This year started out for us with taking on some of the bigger (read nerve-wracking) projects that we had put-off for a few years due to lack of clarity on how to go about it and of course budget constraints.
My farm is seven years old this year and it is desperately in need of some financial investment at this point. It needs a better fencing from my neighbor’s chicken which have been devastating for my vegetable patch; it needs gravel for pathways because my diys don’t seem to hold up the weeds much longer and I end up reworking the same pathways over and over again; it needs trenches to ease the water logging during rains and it needs an irrigation system. I am so done with the perpetual weeding, the short-term fixer-upers for water logging that suffocates my trees and all of which is labour intensive and is costing me more than a one-time investment of good systems in place. As it always is, we try to space out our bigger investment projects to give us time to recover, and now it’s about time. Can’t put it off any longer.
It’s been a couple of years since my neighbours got chickens. It was fine till they were fewer in number but the problem arose when the numbers steadily increased. Their free-range chickens started crossing over our metal fence and coming into our property. Initially it was cute and all but slowly we noticed that they were a nuisance. They weren’t just there occasionally but literally spent more time on our property than theirs. Now you might wonder how having chicken in our farm could hurt. In fact, we are all used to the idea of having chickens on the farm as a very beneficial thing. Believe me I thought so too, until…Until we started losing lots of our crops.
Our farm being an organic farm, we make consistent efforts in improving our soil’s fertility naturally through organic manure and mulching. We make sure we have healthy soil with lots of earthworms and essential microbes. Now enters the chickens – and wreak havoc by not just eating up the earthworms in my vegetable beds but also the pulling out the seedlings that we try to grow painstakingly. All the tomato seedlings got scratched up and bitten off. It was heartbreaking to see this happening crop cycle after crop cycle.
We tried talking to our neighbour and tried to politely address the issue many many times. But when no action was taken from their side we felt quite disappointed. In trying to maintain a healthy neighbourly relationship, we had to start looking at alternatives to prevent the entry of chickens into our property.
Increasing the height of our fence to deter the flying over and also reinforcing the base through which the little chicks entered our farm, was needed. We started looking at options available within our budget. But even a temporary intervention seemed too expensive and way out of our budget. We had a basic wire fencing installed 7 years back which we had reinforced with live fencing with bamboos, but now it seemed to be in dire need for repair. The easy access the chickens had into our property was evidence of the wear and tear.
Well, we were at loggerheads for a while wondering how we were going to continue growing vegetables for our home with this ongoing menace. Around this time we also had multiple projects happening at the farm. Trenches were being dug out strategically to address the water-logging issue during rains. This was caused due to a predominantly clayey soil. On the other hand, we had the periodic pruning of coconut fronds happening simultaneously. So when you look around all you saw was mounds and mounds of dug out mud and heaps of coconut fronds. It was not a pretty sight. In fact, it was overwhelming to say the least. And did I tell you I was gearing up to host a series of in-person workshops at our farm in just a week’s time! Talk about the tension building up…
Though we knew we would get back to normalcy in under a week’s time, this scenario around us was quite unsettling. Just imagine a beautiful space suddenly looking ravaged.
Ok, why am I telling you all this! Well, there is a good reason and I am coming to the point, I promise. While we hired some farm helpers to clear the mounds of dug-out mud, the coconut fronds scattered all over the farm was a sore sight. Without proper waste disposal or space to compost or use as fire-wood by the villagers, it glared at me. While I was ruminating over it, I half-mindedly suggested to my farm help ladies to use some of them to tie them at the base of our wire fencing to stop the chicks from entering. And as I was walking and talking and thinking aloud, the first thought was to place these fronds horizontally at the base and tie it with coir ropes to secure it to the fence. But as we started placing it and experimenting with the idea, something clicked! A Eureka moment, I’d say!!!
Why not place all the fronds vertically, side-by-side, overlapping slightly, to build an additional fencing of sorts? The height of the fronds would be tall enough to deter the flying-in and the base covering would take care of the little chicks entering! Genius!!! Won’t you agree? Wow!
Sometimes we stumble upon solutions just like that, don’t we? And the cost of this project – zilch. Material is absolutely free, a byproduct of our farm and guess what, literally every single frond got used up in the process! So no mess either! Reminds me of the idiom – killing two birds with one stone or I would rather use my Tamil idiom – oru kal, rendu maanga (one stone, two mangoes)
What an innovative way of putting waste from the farm to good use. There is nothing I love more than finding ways to practice circular economy. I am super proud of myself.
Have you ever chance upon a eureka moment like this in your experience? Do share, I would love to know.
