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.

After hundreds of calls, and tons of interviews, we found the perfect man, and as a bonus to us, he said he would come to stay with his family. This would mean hot tea and scrumptuous lunch for us whenever we visit Nature's Rendezvous. True to the word, the caretaker's wife is a wonderful cook...

Anil the caretaker and we took up the task of developing the land together and we can say he is a gem! We hired the earthmover and the tractor and slowly and surely, the land started taking shape and the terraces were built according to the drawings under the hawks eye of Anil and us.

The next was getting a permanent source of water. With the red tape, the permission for the dam water would take many months and we decided we could not wait till we got it from the authorities. So a bore was dug and the water poured out on the dry soil from the streams underground. More than us, the villagers were happy and we got a regular stream of visitors for a whole week just to see the water, some even filled their pots with the blessing of nature!