Stuart Barden in Kenya

Finally Our Container Arrives

2012-03-08T19:55:00.003+03:00

Well what an epic, finally it arrived. Earlier this week I flew down to Mombassa to the port to see if I could get a handle on what was what.

Spent the day waiting,waiting at the bonded container park.

Still dry as a chip here, it looked promising a week or so ago although still waiting.

I am still sick with the tick fever, if I was a dog I would have put me down yesterday.

We hired a crane from Nairobi to unload the container today, they did a good quick job which was great. We will now start to put the planter together, it is in this container.

Egyptian Cobra

2012-03-08T19:46:00.003+03:00

Found this fellow in our gravel pit, he took off and I drove around in front of him. He rared up and fanned his face and neck (if snakes have them) out like you see with the snakes that come out of baskets in the movies.

He was supper fast and ended up going down an Aardvark hole.

7 ft Egyptian Cobra

2012-03-03T18:12:00.003+03:00

Bit of excitement for the afternoon, our son James was painting a door on the back veranda and heard a noise, it was a 7 to 8 ft Egyptian Cobra slithering about 10ft from him.

I ran out and saw him clearly, he was huge and fast. He took off I hope not to see him again around the house.

I took a photo of another fellow of the same variety a couple of days ago although he was in our murum/gravel pit a long way from anywhere.

I will post the photo when I download it.

Kelly and a classic

2012-02-25T14:21:00.003+03:00

This Photo is of Kelly the mechanical foreman, he works with the conservancy on which we live.

He is also a great help with mechanical and electrical issues and a wonderful fellow to boot.

The car is a goer he had just driver about 5km from another part of the conservancy.

Sorry about the lack of posts, this tick fever really knocked me around.

We have now finished putting about 150mm (or 6 inches for the old fellows) of Murrum/ Gravel five meters wide by 8 km long.

Still waiting on our container with the planter in it. Maybe this week.

Starting to get the crop inputs organized and delivered to the farm.

Our next earthmoving project is to level our workshop area and build a grain shed before harvest. The Area is 3.2 ha and in most of Aust it would not be a big deal. Our site however has a 10m difference from one end to the other in only 250m and so there is some serious dirt to move.

I had a fellow do a Topographical survey a week or so ago and so I will be keen to get the numbers on how much dirt we need to move.

Tick fever and Progress

2012-02-18T15:45:00.002+03:00

Well things on the farm are coming along, only 3km out of 8km of gravel/murum to go,takes a lot of loads when each truck only does 12 meters.

Grace and James have had a week at home for their mid term break, we had our first sniff of rain over the past couple of days. One local tells me that the long rains will start properly in two weeks. Wait and see.

By the end of this coming week we should have the fence line/boundary road finished and so then onto the fence.

We hope to see the next container by weeks end and then start putting together all the bits of the planter ready to use. Soil testing this week also to get a feel for nutrition status.

I have been ill for about ten days and on Friday was told by my new Dr that I have Tick fever, I have got some medication and hope to feel better soon.

Lots of Ticks here, they plunge dip the cattle once a week for them. I may have to join them.

James Tries out for Kenyan under 19 rugby

2012-02-14T14:38:00.003+03:00

On Sunday James was asked to try out for the squad for the Kenyan under 19 rugby team.

Turned out that he was just too young at 16 although they allowed him and a couple of other under ages to have a run which was good.

The Photo shows James third from left, there were 160 young fellows all pumped up to give their best shot.

I am no Rugby guru although I thought the standard looked good. Hopefully he gets a shot next year when he will be old enough to qualify.

Japanese Restaurant, Nice

2012-02-14T14:31:00.003+03:00

Nairobi has some fantastic restaurants, we had dinner on Saturday evening at a wonderful Japanese restaurant.

First time at a top quality establishment for all of us, Japanese is so expensive back in Australia, not so here.

Twiga Grazing

2012-02-10T06:04:00.002+03:00

These fellows were out enjoying a look over the farming land. We are still about 30days away from having the wildlife fence up and so until then its a bit like a Zoo out there.

God must have been having a fun day when he created these fellows.

The Fence will be 2.1m high and will be using Weston fencing components from Western NSW.

Although Giraffe are much taller than this they are not famous for high jump.

I have seen one jump a standard fence, very messy. (he was OK)

Hello and goodmorning to all this blogs readers.

