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Drip Irrigation Control System v2.0 and v3.0
In one of my previous post, I wrote about my drip irrigation control system. But there were a few problems with it. In the process of rectifying them, I built v2.0 and v3.0 control systems. And to think people were asking if I was getting bored in retirement or if I wanted to get back to work :). Why? I love what I do now and it occupies me completely.
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Sensex and Nifty Down by 30%
At close today, both Sensex and Nifty are down by 30%. We are officially in bear territory. It is considered a bear market if the market has fallen more than 20% from the recent highs and the investor sentiment is negative. Some market pundits are predicting that there is going to be a recession worse than the 2008 crisis. I have no idea if that will happen, but I am not worried at all. Also I cannot predict market, so I can't even tell if they are correct or not. But I have a plan.
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Early Retirement, Home schooling and Organic Gardening
A few readers of the blog and myself met in Bangalore on March 14, 2020. This was the first time I met my readers with whom I had no prior interaction with. I was a little apprehensive about the meeting, but it was a great learning experience for me. I am not sure if I was helpful in answering their questions, but they helped me understand how like minded we all are. I found it interesting that not only do our interest in early retirement match, but also that we have similar thoughts or ideas about home schooling and/or organic gardening/farming. Before talking more about what happened in the meetup, first a quick word on how it all started.
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Drip Irrigation Control System v1.0
If you have been reading about my organic terrace gardening project in the last few posts, you know that I have setup a drip irrigation system that automatically waters the plants everyday. Tinkering with electronics has always been my passion and this was one of those fun hobby projects that I wanted to do after retirement. Sorry, this post may be a bit too technical (electronics and code), so feel free to skip.
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Sensex is Down 15% From the Peak
Sensex highest closing ever was 41,952. Today it closed at 35,634. That is more than 15% drop from the peak. Is it time to worry? Is there going to be a recession soon. Should we sell all our stock and buy lots of non-perishables, for the world is going to end? Nah, nothing like that really. Silly you, it is just a mere 15% drop from the peak. Keep your pants on and don't panic.
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COVID-19 vs Market
Have you seen the market lately? It has gone on a wild roller coaster ride. You get to read news like Sensex fell over 1500 points from the peak. Should you be concerned? Do you need to act on this news? Lets find out.
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Organic Gardening: The Harvest
I have been talking about my organic garden setup in the last two posts. So I thought it was time to show some results. The previous post ended with us setting up the shadenet around April 2019. From then on we have been harvesting some vegetable or the other. Although I don't have photos for some of the harvest, what follows next are bunch of pictures of fruits and vegetables we plucked from the terrace as well as ground garden. Enjoy!
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Organic Gardening: Shade Net Setup
In the last post I talked about how we started building our very basic organic terrace garden in the early spring of 2019. Soon the summer will start and we were worried if the plants will be able to handle the sun. Even during the spring season, the plants were having difficulty coping up with the heat on the terrace. So we decided to build a shade net. The idea was to
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Organic Gardening: The Beginnings
Some time soon after I retired in July 2018, we decided to grow some organic vegetables in the small place that we have available around our house and also on the terrace. And ever since I have been planning to write a couple of posts about it. But somehow other important things came up and I kept on postponing it. Finally the time has come :). The project has been one of the longest on-going one. We still keep adding and changing things.
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Budget 2020 and How It Affects Me
I am sure you already know everything you need to know about the budget by now. There are hundreds of articles covering every aspect in details. Now the question really is -- how much does it affect you? Since everybody's situation is different, their incomes and tax deductions are different, there isn't much advice that I can give. This is one of those times when I throw the clichéd answer "it depends". So instead, I thought I will pen down how it affects me.
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