Friday, October 7, 2011

october 7 2011

Heres some details and great news about the project, lots of people arre coming, and so many wants to know details, i understand, joining a community is not a small step!

The 1 acre that is sandy-loam, flat, and right next to the river has a great advantage, anything we grow outer than melons will reach the underground water very quickly, so we wont need to water them, like bananas (60), and papayas (about 120). we are intercroping with trees, there is a bunch in the nursary, but not many have germinated, maybe 50-70, wich is still good.

the rest of the land is sandy-clay. Since labor is very cheap, we dug holes of 2 feet wide by 1 foot deep, all over half a acre, and filled the holes with the sandy loam from by the river. They use a weel barrow, 2 guys are bring it up, and there you go! the melons are amazing, ive researched on internet about peoples results, and we are breaking records!! first melons came after only 7 weeks! (galia melons) At that time we did no pruning, we where damaging the leaves a lot, underwatering, and we wouldnt put pestices (now we use garlic). Now we have hired a "water boy", he is learning every day, and his job is especially to never touch the leaves of the melons, otherwise creating stress, therefor the plant has a weak immune system to repell the pests naturaly. We pay him 20 euro per month, and he is very happy, he works 12 hours per day, watched over the monkeys, and waters the fruits, very easy job, ho yhea he is cooking too. His name is Cairo, about 30 years old. So when the rain comes, we will have at least 2 acres dug out, but this time with bigger holes, putting more healthy soil from by the river. When we were digging the holes, it was like now, during the dry season, so the ground it like rock, one worker could make about 10-15 holes per day, but when the soil will be wet, it will be many, many more holes. Then we need to fill them up, tuff job, only one weel barrow, then we must install the dripline irrigation system. One man i have met recently and briefly has told me that he put that system on his land, ant it cost him only 6000kshs, that about 45euro... but the store said it cost 35000ksh... im sending peter soon to visit this man.

So the flat land by the river is also beeing used for a irrigation system, using the water pump, using gasoline... we presently have 60m square, and just about to expend to 130-140 metre square, thats about a quarter acre. with this we are expecting to make about 1000 to 4000kshs 70-33euro) per day, wich is a lot of money, the community right now has been costing about 30-50 000kshs per month (220-350euro) But we will not make that much money for another 2 months at least. One thing is good about it, i mean very good, is that the demand is unlimited, absolutely!! So anything we grow (tomatoes and kale) we sell for shure, we are the only grower for kilometres, many people come with their bicycle from lower regions, and bike up to a very far town, they buy there, then brings everything back down, sometimes 35kms away.

we are building another shelter, pics might come, the last 2 shelters that have built are very simple, its like sleeping outside. The shelters that we can se on the website are very luxury if you ask me...

ho yhea, i must say!!! the 2 girls that we adopted have left! the grand-mother is using them, and she did not undersand that we were taking FULL CHARGE of them, so whatever... i had a meeting yesterday with the man kind of in charge of all the children organization in Tharaka, our aria. He said we will get kids LEGALLY within this month, i hope its true!!

talk about adoption, we got 2 puppies now! i pulled out about 100 worms out of each of them, poor things! we tried feeding them avocatoes, bananas and melons, but they wouldnt eat anything, even after 3 days. So we took 2 goats from peter, one of them has milk, the other for company, to prevent the other from screaming all the time. So they are drinking that milk, and we give them some boiled maze mixed with boiled beans (here they cal that "githeri), its the food of the workers, yes we are now cooking for the workers... the fruit supply is getting worse and worse, the drought is really hiting! it was a big decision, we are doing that to save money also.

So what else... I broke my small toe or fractured... or somewhere around there, cant move any of my toes, my foot is blue... 2 days now. pain is horrible, wich means i still have lots of toxins in my blood, im a bit disapointing! i mean, 23 days of fasting!! come on! lol Ill be ok, im fasting again, dont know for how long, maybe until full recovery?

We are strugling very much to eat, its sooo bad, Zak went back to avocatoes, i stoped after getting so sick from them, i must say i was eating about 6 per day... they are so easy to find! 2 more months before mangoe season, or 6 weeks, then we have 4-5 months to make the melon garden aboundant.

the river is so clear, very low also, wich means the rain has to be around the corner.

the river is so nice...


no news from niya, and her plain ticket was for today... i hope she just wants to suprise us...lol

Its getting hot, summer is there, its getting sweaty at night.

tarzan living is really nice.

what else...

love!