LIFE : Low Impact Farmstay Experiment Started !

I started towards varakampadi around 11 AM by car from the cotton city Coimbatore. Picked up my farming friend, philosopher & guide Mr. Vincent Paulraj ( he blogs in tamil at http://maravalam.blogspot.com/ ) from his greeny home at Peelamedu. You must visit his open terrace atleast once to know how inefficient, we the concrete junkies of the city! He grows Greens, keeps Bees, maintains a green house for ornamental plant propagation, manufactures vermicompost etc etc!! .... all in his open terrace ! We reached Manngarai, the foothill of Attapadi Mountain Range, in 45 minutes and took "Chukku Kaapi", our traditional morning drink... along with the crispy Raagi Pakkoda at the popular "Rajan Chukku Kaapi Shop".. From there the Ghat Road Section begins. From Maangarai you have to travel just 20 minutes / 10 kilo meteres, to reach the hilly village joint Anaikatty.

On the way, we visited the organic farm of Swamy Ramanji, a disciple of Swami Dhayanantha Sarawathy and took some nice images of the tree Noni, a fovourite of Hon. Dr. APJ Kalam, our ex president. The fruit of Noni is rich with anti-oxidants. We reached Anaikatty, our base camp around noon !! We bought some vegetables, groundnut oil, an LED torch light, a few chalk-pieces, a ribbon and a green ball point pen. We also bought a few Barottas ( cooked using renewable firewood ) for our lunch. We reached Varakampadi around 2 pm ( 12 kms from Anaikatty ), our second/last Base Camp, ie Mr Vincent and Mr Thirumalai's Plant Nursery. Mr Rajan, our farm caretaker welcomed us with folded hands ... "Sir, Vaanga Vaanga, Vanakkam " in a traditional Tamil Way. We chatted for a few minutes with a few locals informing us... a new check-dam project coming up near Mr Vincent's Farm. Mr Vincent was very very happy cause he visualised one for water harvesting a long back and his vision came true through a government funded project ! Mr.Vincent made a nice Passion Fruit Juice made with country sugar !! Oh What a tasty welcome drink !



Mr Vincent and Mr Rajan went to see the farm and i took a short nap cause i was terribly tired due to my house shifting work. They returned back in an hours time and we set out to my farmstay ( 10 min walk from Plant Nursery) where my experiments are going on in its own way ! The way is bit steep and you have to climb up a bit to reach our farm. On reaching the farm we painted LIFE with the chalk piece and tied the ribbon. Our low impact "opening ceremoney with now flex banners or tent or guests is performed by cutting the ribbon by the Mr Vincent . Mr Raman our neighbour and the Rajan are the only two guests! The Low Impact Farmstay Experiment Began !