Posts in category "sustainable-living"
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Eco Friendly Pump House
After having decided to build a not so small pump house, we wondered if we should stretch our budget a little bit and go for eco friendly construction material. We have always wondered how it would be to live in a house constructed with mud bricks. Many say that it not only is eco friendly for several reasons, but also helps moderate temperature inside the house, keeping it cool during summers and warm during winters. We have only heard of the advantages but never experienced. We visited a couple of farmers who built their houses with mud bricks, but a one or two day experience does not tell you much. So we decided to build an eco friendly pump house and experience it ourselves.
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Pump House
Since we finished the bore, the next order of business is to build a small pump house. Small enough to house the starter for the submersible pump that we will install once we get the electric connection. We wanted to be prepared with everything for the electric connection. Again we had to go through a lot of thought and planning. Should we build something really small like a 5 feet by 5 feet room, just enough to house the starter for the pump and some tools. Or should we build something bigger for future needs. After much discussions and thought, we decided to go with a slightly big room with bathroom so we can use it when we visit the farm instead of worrying about where to relieve ourselves.
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Solar CCTV Installation
Our real estate agent and friend Mr. J suggested that we install a CCTV before doing anything else in the farm. Neither he nor we were know about possibility of theft in the area. But while talking to a few of our other farmer friends, some of them have had a bad experience with theft. So having a CCTV there seemed like a good idea if for nothing but to act as a deterrent. Since we are not going to live in the farm yet, anything we buy for the farm like pipes or pump etc, can be easy targets for theft. As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, the farmers these days are neither innocent nor god fearing nor humble nor moral nor ethical or any of the other positive adjectives you normally associate with farmers.
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Electricity Connection Application
After getting our bore drilled, we proceeded to get electricity connection. This was another messy process. To get a 3-phase connection so we can run our pump, we need to apply for electricity connection. Since there is no transformer near by, they cannot give us the connection directly. It seems unless there are at least 2 connection requests from a location, the electricity department will not setup a new transformer. The alternative is for us to bear all the costs of setting a new transformer and the cost of all the poles and wiring up to the transformer. The cost comes to around Rs. 2-3 lakhs.
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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.
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Loan On Farm
If you remember, the previous owner of our farm had a loan on the farm. They obtained the loan from a cooperative bank. At the time of registration, the agreement between us was that they will clear the loan once they receive money from us on the registration date. Once they repay the bank loan, the bank is supposed to report it to the Tahsildar office and the loan record is supposed to be cleared from our land documents. But it was easier said than done. Before receiving money, everyone agrees to all kinds of conditions. Once the money changes hands, we have to run behind them to get the things to which they agreed to do so willingly and cheerfully.
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Farm Registration
In a previous post, I wrote about how we arranged money to buy the farm. It was a long and arduous process as it tested our patience. However, we later found out that the pain we have to go through and the patience required is just the beginning :). Anyway, I ended the previous post with us asking our real estate agent Mr. J to start the registration process. He has been very helpful in getting all the documents prepared and visiting the taluk office etc. After a few failed dates for registration, he finally fixed one date that worked for us. He gave us all the instructions and explained the process involved and said it would all be done in a few hours. We won’t even have to step into the office until the signature time. I was feeling upbeat about the registration.
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How We Arranged Money To Buy Our Farm
After zoning in on the farm that we liked, we decided it was time to take the first step forward, which was to come to an agreement with the owners that we will purchase the farm within a certain duration. The way it is usually done is that we write down an agreement stating we will pay a token amount as advance, and will pay the rest before registration. Usually there will also be a time limit specified in the agreement before which the transaction has to happen. If the transaction is not completed in the stipulated time because the buyer could not arrange the money then the advance is forfeited. If the seller fails to clear their documents they will pay back the advance with interest. The trouble started right from there for us.
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A Farm By Any Other Name
I love the quote by Steve Jobs “You can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. You have to believe that the dots will connect and that will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well worn path and that will make all the difference.”. We had absolutely no idea that somehow, our decision to unschool our kid, quitting the rat race, minimizing our lifestyle and retiring early will lead us to our dream of owning a farm. There are so many dots that eventually connected. But at the time when we were making those decisions which led us off the well worn path, we had no idea that they will connect. After all the many twists and turns, we eventually found a farm that we loved and knew that it has our name written on it.
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Wisdom From Farm Owners
After having decided not to buy a managed farm and also not to buy farm as a group, we finally settled on what we want. Next we thought it would be a good idea to talk to a few owners of farms to get an idea of what we are going to deal with once we own a farm. We know a couple of folks who are unschoolers and also own a farm. We asked them if we could visit their farm and gain some wisdom. Both families graciously agreed and we visited their farms on two separate occasions and spent a lot of time understanding their philosophy, why they were doing farming, what they learned and what difficulties they faced and how they overcame them. We learned a ton, but in this post I summarize some of our learnings.
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