350 Truckloads of Dirt and Two Big Ponds
When you live surrounded by rice paddies, rain doesn’t just mean a wet day — it can mean water everywhere. That’s why we had to take a big step (literally) before we could build anything on our farm: we had to raise the land by one full meter.
Why We Had to Do It
Our land is right in the middle of the rice fields in Chumphon Buri. Beautiful? Yes. Flat and fertile? Absolutely. But during the rainy season, it floods. That’s great for rice — not so great if you want a house, a garden, and a farm that doesn’t turn into a swamp.
So, we made the decision to fill the land with soil until it sat safely above flood level. And that meant dirt. A lot of dirt.
350 Truckloads of Soil!
We ended up bringing in 350 trucks, each carrying 6 cubic meters of soil. That’s a massive 2,100 cubic meters of dirt. It took time, coordination, and a good eye on the weather.
Trucks came in and out day after day, dumping load after load. Slowly, our once-low-lying plot started to rise up out of the floodplain like an island in a sea of rice.
Two Ponds, Double Purpose
At the same time, we had two ponds dug on the land — each 25 meters long, 10 meters wide, and 3.5 meters deep. Not only will they be used for fish farming and water storage, but the soil that came out of those ponds also helped reduce how much fill dirt we had to buy and bring in.
It was a win-win: less cost, more water storage, and the land got raised even faster.
What It Means for Us
With the land now raised and leveled, we’re ready to move forward — building a house, planting vegetables, and raising fish — all without worrying that the next big rain will wash everything away.
This was one of the biggest first steps in making our dream of farm life a reality. Dirty work? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely.