Showing posts with label handpump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label handpump. Show all posts

Saturday, 4 November 2017

Farm Update with Visuals 04-Nov-2017

This is water collection and water way leading to the pond. The spot from where
this photo was taken is the bank of the pond. 
There are a myriad of farm activities that are pending.  Subbu is alone and the gravity of work weights on him. There is heavy rain in the farm and adjoining areas. Right time for sowing But we cannot keep inviting labor for everything. It costs a lot of money. Each day per person would be Rs. 300 to 500.

Kandan is sick. He is becoming sick often. Subbu complaints his wife is not cooking properly. That could be true. In a natural farm what else other than insufficient food will be an issue ?  That too for a hard working person ?.    His wife spends on unnecessary things is the main complaint.  This is the trend in villages. They are attracted by things that are shown in TV or consumed by their relatives in cities.   Anyway I asked Subbu to give him a warning.  Kandan had not been regular for several days now.  He also doesnot care to report back if not coming or is trying to be routine.  Therefore Subbu is alone.  The sales activities have stopped. There is rain. The resting room needs the roof replacement.  The knitted coconut leaves that were purchased to replace are kept aside. The skilled artisan has not come.

There is heavy thunder showers and lightning and it is risky to talk over phone.

The more you speak to Subbu and give assignments, the more it creates mess. Saying is easy. Doing is not.  The following are my regular conversation topics with subbu.

a)  Windpump needs attention. In the recent heavy thunder strom, the wind pump rotor had twisted itself at right angles to the tail. This is an emergency safety feature in-built into the wind pump mechanism to save the rotor from rotating very fast in a cyclone.  This has happened when Subbu was away to Tirupati. This need to be put back. I asked Subbu to take this opportunity to build a stair way upto tower and paint the galvanised steel blades and tail with aluminium paint. Also the nuts and bolts to be checked. We were waiting for water to be available so that we can overhaul the windpump. Now that current and electric pumpset is operational, we can lay our hands on windpump.

b)  A permanent structure to be designed to solve the issue of foot valve getting disconnected often when there is frequent change of wind direction. More on this later.... But currently I have asked Subbu to put our old hand pump above the borewell.  I want to disconnect transmission of power from top of wind tower directly to bottom of borewell through rods.  The handpump in between will isolate this. Then we will find a mechanism to move the hand of the handpump up and down using windpump. This is a long pending re-engineering work.  This way I want to use the capacity of foot valve fully.

c) Vegetables are far and few. Not enough. Next month aunty will come and we have to start organic shop. There are no vegetables as of now to promise and commit.  Subbu said he has sowed further more seeds in a specially prepared bed. Yesterday. I am waiting for photos. But even if, the quantity will not be sufficient. It takes many hours to convince Subbu to think big.







Thursday, 1 May 2014

Wind Speed at Nachankulam 114 days

Today happened to be a cloudy day. Subbu is eagerly waiting for the shower. I am told, rain is coming everywhere except this place.  If it rains at least for a day, we can give some rest to the workers. Wind mill is also not coming anytime in this week.

Below is the measurement of wind speed upto a week back. The remaining readings are in another notebook which Subbu could not have access when he read this out today.  the graph is showing steady decline in the speed and is consistently low. This is a worry.  There is however small blips above 3 Meters/second. Unless the new wind mill is calibrated properly to work in low speeds.... let us wait and see..  It is going to be a challenge that after installation if the wind mill doesnot turn enough, then we are left with no other alternative. The handpump is being removed. The only possibility could be to rush for 2nd boring and install the handpump.



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