Blog

Compare and Contrast - lesson plan

It was like any other day. I was looking forward to a free day as many children were in a craft workshop and only a few were at farmhill.

Chithra Seshadri

Join us as a teacher-learner!

Are you interested in larger questions about how we live and educate ourselves and our children? Would you like to live on a farm and play/learn with children?

A play about Ambedkar

What a wonderful book to introduce Ambedkar to children!

Gandhi Jayanti

Every year, we choose about three festive occasions to celebrate at Farm Hill. This year, Gandhi Jayanti was one of them.

Ganesha 2023

For Ganesha, we could name and count sixty different types of flowers at farm hill, and found a hundred when we went gathering!!

Seeds go from place to place!

Kishkindha, our primary school group, went around Farm Hill looking for different kinds of seeds and how they go from place to place.

The power of rains and streams

The tiny stream next to farm hill has been flowing this year, for the first time since we came here four years ago. Neighbours say this hadn’t happened in the ten years…

Visit to a farm in a rain shadow area

Just returning from a friend’s farm, located in an area where the average annual rainfall is 600mm. For better context, 500mm is the cut off for ‘areas of very little…

Visit to Janapada Seva Trust, Melukote

Had the most peaceful and educational two days at hosa jeevana daari.

A friend in the neighborhood

Here is a friend we met for the first time in 2019, soon as we moved to farm hill. It was a hot summer and this tree was blooming red, and one could totally see why Palash…

Education and Farming

As long as there is soil, water and sun, one plant or the other will grow. It is up to us to decide which to keep and which not to.

Wastewater Management At Farm Hill

Farm Hill, like any human habitation, generates two varieties of wastewater - gray water and black water. Gray water is produced at sinks, bathrooms and the kitchen, while…

New Kitchen Garden Patch

Rains - 2019 and 2021

The rains this season here, have been late, and heavy. The last time we saw good rains here was in 2019. The other day I was talking to Ganesan L and we wondered if the rain…

Water Harvesting

At farm hill, we are in a rain shadow region where the average rain fall is closer to 800mm. There are no major surface water sources like rivers nearby; and the one there…

Deva Kanchana

Purple Orchid (Bauhinia purpurea) - also called Pink Butterfly tree.

Mor Milaga మజ్జిగ మిరపకాయలు Sundried Salted Chillies

Here is the recipe.

Sundried onion masala balls

This week we learnt to make sun-dried onion masala balls.

Forest Fire!

We had another forest fire yesterday. We noticed it around 6.45 pm. And managed to put it out by about 9 pm, after the fire burnt half the hill. It was big. We were 5 adults…

Middle School Poetry

A poem our 11 year olds wrote in their English class, on the lines of “That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates!”

Everyone is important

Farm hill is on a break this week and kids have been working at home, with online support. These responses of our first grader to a home work assignment made our day!! 😊

Custom translating a book

…And every day, Avi would open the picture book, look at the pictures and point out that it is in Telugu, which he can’t read or understand. Every time he took the book, he…

An unexpected Bonus

At Farm Hill, we are at the bottom slope of a group of hills. At the lowest point, just next to the place, we have a water channel.

Children in lockdown

This is lovely!! 😍❤️

Golden chain tree

Cassia Fistula/Golden Chain tree!!

Creamy Peacock Flower Tree - White Gulmohar

On the morning walk today, Srikar and I, we went slightly off the usual path. We took a couple of new turns, walked through a couple of fences. Went up a small hill and down…

Toad Tussle

At farm hill we use a “pot in pot” fridge to keep vegetables cool. You keep a pot within a bigger pot, fill the space between with sand and keep the sand wet (see picture).…