Keep Smiling...............: Google's Rediscover the Day

I recall the first time, a few months ago, when I first got this notification of 'rediscover the day' on my phone, and I was so blown by it.

It did it again. This was from nine years ago, and it took me into another zone for a good while.

Especially so for Subbareddy, bottom right, who was like our man friday back then, and someone who was just such an integral part of my farming phase in life. And while in the zone, it took me into more memories of farming in Jangareddigudem.

In fact there's an interesting story there. While we were all focused on farming, it was Diksha reading 'The Children of Willow Farm' by Enid Blyton, that created a whole shift.

I recall the moment. I was sitting at the dining table after one of our trips to JRG, and Diksha comes waving this paper "amma, amma.......see my drawing, I drew our polam" (she was 8). I found that the picture had more farm animals than fields, though we had none (apparent inspiration 'The Willow Farm'). I fell in love with the picture. In that moment we sat down and made a plan.

The vision was 'what do we need to do to make your drawing a reality'.

We started with hens, then goats, then geese, then ducks, then rabbits, then guinea fowl.....it was a lovely vision turned project that gave us, and the farm a whole new life for over four years.

Bottle feeding a kid (goat)

We took two geese in the backseat of our car all the way from Hyderabad, and over the years we had so many

This was a pond built exclusively for the geese, and eventually used as much by the children, as by the ducks and the geese

Guinea fowl, with their little ones. They were like a disappearing breed, it was so hard to find any, so a lot of effort went into protecting the little ones

The ducks taking their turn at the pond.

I loved our buffaloes, seetha and geetha. They were my inspiration at one point to start a dairy even. That was my first attempt to quit Google, when I took a sabbatical to research dairy, when I must have visited atleast twenty dairies in and around Hyderabad; but which (fortunately) got dropped somewhere along the way.

The shack in the forefront was built for pigeons. We had some pretty exclusive ones, again taken all the way from Chowk, Charminar

A thatha, who shepherded the goats. He was just so adorable, he would tell us so many stories of life on the farm......he once even got badly butted by the ram ( in the first picture)