shrimp Ecological Exploration”. The fish trap was placed the night before. When visitors came, the docent reached his hand to the river and took up a trap he placed there the night before. We saw many fish and shrimps jumping inside. And the trees and plants are also learning materials. Besides, visitors can also learn seedling, cultivation and harvest in aquaponics where “fish supports vegetables and vegetables support fish”. Coming to Taomi in different seasons, visitors can have different scenery to appreciate, such as in firefly season in spring, visitors may feel it were a starry avenue, and unicorn beetle season starts in summer when lotus are in full bloom, visitors can pick seedpods of lotus, dig the seeds of lotus. From April to November is the season of white bamboo shoots. Visitors can wear the frog suits to enter the water and harvest white bamboo shoots to get a feeling of being farmers. And from July to December, passion fruits start to ripen, visitors can listen to farmers’ storytelling under the canopy and also pick the fruits to taste its freshness.
A Happy Outing with Picnic Fun
If you come to Taomi, we recommend to have an easy and relaxing “Taomi Picnic”. Picnic blankets were spreading on the green grass outside of the B&B, and the utensils were in the basket. The pitchers standing next to the basket were filled with ice cold Sun Moon Lake black tea or local passion fruit juice. Students of Taomi Picnic Club from the Department of Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management, National Chi Nan University were busy preparing picnic food. There were sugar cane flavored ham sandwich and on the layered party tray were Madeleine, brownie, mashed potatoes with scallion, and the “gourd cake” shaped as a frog. The housewives in the community used scallion to flavor the rice, complimented with Annona fruit bowl and the local passion fruits setting on the long table. The cuisines can represent featured local produce and the flavors are simple but scrumptious. “Taomi Picnic” is an activity where participants use the blanket to connect the food materials in Taomi, the local B&B and other industries to make it a picnic with a sense of aesthetics and humanity. Taomi Agricultural Leisure Area presents “Taomi Outing” to show visitors further about Taomi ecological playground. The guide showed visitors around in Taomi and introduced the ecology and food materials, then visitors were invited to make their own snacks or desserts. The steamed mash pumpkin, sticky rice powder and rice noodles kneaded to make the skin, together with the bamboo shoot filling are put into the frog-shaped mold, after steaming, the gourd cake is ready to serve. The gourd cakes, rice balls, and seasonal fruits are the picnic food. In the process, we shared the fun of making desserts, listened to the stories and legends in Taomi while the outing and picnic brought back our good childhood memories.
Having a Butterfly Meal and Learning Something
In the day time, visitors have watched the dancing butterflies, and in the night time, they can expect the “butterfly meal”. You may wonder what butterfly meal is when first hearing it. One of the food materials of this meal is actually grasses butterflies feed on. In the first “Creative Taomi Butterfly Meal” contest, housewives in the community and restaurants in Puli area unleashed their creativity to win the award. In the end of the event, the boss of “Herb Life”, Huijuan WU shared the mission of ecological conservation, so she promoted the butterfly meal to intrigue visitors to know the butterfly ecology.
An Informative Dining Experience
There is a lot to learn in the butterfly meal. For example, “Two-in-One Fried Dish with Wild Ginger’ is a dish frying the scallions and mushrooms as well as the wild ginger buds with coating of flour, while the scallions and mushrooms are foods for Jamides celeno and Papilio bianor thrasymedes respectively. “Pickled Cabbage Sautéed with Pork Belly” prepares cabbages that Indian Cabbage White is in favor of instead of Chinese cabbages in a way of natural fermentation. The pickle sautéed with pork belly gives a crunchy, sour and sweet taste. Water spinach that Hypolimnas bolina feeds on is paired with crispy bamboo shoots to give complex sensations. In addition, Huijuan WU grows her own plums which is also an ingredient. Mushrooms and free ranch chickens from Puli are other ingredients. So that the mushroom chicken soup or the fish slice marinated in plum juice are both delectable.
Looking for Frogs at Night and Fun Stories about Frog
B&B in Taomi all has its distinction, some focus on natural ecology, some have beautiful views, some are bucolic, and some are ideal for parents and children, so that visitors can have their preferred choice. “Sanmaowu B&B” is run by Yongkun LIAO, who grew up in Taomi and has a deep affection for this land. The main color tones for the building are white and green, indicating his simplicity and practicality as well as his love for the nature. Sanmaowu has a large space and the garden is so green. I counted the number of steps and went up while hearing the sound of river. And the tall trees form a shade. The beautiful landscape of the garden was designed and constructed by Yongkun LIAO. LIAO is nicknamed “Uncle Frog”, and he always leads the guests to look for frogs and observe them at night. He is very sharp at detecting frogs wherever he goes. When you hear “em, em..” as if having difficulties for bowl movement, that is the sound of Latouchte's frog, he said. And here is one. Sometimes, he would catch a spectacled toad and told the guests “ Spectacled toads like to look nice, while others wear red lipsticks, they wear black ones and also have black nail polish.” His funny introduction and vivid intimation always bring guests a lot of laughter.
As we circled around the B&B, various kinds of frogs came greet us, such as cricket frogs, Taiwan rice frogs, green pond frogs and Gunther's frogs that really are really eye opening. And the symphony weaved by the frog croaks are sometimes loud and lively, sometimes low and steady, which is indeed the heavenly music in the night time. According to the observation records kept by Endemic Species Research Institute, Council of Agriculture, there are as many as 23 kinds of endemic frog species in Taomi. If visitors want to have further observations on frogs, they can always make an appointment for the guided tour with “Boss Frog” in Taomi Agricultural Leisure Area. Participants are going to wear rain boots, taking their flashlights and walking to Zhonglukeng river for stream hiking and frog searching. Visitors are going to have more common senses and knowledge about frogs, and the outdoor exploration makes it even more fun!
