A few acres in the hills

This is the first post, so let me describe the place it all comes from.

The farm sits in Sakleshpur, in the Western Ghats of Karnataka, a few hours from Bengaluru, where the air cools and the road starts to climb. It is a few acres on a slope: red laterite soil underfoot, very young coffee plants growing in the shade of taller trees. For most of the year it is quiet and green. For three months of monsoon it is loud, wet, and impossibly alive. Or so I have been told many times and I know some through experience of my own as well.

I have made over 20 trips to the Malenadu region over the past two years to find the kinda farm I eventually purchased. My car should be able to go there, no problematic neighbors, clear ownership records, coffee plants and silence.

You will not blame me for trying to find peace and calm. I have a view of construction from both my Bengaluru apartment or from my previous apartment in Hyderabad.

I also did not buy a farm to let or lease it out to someone else. I want to get my hands dirty, wake up and smell the rain, have a cup of coffee sitting there, plant my own trees the fruit of which I will eat myself, clear brush and grow my own coffee.

The coffee here in Sakleshpura is grown the old way, under shade rather than in open sun. The tall trees hold the mist and the soil, drop leaf that feeds the ground, and give the whole place the feel of a forest that happens to be farmed. Walk through it and you are as likely to notice birdcall and pepper vines climbing the trunks as the coffee itself.

That doesn't fully describe my farm though - the coffee plants are young and will take 3-4 more years before they yield enough coffee to take to the market, the road is muddy, I have a lot of work to do before it becomes the 'forest' it truly will become.

We are still early. Alongside the coffee we are putting in fruit, Totapuri and Mallika mango among them, after a fair amount of arguing with ourselves about what actually survives the rainfall here. Some plants made the list and some got cut. The land has opinions, and the monsoon settles most debates.

I am building a business - allymatter.com - my primary occupation, and I wish to build it at least half of the time from there.

So I am planning to home there. This is not as easy as talking to an architect and voila there it is .

So that is the farm. This blog, Between Builds, is where I will keep the record of it, next to the work and whatever else is worth noting.

More soon, once the rain lets up.

A few more photos of the farm land.