Life in the farm

We have been visiting our farm so often over the past 5 years, but only now are we actually "living" there....now its about two months since we moved there, and I thought its an appropriate time to reflect on our life in the farm, and more specifically, about living in a 12'x10' tent.

The tent, our new home

Yes, its only 12ft x 10 ft, but like one of our friends is so fond of saying, when you live in a farm, you spend most of the time outside the house, and so it really doesn't matter. This has been true for most of the time. The exceptions have been when it was drizzling a lot last week, and we'll probably face it more during the Nov rains.



At night, the small tent has been cozy, keeping away much of the cold. Plus, since we sleep on beds (and not on the floor), its pretty comfortable once we got used to it.

Outdoor activities

The day starts pretty early, and the stone workers are usually up at 5.30 or 6.00....we haven't entirely become early birds ourselves, but we have begun to wake up before 6.00 most mornings.
Because of the construction work going on, much of the day is spent managing this work, assigning work to our co-workers, and participating in some of the work ourselves. We have found that our direct participation is one of the best ways to manage the effectiveness of the work. We have been digging up red earth, making compressed earth blocks, carrying stones for the building, clearing bushes, and yes, also some seed-planting work.

Planting seeds

We have also begun cultivating a small vegetable patch. "Small", because there's quite a bit of work in levelling (to minimize soil erosion), and because many types of vegetables have been fussy about growing in our farm. So we are starting small, figuring out what grows well and what doesn't, and also trying out ideas to increase moisture retention.

Sound sleep

One big thing we had to get used to was the absence of sounds that are familiar to us in our homes at night - fans and/or ACs. The first couple of nights in our tent, we had difficulty sleeping because these sounds are completely absent, and hence sounds from outside the tent seem to be very loud. But once we got over this silence, we began to sleep very well. We also had to train our kids to avoid drinking too much water at night, so that there's no need of getting up at night - a bit of an inconvenience.

Zipped doors

The zipped flaps that act as doors in the tents do a good job keeping away insects (when we remember to close them), but they are certainly not as convenient as regular doors. Well, something we have to live with, at least until we move into the couple of rooms that are coming up.

The new dog-house

While we're managing with the tents, at least someone has a bigger, better place to live in - our dear Gypsy. In fact, her kennel is built using the compressed-earth blocks we made right there in our farm, and we used just red soil as mortar between the bricks. The very little cement mortar we used was only around the windows and for the door hinges. Gypsy sure seems mighty pleased with her new residence.

So, how about the farming bit? Well, thats going to be in the next post, and no, it won't take another 2 months coming :-)

We have moved to our farm - at long last!

Yes, its been a long time coming, but we have finally set up a "living space" for ourselves in our farm, and moved in on Wed, the 19th of August. But before I go any further, let me also qualify "living space" - its a 12'x10' tent with a small 4'x10' open verandah in front, and a 6'x10' covered-but-not-completely-sealed bathroom space at the back. The living space of 12'x10' has an inner cotton layer, an outer canvas layer, and finally covered by a common rain fly on top.

The frame for the tent, consisting of 1.25" pipes, have been set in concrete on a 9" platform. The floor of the platform was finished with random bits of marble and granite we picked up from a scrapyard. We also extended the front verandah by another 6' which we have left unpaved, with the plan of growing grass on it.

What is best about this tent (as opposed to the other smaller camping tents we have been using during our nights at the farm) is that you can walk right in - its 9' tall in the middle, and the sides slope down to 6' high walls on the sides.

At night, the tent has been warm enough, though we'll have to see how it behaves over the coming months. During the day, the eastern side gets a lot of direct sunlight, so the insides heat up quickly. We will grow some trees for this, of course, but we'll also have to figure out something as a quick-fix.

As for the furniture, we have taken the bare minimum with us to the farm - a wooden wardrobe, a couple of folding cots, and a low divan. With all of these, the four of us were able to sleep comfortably.

There is the problem of moisture collecting under the floor of the tent, presumably from condensation. We're not sure how to deal with this, and we're hoping the problem will just go away on its own :-)

Anyway, its good to finally "live" on the farm. We now hope to get on with our next immediate task of finishing the 3 rooms we set out to build, and to begin working on the farm itself.

Brick by brick, inch by inch

That probably sums up our progress in our farm in the last couple of months. Not literally, of course, but certainly in essence.

So, over the past few months, we have managed to get a few things completed.

The Water Tank: we had an excellent group of people build a 16,000 litre tank on the highest part of our farm. The water is pumped up from the brook by a modest pump run by a Honda kerosene engine. From the tank, we have connected 20mm HDPE pipes going down on two sides to most of the farming area. We have put in the piping so that there's a water outlet about every half-acre, primarily to be used for spraying our manure mixes (Jeevamirtham, Panchakaviyam, etc) and fish protein.

Fencing: For a long time, we did not want to "exclude" any part of nature with fencing. However, with repeated damage to our beans crops by rabbits, and the ploughing up by the wild boar, we have decided we'll have to put up some kind of barrier. But fencing is expensive! One of our friends had used old fishing nets in his farm, and he even managed to procure a large lot for us from the fishing community in Calicut. We have finally gotten a team of workers to begin putting up the nets, supported every 8-10 ft by wooden posts. We now have to carefully clear the bushes just outside the fencing so that a wildfire does not melt down the nets. And it looks like we'll need to buy some more to complete the fencing.

Living in the farm: Its become very clear to us the last few months, that we need to relocate to the farm at the earliest. We are now in the process of building a couple of rooms adjacent to the caretaker's room, so that we can quickly move in there. It will be a modest accommodation, but we're sure we'll enjoy it, and facilitate the work there more effectively. We have had a group of stonecutters staying in the farm and cutting stones for the building. Our experiments with the hand-pressed, sun-dried bricks made of local soil have not yet proved satisfactory, and we're making one more trial with some modifications next week.

Last week, we also concreted a few bad stretches of road leading to our farm. With some more repairs on the panchayat road, we look forward to less bone-rattling rides in the immediate future!

What it Costs to get Paperwork Done

One would imagine that developing a farm involves a lot of working with the earth. Well, yes, but it seems to us that a lot more work is to do with paper! I'm talking about the paperwork to be done with the administration, specifically, with the revenue department.

We had decided, in line with our beliefs, that we will get all our paperwork done without bribing anyone. We started with getting the "patta" transferred to our name. From the date the application was made, to when we finally got this done, was about 7 months, and took at least a dozen trips to the taluk office. Compare this with the "fast track" process that takes just over a week, but requiring some "oil" for the government machinery, of course. 

Following this, and perhaps encouraged by our "success", we have gone on to get our land surveyed without paying anything unofficially for it. We also realized along the way that there are people in government service who do not demand nor expect bribes. Perhaps our stand has been an affirmation for them, in some way!

Did we learn anything? Yes, that it takes a lot of persistence to get things done this way. But more interestingly, we are learning that it is not impossible, as most people have concluded. It is just that we must be willing to pay the price if we are to take a stand against this rampant corruption. If bribes are called mamool in Tamil (roughly meaning "routine"), it is the people who pay their way to get things done who have contributed much to that situation. 

We have also been encouraged and affirmed much by what the Bible says about corruption. In very clear terms, we are told that bribery perverts justice. Even if we are not doing anything illegal, the bribe we pay will affect someone else. If taking a bribe is wrong, how on earth could one justify giving one?

The next challenge? Digging a well without using explosives, getting an EB connection, permission to build a cottage, and so on. We know its going to be anything by easy, but we are clearer than ever!

Thank you for reading...take a bold stand against corruption!