Zebra at Dusk

2012-02-09T09:34:00.002+03:00

I took this snap on the way back across the conservancy in the evening. It is about 10km from the farming area to our house. Early morning there are lots of silver back Jackal's plus all the usual animals.

Progress is coming along with 200ha ready as far as land preparation, we are still running 24hours on with the tractor with a bit of swapping between the plough and grader board.

Road Building

2012-02-07T13:53:00.002+03:00

Today we started carting 4000 or so cubic meters of Gravel for our road and fence.

The picture shows our exervator and one of the four trucks being loaded by a contractor with a JCB wheel loader.

It will hopefully be done by early next week although this type of earthmoving operation is way outside my experience and so I guess we will wait and see.

We have ploughed 200ha twice and just about run over it with the grader board to level it. Looks good, we will tonight move onto the first plough pass on the other 200ha.

Cattle Movements

2012-02-01T13:12:00.002+03:00

We came across a mob of Cattle on one of the major roads just south of Nairobi.

It is not unusual to see 200 or 300 cattle in around the city.

Fire at the farm

2012-01-31T13:04:00.002+03:00

Well, Annie and I had just dropped the kids at school on Monday and we had a phone call that a fire was going hard on the conservancy.

After about six hours with 70men and Annie plus the tractor and plough we finally stopped it.

Not before about 2000acres or so of country was burnt out.

One of the magnificent houses came within seconds of being burnt. A good result from what could have been a disaster.

It burnt the full 16 hectares of the research farm site which I would not have done although in some ways will help in developing the site.

Ploughing New land

2012-01-31T12:50:00.004+03:00

I took this photo while I was ploughing the other morning. I have been starting early and then handing over to one of our team, his name is Francis his father is Masi and his mum is a Kikuya. (he is tall) My spelling is Im sure not right.

James (not james our son) is filling the tires of the tractor with water at the moment as we are having trouble getting the power to the ground and we will run our first night shift tonight I hope.

As you can see I have been just running on raw GPS as it is fine for ploughing and I don't have to worry about the base walking during the night.

I was towards the top of our paddock/field and as you can see the altitude is 1660m there would be about a 40m fall over about 5km so there is a gentle slope. Note the Latitude at 1 degree.

I think this says it all

2012-01-28T13:07:00.001+03:00

Road Grading

2012-01-27T05:39:00.002+03:00

This is the old grader of a contractor we have working. They have done 350hours so far, sounds a lot although there is about 30km of roads/Fence lines to build.

We still have a lot to do as we are laying 5m by 100mm of gravel over about 28km.

Thats a vast amount of Gravel although in the next 30/40 days our aim is a more modest 8km then we need to build a 2.1m wildlife fence ASAP. We have decided to just grow 400hectare this season as to gravel (Murum) and fence it all is undoable.

Progress so far

2012-01-26T22:16:00.003+03:00

Well, this morning I was out and about just on light and on the way to the tractor and plough I saw Wilder beasts, Warthogs, Antelope of various kinds and five Jackals before I reached the paddock.

The clearing crew have finished and I have kept 15 of the fellows on to do a final check for Whistling thorn stumps etc.

Lots of activity on the machinery front with a contractor having a road grader and 14t wheel loader working as well as our exervator plus our tractor ploughing plus the conservancy has one of their tractors helping as well.

It is almost 10.30pm and Annie is fast asleep beside me in bed, the wonders of wireless. There is a Wilder beast just outside making a racket. He sounds like he is in our yard although I don't think they could get through the fence.

They moo a little bit like a cow.

We have ploughed about 100ha in the past three days which doesn't sound much although we are only able to plough at 7km as I don't know whether it is the altitude making some of the tractors horses a bit short of breath or if as I suspect it is just heavy pulling.

I trained Francis who is one of our team yesterday on the tractor and I think the auto steer has him still in disbelief. He is going well with it which is great.

Those Crafty Monkeys

2012-01-22T16:23:00.003+03:00

The Monkeys have been giving us a workout, last weekend we were all in our lounge room talking to Hannah and Jake in Perth on Skype when Annie noticed out of the corner of her eye a Monkeys sitting in the next room beside the fruit bowl with an apple in each hand. He took off up the stairs dropping one apple as he left and out an open upstairs window. Not content with that he sat in a tree out side our window and enjoyed the apple. Lesson 89 in Kenya "don't leave even up stairs window open" I don't know who got the biggest fright, us or him.

