Merry Christmas John

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Poping into head

This is me (Stuart) in need of a haircut in our latest sorghum crop, this is about 55 days since emergence, looks good to me. I planted the latest 600ha on a "solid" configuration as I thought we would get some in crop rain. Its a bit variable across the field although most of the crop would have had around 100mm since it was dry planted in late Oct.(it had a full moisture profile under the top 100mm of dry soil) 

First Kenyan Christmas

Boys and Bikes at Christmas

Christmas morning and the boys scored a push bike each, James our big boy is here helping Wisdom just before John came to grief.

Crop Progress

The Weighbridge is alive

Duncan our principle building contractor and his offsider read the first weight (my Prado) on the weighbridge.
Having a big concrete pour this week, we have 25t of cement powder to kick off the foundations to the grain shed, much much more needed. We are mixing it ourselves rather than getting ready mix. We have a 400lt mixer and it is earning its keep at present.
Harvest of the first sorghum has been a very frustrating story although some parts coming from Australia on Saturday morning should get us going.

Pa and Wizdom

Annie's Mum and dad are over staying with us at present, this photo is of Derik (Pa lamont) having a look over the newest sorghum planting with Wisdom his newest grandson. The crop is around 40 days from emergence and is just popping a head out here and there. 

Sorghum is growing well

The Previous photo of the Sorghum just emerging was taken on around the 10th of November so this is about 24days later than that photo, I am happy with the growth. We have had around 80mm since it was dry planting into a dryish topsoil in late October, the profile was full under that so the 80mm has consolidated the profile from top to bottom. Nov is on average the wettest month with an average of 90mm of rain. We actually had more like 60mm in November as the other 20mm fell last night (Dec)
December average is around 50mm and if we get another 30mm that would be heaps until hopefully a bit in Jan.With the cooler temps the plants in this environment seem to be very efficient on the water use. Time will tell though. Also the most recent 600 hectares was all planted on a solid configuration of 30 inch or 75cm rows,this was due to my view that we would recieve adequate in crop rain, wait and see.

Boys and Sorghum

The little boys came out to the farm with me this afternoon, both did some driving, only time on the road was went they crossed it.
I could'nt work out why wisdom (in the blue shirt) went very quite (top photo) I had said we were going to go "home" after checking the Sorghum, after asking him what was wrong he ask me if I was taking them back to the Childrens Home, the bottom photo is a couple of minutes after I reasured him he would always be our boy and that his home is with us.

James,John and Wisdom,three brothers

This Photo is of the three happy boys when John and Wisdom just arrived to start their new life with us, the darling boys had little backpacks on and all they had in the world was in them.
Annie had organized their room to be so welcoming with some special things like Teddy's to give them extra comfort.
Annie was at work teaching today and so I had the little boys, the Cummins mechanic comes first thing in the morning and so I hope we can have a win on the harvester engine issue.
 

Annie, John and Wisdom

These are our beautiful new sons, Wisdom and John, we have been working very hard to get the mountain of paperwork done to get approval for a temporary placement leading to full adoption.We hope to have them living with us within days.
Wisdom is 5 and John is 6 although John is tiny. We will do our best to grow him out.
I had a crazy week with a very quick trip back to Australia to sort out some business.
I have returned on Thursday night and Friday our new second hand Combine/harvester decided not to want to start, something wrong with the CAP's fuel system (bad idea Cummins). I hope to have someone who can help me here on Monday.