Week Ahead......

The new shade must look like this.

The week ahead is going to be more or less a routine. Subbu is travelling after few days on his personal trip.  This week,  we have reached a temperory zero sum game.

Purposefully I donot want to take any new initiative, risking the water stock. The windmill is running smoothly. Approximately 25 x 10 x 5 feet cement tank is getting filled in just 1 week. That means 35000 liters of water.  Which 35 times the windpump is filling the 1000 liter water tank and the overflow allowed to go into basetank.

Windmill is working very well. This water is enough to water all the plants (Banana, Sweet Potato, fence, few vegetables, some trees and coconut trees) that so far we have laid.  Or I guess we must have surplus.....

However I feel we also need to take some 'risk'.  Now that we are settled with wind pump and we also have a small portable kerosene engine for emergency pumping, we must take some more risk.  I pushed Subbu to initiate sowing of one paddy variety atleast.  We have stock of Kuthiraivali and Ponni.  We need to sow atleast a handful of grains.  It will be kuthiraivali as I guess it will withstand stress.

Oflate Subbu seems to have gone into a comfort zone. Just like corporate employees while away in work for few months in-between appraisals..... So I had to give him some challenge and boost. He agreed in principle that we must try something new. We want to try some paddy . It will be either direct sowing or propagation through sprouting. This will be decided by Kandan, the farmer. I asked him to maintain adquate space between each of the paddy plants as in the SRI method. That work may commence in few days.

Meanwhile today the broken shelter was removed with the help of hired helpers. The old sticks and the brittle coconut dried leaf (Olai) was saved for mulching. That place where the shed stood is looking so barren now that Subbu could not tolerate the sight of seeing that. He had ventured to Valliyoor town from where he called me to say the shops are closed due to Independence Day. He had gone to purchase fresh coconut dried Leafs. He returned purchasing a rubber hose pipe instead.

Anyway late evening, I spoke to him and added my thoughts after having consulted my spouse earlier.  Initially we had planned to create a different design. But as it turns out we will stick to basic design for following reasons

a) A round umbrella shaped roof cannot be done as casurina sticks cannot be bent. Bamboo can, but we donot want to buy bamboo as it will become a "project" then.
b) A small sqare roofing will look like a funeral shed. So I wanted the appearance not to mimic anything like that even remotely.
c) Subbu suggested we will repeat the same high raised rectangle and we accepted.

The  following will be value additions on the Shade Roof.

a). 7 feet stone pillars (6 Nos each costing Rs. 265/-) instead of sticks.
b) Very tall sticks on either side (Sticks are costly - Rs. 500/- per stick).
c) Same knitted coconut leaf (Olai). But this time more of them (60 Nos each costing Rs. 25/-) to create a dense roofing. Then trimming the edges
d) Raised floor. Using Mud. Later we will put cuddapah stone on that.
f) I told let us fix a wash basin and mirror in one ofthe pillars.
g) A bamboo screen to be in place from where generally wind blows heavily. This screen can be wrapped with "olai pai" or green shadenet when required.
h) Bricks lined in outer perimeter to add asthetic look. Post that can be planted some ornamental plants to wade off the small animals.
g) A wooden bench to be kept for sitting and resting. This can be removed at will so that place can be used for sorting vegetables.

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