A wonderful workshop with Urban Leaves

The hands-on experience...

What a wonderful workshop it was! It was a beautiful venue at Maharashtra Nature Park and one could not imagine such wilderness existed in Mumbai! The workshop was on Permaculture. We had been reading on Permaculture for over a year now and it was very very exciting to hear it from the international teacher. It was great meeting so many like-minded people who were from different fields...We had scientists. MBAs, nature enthusiasts, social workers, architects and many others. Made a lot of friends and had fun exchanging ideas, learning new things and majorly becoming friends in those wonderful five days spent together! Now we can confidently put in practice, the permaculture techniques we learnt.

The wonderful IMOs and yeah, it had a fresh fragrance like beer!!!

The herb spiral built of bricks...fruits of hard labour...especially as the bricks were carried more than 50 steps up!

We made a solar water heater, a rocket stove and a solar cooker! We also had great fun learning how to make IMO's, sheet mulching and how to make a herb spiral. The herb spiral is our favourite and is the first project we will take up once the house is ready...

Our little gang making the solar water heater...

The monsoon plantings...

First flowers to the rose sapling planted with garlic for protection

The first monsoon was relaxed and we could enjoy the virgin land. This monsoon brought with it, tons of work! Since we hadn't had the time to make the soil, the fertilizer (Cowmanure and sugar baggase compost) was brought in.

Waggy comes home...

We had always wanted a dog but with life in an apartment in the city hardly allowed us to have one. Now we needed a dog on the farm. Two would just do the trick of guarding the farm but we decided we will start with one.

Look at the deceptive doleful look!

All green in the first rains!!!

From brown to green!

The small rice field the previous owner sowed...

The brook running through NR

The first rains were wonderul! It rained cats and dogs and the chilly winds made us wish for a hot coffee all the time, and we could not wait to have a proper place to enjoy the rains, sitting indoors. The plans in place on paper, the herculian task of finding a caretaker started. It was the most difficult of all steps we took till today.

The beginning...

We bought the small piece of land last year...It was totally untouched, which was what we exactly wanted! And the biggest bonus was it's fabulous view!

The tedious paper work done and after innumerable applications to numerous authorities, the place was finally ours.