The Picture is one I took this morning in our outside shower. James has a worm farm in a bucket in there with kitchen scraps and the Monkeys were having a nice breakfast until they were found out.

Our New life begins

2012-01-22T09:04:00.004+03:00

Well, I apologize for the extended delay in posting this first post. We have now been in Kenya for just over two weeks although it seems like a lot longer with every thing that has needed to happen.

Grace and james have had two full weeks at school, they board During the week even though the school is only 55km from home. It can take between 1 to 2 hours one way as we have some crazy traffic and roads here.

James has been fishing here in a dam on the conservancy on weekends and catching lots of Talarpia which are an excellent eating fish.

Annie has been busy making our house a home as per the Photo of Annie and Alex our Garderner come painter painting the kids rooms.

We have employed three men over the past week to help with the development phase and most probably will stay on after that.

I flew down and back to Mombassa (the port city) during the week as well to look a Truck, we have about 13,000 to 15,000 cubic meters of Gravel or Murrum as the locals call it to dig and cart onto our roads/fencelines to give us all weather access. We will then use the truck to cart grain direct to Millers in Nairobi which is only 30km away. Freight in Kenya is as if not more expensive than Australia which seems odd to me.

The clearing crew have just finished yesterday, we gave them a cow as a cut out/appreciation gift and Grace and I went down at 11am Sunday morning (today) and they had eaten the lot, Considering it arrived on the hoof at 6pm on Saturday they did not muck about. They were very happy today.

The container with our precision planter in it will hopefully arrive at Mombassa port shortly as we have some time pressure to make things happen.

I hope to plant our first crop by mid March although we have much to do before then.

Last days in Australia

2012-01-02T03:20:00.002+03:00

Well time in ticking, we are in Perth on our way to Kenya, our oldest daughter is starting Uni in Perth doing Biomedical science and we are just settling her in.

The clearing in Kenya has progressed well from all reports, we will be straight into it when we arrive, we are aiming to plant about 1000acres in Feb/March, lots to do before then.

It has been a trying season in Australia and quite disheartening to finnish our Australian time with a weather damaged harvest.

Annie, James, Grace and I are all very expectant about our new life in Kenya, James and Grace start school next week in Nairobi and will attend the same school which will be good as they weekly board and Grace has never done that, James is an old hand though and it will be great to know he is there for his little sister.

Anyway, I will post the next post from Kenya when we get established, hopefully our internet connection is still operating at our home. Time will tell.

Back to Australia until January

2011-09-03T06:44:00.003+03:00

Annie, James,Grace and I are off back to Australia to complete the school and crop year. We will be packing things up for the full time move in the middle of January.

Its been a busy five weeks here getting things moving and although things often don't happen as quickly as we may all like there is still good progress.

The 16 ha (40 acre) Research farm is sitting waiting to be developed and when we come back in January it will be high on the list. There is great potential to make a huge difference in the crop yields of the small holder's who just for some information can I am sure achieve much higher and more importantly for small farmers (1 to 5 acres) more yield stability from season to season. i.e avoid the feast/famine cycle.

Thankyou to you the readers of our blog for your interest, it is encouraging, I will give some less regular posts until January 15th when we return to Kenya although I will show some of our Australian crops and harvest as this may be of interest to those outside Australia.

An interesting thing is who has been reading this blog so far, there has to date been people in Russia, Uganda, Canada, US, UK, Tanzania, Botswana, South Africa and of course Australia.(Blogger has a Stats page that shows me where the audience is coming from)

Can you smell Monkey Poo

2011-09-02T11:12:00.003+03:00

I jumped in my ute today and drove up to our Shamba (farm) and noticed that I felt wet, those dirty monkeys had left a great deposit on the drivers seat.

I have now joined both Grace and James in the "not happy with moneys camp"

Annie and the Kids thought it a great joke. Very Funny!!!!!!

Birthday party at the on farm Polo ground at Sunset

2011-09-02T07:25:00.005+03:00

We had a great small farm gathering for our new friend Tim's birthday.

Tim and Diane live about 100m from our house and are missionaries from Canada who have been in Kenya for over 25 years.

The Team helping us burn

2011-09-02T07:18:00.002+03:00

How many people can you fit on one very small tractor? At Least ten it appears, we were burning off some country to help the clearing crew.

We are about to go out again this morning for another burn.

If any one thinks this photo was staged is was not, TIA (this is Africa)

Once again you can click on any photo to enlarge.

