Come, "soil" your hands with us :-)

In the last few months, we had the pleasure of having several friends and their families come up to our farm for a weekend or more, and experience the joy of working with the soil.

Planting trees, making raised beds, mulching, pulling up weeds...working alongside their families and friends made the experience all the more richer.

Its not all just work, though...there is time for a chat around a campfire as the daylight fades, or a walk down to a nearby natural pool for a dip in the icy waters.

And at night, huddling together in the tents helps keep the chill out, and helps people draw closer too.

As soon as we get some rains, we plan to host many more of these "work camps". If you're interested, do let us know so we can keep you posted!

A Tribal Interlude

Last week, we were invited to a family ritual by a tribal man who had worked in our farm for several years. The ritual was to celebrate the coming of age of their eldest daughter.One of the interesting things we observed was the tribal band that played music for the ritual. It was a 5-man band: a slightly smaller version of the nadaswaram, three people playing the tribal drum, and the last one with a pair of small hand-cymbals.

 

The group did not play any popular songs or film music, but a free-flowing tune somewhat similar to a snake charmer's music. I think I have heard a similar rhythm played by the Santhals in Jharkhand.

What was even more interesting was that the instruments (other than the cymbals) were hand-made by the tribals themselves! 

The drums used by them has another slightly different use - to keep wild animals at bay. Groups of these men are employed by estates to stay up at night to ward off the Indian gaur, and these men play these drums while keeping watch. (I can't say if the drums are meant to keep the animals away, or just to keep themselves awake ;-))

Here's a 30-sec video of the band playing...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFox2J8TYuQ

And here's another thing which we experienced more clearly: when a tribal family has some celebration (or a funeral, for that matter), not only the entire hamlet but all of the neighbouring hamlets celebrate with them. Which means, none of them go out for work that day!

We're back to blogging!

Yes, its been quite a while since our last post, and I hope we will be able to be active again now.

The reason? Well, not one big reason, but several ones -- our struggle to manage chores on the farm without live-in help (that we previously had), new building work, and a slump in the motivation to write....

We hope you will continue to read our blog, and write back too!