Drilling A Bore In the Farm
Soon after registering our farm land, the first thing we wanted to do was to get a bore drilled. Remember that our land did not have anything. No bore, no electricity, no fence, nothing. It is just barren land. Supposedly, the previous owner used to grow corn using the rain fed method a few years ago. Basically they would sow corn just before rains and the only way the crop would be watered is from rains. Since we wanted to grow a vegetable and fruit forest which needs water year round, we decided to get a bore drilled and setup a sprinkler or drip irrigation system to water our plants and trees. So the first step was to dig a bore.
To find an optimal location to dig a bore, the new age technology is to do a geological survey and find a water source that is close to ground with ample water. In the villages, they use traditional methods (not scientific) to find the optimal location to drill a bore. We decided to go with the old method of finding water source because the geological method was expensive (although that is what I prefer). The process is called water divining. There are a lot of methods employed by these people including coconuts, twigs, metal wires etc to find a good source of water. Although I don’t trust any of these methods we went with a local diviner because I was sure one will find water no matter where they dig because a pond is very near by.
In fact we did not even go to the farm when the water divining happened. We told Mr. J, our real estate agent, to find a diviner to find a spot to dig a bore. One day, suddenly Mr. J called us and said a diviner was available and he was taking him to find a spot. We did not have time to visit the farm and asked him to take care of the procedure. We made the payment online and apparently the diviner found a very good spot in the farm. He did some puja etc and marked the spot for us. A few days later we went and found the spot. It was at the lowest point on our sloping farm land. I wished it was on the higher side so we could use gravity to water the farm, but it is what it is, since we did not go for the divining process.
The next big trouble was finding a borewell service. Since we don’t know anyone in the village, we again requested Mr. J to take care of finding a borewell service. This is one thing we are very thankful for. Knowing Mr. J as a friend of friend has a lot of benefits. Even otherwise, he is a nice person and likes to help anyone who wants to do farming. He arranged one borewell service and asked us to come on a certain date. So we drove to our farm the first thing that morning, reaching there well before 11 am. Unfortunately, the borewell was delayed digging at some other place. We decided to have our homemade lunch that we packed at home. Then we waited and waited until 4:40 in the evening when they finally arrived.
Two huge trucks loaded with various equipment came to our farm. They asked us to do puja, so we did one. We being atheists, and not following any traditions, have no idea what the puja should be because we don’t believe in any such things. We just followed their instructions of burning incense sticks, sprinkling turmeric and kukum powder etc. Then they asked us to crack open a coconut which we did and they all ate a piece of the coconut and got to work. As long as they are happy we are happy :).
This was a really exciting time for us. We have never seen a borewell being dug. It was like a great big ceremony for all the workers and locals. They started at around 5:20 pm. As the work started, more and more locals started to come and watch it. The mechanism was super amazing. Everything was semi-automatic. But the noise was incredible. Very noisy, especially since we were standing up close and watching. A lot of dust and soil flew out and the workers would keep removing it from the bore. After digging about 80 feet, we hit water! It was more like murky water.
They continued drilling. There were some air gaps in between but more water was found at around 120 feet. I think they were looking for a certain flow rate before they decided to stop going deeper. We don’t know any of this and Mr. J was taking care of everything for us. He stayed with us through the whole process. They kept on drilling until 225 ft. During this time, the workers cooked food with their own gas cylinder and vegetables. They continued working after dinner. Later they welded 8 pipes each 20 feet in length and inserted into the bore. By the time all this work was done, it was 1:00 am in the night! It was quite late but at least the work was completed and mission accomplished.