Caught in a Traffic Jam on the way home from town

2011-09-02T06:43:00.003+03:00

Armour for tractors

2011-08-31T15:40:00.003+03:00

We had a local fellow make a double thickness cover out of canvas for the front of the tractor as the thorns were scratching the paint.

Had a local air conditioner fellow out from Nairobi, he arrived with his gauges and gas bottle on his motor bike, he cost $44 to re gas our car.

Not bad for two hours travelling,gas and labour.

Monkeys still being a pain, getting into rubbish as well as one regular at daylight running around on the roof which is just black plastic on the underside and grass thatch on the outside.

James gets a haircut

2011-08-31T10:34:00.000+03:00

Family in our new bed

2011-08-31T08:23:00.001+03:00

Sunday Safari

2011-08-29T17:15:00.002+03:00

We have our first ever Australian visitors here at present, from Dubbo of all places. It is great to have them here.

We took them on a tour of the farm and conservancy in the old land cruiser that has three hatches for wildlife viewing in the roof.

Today Monday, Annie, Grace, James and I had an interview at the school they will be attending,

all went well, if you click on any photos on this blog then they will display in a larger format.

Clearing in action

2011-08-26T11:38:00.003+03:00

This photo is of some of the locals employed to clear the land. They are all happy it seems. Its friday today and I am going down to see them shortly. I am taking a couple of big boxes of biscuits to have with their lunch which will probably be a maize porridge and a cup of tea made on milk. The contractors have a cook employed each who feed their people.

The Soil on our Kenyan Shamba (farm)

2011-08-26T07:46:00.003+03:00

Sorry for the lack of posts of late, yesterday Annie and I flew to have a look at a backhoe loader to buy in Eldoret.

It was to rough though and so we came home empty handed.

The clearing is coming along (slowly) and I will post a photo of some of the 60 to 80 locals clearing the land by hand as soon as I can.

We hope to visit the school where Grace and James will go next year early next week which should be interesting.

This morning I will be out checking out the clearing and talking to the head fellows who are managing the two clearing teams.

The international grain market appears to be going well and with the number of "issues" around the world in relation to weather/crops there appears some up side.

Our and The Mckay's farms at Condobolin are about to be advertised for auction and we expect an auction date of Mid Oct. The crops there look as good as last year and have stacks of subsoil moisture under them.

The landscape,in the dry season

2011-08-23T03:50:00.002+03:00

You can Click on any photo to enlarge for more detail.

Sunday Lunch

2011-08-22T17:46:00.002+03:00

We had a BBQ lunch out in the paddock, we were marking out blocks with the offsets for the clearing crew.

Someone asked in a comment on the rainfall here, it is about 500mm PA with about 440mm falling from Nov to May.

The soil type is what the locals call black cotton, it is a black soil that cracks and has smooth river type stone through the profile.

We get our new second hand Landcrusier ute tomorrow. It will be good not to have to borrow the conservancy's wheels anymore. They have been very generous to us.

Breaking New Ground

2011-08-21T19:44:00.000+03:00

This Photo is of the first hour of preparation on the Kenyan farm.

The Plough is an Ennor 56disc offset manufactured by Craig Ennor in Australia.

His company did a great job of manufacturing and containerising this plough.

Our next door smallholder farmers, some of whom use cows to plough with were very interested in looking over the fence.

I had some fellows today looking disbelievingly up the 3km dead straight runs.

Daniel from Sprayer Barn back in Australia was and still is a great help with the auto steer.

The Trimble RTK system is running well.

Another note on the plough, Craig added some nice big "Made in Australia" decals on the plough. Nice

Our New House

2011-08-21T19:31:00.000+03:00

This Photo is of the house that we will be living in through most if not all next year. We have set it up and it is very comfortable.

Annie has done her thing again and has made a great home.

It has a thatched roof made from grass from the farm.

The upstairs windows you can see are in our bathroom with our bath longways looking outside.

Only problem is we rely on solar hot water up there and it is very overcast at this time of year.

The Kids rooms are downstairs with Annie and my room upstairs.

We are currently trying to catch a big black rat that keeps eating the soap. He is a worthy opponent. See how we go tonight.

Annie and Grace at school in Kenya

2011-08-20T21:42:00.000+03:00

Annie and Grace hard at work, we have just found a work ute, a 2004 landcruiser for 2.1million kenyan shillings, thats about $23,000 Aussie dollars.

