Our daughter was asked to make a report on a dairy or a poultry farm as part of her school holidays homework. While browsing through some of the dairy farms in the vicinity, my husband stumbled upon the site of Hunsali Organic Farm and Farmstay, Fatehgarh Sahib. We browsed through their site very carefully and liked the idea of visiting this place for the project as well as for a small getaway.
Distance from Chandigarh: 38 km
Driving distance: 1 hour
We reached the farm at 11:00 am and were welcomed by the owner himself. While the rooms were getting ready, he took us around the farm. He was happy to share how the farm came up and how satisfying has been their journey so far. We were showed two varieties of cows under the shed, goats in their designated place and freely running hens and cocks.
Three (goat) kids were merrily jumping around and enjoying themselves, which was a delight to watch.
The two suites were on either sides of the dining area. We had our tea/lemonade in the open while watching these small animals minding their routine business.
There was a well maintained park within the farm and when it was time to have our lunch we requested that the lunch be laid out in the park under the amaltas tree. The beauty of this tree is that it blossoms in peak summer and lends the much needed beautiful colour and shade during this time. Though it was middle of a summer day yet the weather was perfect as gentle breeze was blowing making the ambience just perfect.
The lunch was delicious rajmah, paneer, rice and roti along with boondi raita. Since the farm has only two suites and we had rented both of them, we had the luxury of having the place almost to ourselves while workers did the needful to make our stay comfortable.
It was time for siesta post that sumptuous lunch.
Attraction for the evening was to take bath in tubewell which the kids enjoyed immensely. We were called to watch milking of the cows manually as well as by machine. We were showed the chiller for the milk where it is kept before it is put in big cans, ready for distribution. Since it is a fully organic farm, the cows are fed natural farm grown feed and the farm gets the manure from the animals waste. What a wonderful sustainable way that nature has made arrangement for but we tend to forget and abandon it.
After that we spent sometime on the patio which overlooked the farm side.
Large fields all around was a delightful sight and paddy sowing was in full swing.
As the sun was going down, we went on the terrace to watch it bidding adieu. The weather was so good that we decided to sleep on the terrace that night and expressed our desire to the workers there. They happily obliged and arranged the cots, standing fans, odomas cream, drinking water etc. for the night.
After having our dinner in the dining area, we came back up on our cots. Watching the sky at night is a luxury which city dwellers have almost forgotten. We played some dumb charades game and antakshari while enjoying the night sky, the nourishing breeze and natural sounds. It turned out to be a perfect end to a lovely day.
The next day we had a ride on the tractor, took many pictures of the farm and gathered information by talking to the people engaged in different activities. It was great to get a peak into how the farm is managed on a daily basis. Our daughter has enough material to write a report on a farm now.
Hunsali Organic Farm and Farmstay is a lovely place and very well managed and maintained. However, two things would have made it just 'picture perrrrfect' for me - a treehouse (machaan) on a big banyan tree and Punjabi folk art (phulkari patterns, village scenes or similar such) on the walls instead of warli art.
It was time to pack our bags for the return journey. On our way back we paid our obeisance at Jayotisar Gurudwara and Fatehgarh Sahib Gurudawara.
