Field Notes
The first four days
The plot is one acre, twelve kilometres from Narnaul. A field note on the first four days of work — he levelled ground, a fence still unfinished, the bones of a tin shed, and one hundred beds' worth of cow dung waiting under canvas.
- Written by
- The GAUMAYA Team
- Published
- 25 April 2026
- Reading time
- 2 min
- Filed under
- Field Notes
Field note · A small farm near Narnaul · April 2026
The first four days of work at the farm — no finished compost yet, just the ground beneath it.
The plot is one acre, twelve kilometres from Narnaul. This week was the first time it has begun to look like a working farm.
Day one was the surface. Not the whole acre — just the strip where the beds will sit, scraped level by a tractor and a JCB. The rest of the land we are leaving as it is. Beds want a flat plane; the rest can stay slow.
The boundary is the most unfinished part of the work. We have barbed wire round the perimeter, but cattle and stray dogs are crossing it without much trouble. Chain-link is what we want — we have not put it up yet, and we are not pretending we did. It will be the first job next.
The third day we marked out the tin shed. Ten feet by thirty, on the south side, away from the bed strip — for the kraft bags, the tools, and the small amount of finished cast we will keep on hand once shipping starts. The frame is up. The roofing arrives next week.
The fourth day was about material. We collected cow dung from three partner gaushalas — all within fifteen kilometres of the farm — moved by tractor-trailer over two days. By our reckoning it is enough to bed roughly one hundred beds at four feet by forty, when the time comes.
The schedule was set by the heat. Work from six to eleven, then again from five to eight, with the middle of the day spent in the shade. April in southern Haryana does not compromise. We did not try to argue with it.
That is where four days have got us. A flat strip of ground, a fence we are still making honest, the bones of a shed, and one hundred beds' worth of raw material waiting under canvas. None of this will make finished vermicast yet — that is still sixty to seventy days from the day the first bed is built. But the long, quiet work has begun.
We will write again when the chain-link is up.
— The GAUMAYA Team
Haryana, India