We had a thankyou BBQ for the workers on the conservancy that have been helping us put our gear together.

We ended up with 60 to 70 people on friday evening.

Every one had a great time and for people who earn about $4 per day a sausage sizzle was something special.

Phil Tilly the manager of the conservancy said at the thankyou BBQ that he did'nt know he had that many employed on the conservancy.

2011-08-18T21:04:00.000+03:00

Our son James with a Lion on the farm, don't be fooled by the smile on his face, the lion had just roared and scared him spitless.

These Lions are 100% wild and are being protected from cattle farmers who are not that happy with their cattle being lion fodder.

To be through a chain wire fence from a Lion who is very vocal about wanting to eat you is very unnerving. I had goose bumps 10mm high, Annie Grace,Hannah, Jake and I were well behind James.

Jake proved himself to be a Lion whisperer, he spoke to the Lions and they calmed down. I still think they would have eaten him though.

Lucy, rugged but strong

2011-08-15T21:55:00.000+03:00

This is me with "Lucy", the conservancies manager Phil Tilly who is an Aussie allowed me to use his beloved for a while until I found some wheels.Phil and his wife Tim have been wonderful to us all.

Today I caught up on emails and continued working on getting the tractor and guidance ready to go. Our Ennor plough is hopefully being released from port tomorrow and so Wednesday should see us putting it together.

Our 12 year old daughter Grace set up a washing machine box with a stick and string with a banana as bait. She hid behind a fence and waited and waited,she went inside the house for two minutes and when she returned she saw her monkey escaping with the Banana.

At this she charged out the gate with a 50cm machete vowing revenge upon the cheeky monkey.

Our Daughter Hannah and Jake Lewis arrived a few days ago. It is great to have them both here.

Hannah is on her gap year and its great to have all the family here to start our African life.

Anyway I must post this as the generator gets turned off at 10.30pm and as we have no back up system yet all things electrical cease to operate. i.e internet.

Annie,James,Grace,Kelly and Mootoa with the tractor fresh out of the container

2011-08-13T21:31:00.000+03:00

Two new Kenyan friends

2011-08-13T21:26:00.000+03:00

Gear arrives in Kenya

2011-08-13T20:49:00.000+03:00

Well,we are here in Kenya for a month or so,our main plan is to put the machinery together and start developing the land, show James and Grace where they will be going to school and generally get things organised so that in Jan 2012 it will wont be as crazy.

As per the photos we had some help from a couple of great Kenyan fellows to put the tractor back together.

We are settled into our house which is a two story african style place, we have power from about 8.30am to 10.30pm with a few bits missing in the middle.

We have been welcomed very warmly and we are all busy.

During the week we bought, a 1999 Toyota Prado,we hope to find a ute/pickup next week.

There are still 30 Kenyan fellows clearing the land we will be framing,we plan to ramp it up to close to 100 next week. It is taking a lot longer than I had hoped.

James is keeping the fire going that keeps us in hot water,we will employ a gardener/helper soon. (James say's the sooner the better)

Grace has made friends with some african girls who live on the conservancy, she took some books to their house and read to them.She is a teacher like her mum.

We have just got the internet on last evening and so I can now update this blog.

Annie has made the house very comfortable and is very happy to have a 4w drive car, she has always wanted one although I don't think she thought she would have to move to Kenya to get one.

Our plough from Australia is in a container at Port in Kenya, I hope to have it by Tuesday and put it together and get it working ASAP.

Containers Arrive In Kenya

2011-07-30T12:48:00.000+03:00

Well, two of the three shipping containers have arrived in Kenya on farm. One left on the water (I hope).

We are all about to head to Kenya in the next three days, lots of work to do there. Assemble machinery and get into developing the farm.

I will post some photos once we arrive and start.

The Move to Kenya Begins

2011-05-31T06:59:00.000+03:00

Well it's really happening, yesterday the three containers that we have prepared for our new Kenyan farm left for port in Australia.

Annie, Hannah,James,Grace and I are planning on being in Kenya in August when the containers arrive there.

We will put the tractor and plough back together and start developing the 900 hectares or so that we will be farming.

We are still planting our winter crop here in Australia at present, its the end of May and I would like to be finished planting although anyone who is in agriculture knows it isn't a perfect world, we will hopefully be finished by the end of the first week in June.

Our Kenyan company is up and running, lots of brain work involved in setting up in another country.