The Road Home .......

The end of a long, busy day in the city …. leaving the slick tarred roads and the hustle and bustle of city traffic behind …. the noise, the people …. the chaos.

Bumping along on the corrugated dirt road – small stones scattering underneath the tyres as dust swirls in the air above us …. approaching the farm now – the sound of cowbells rich & mellow upon the air as the sun begins to sink.

A herdsman, hurrying, calling softly to his cattle as he cracks a stick, urging them anxiously across the road.

The cattle, annoyed – and tired. The clattering soft thud of endless hooves – stirring even more dust which whirls and swirls over us as they move towards the setting sun and hurry on home.

We carry on – the farm entrance just up ahead. And suddenly, Kilimanjaro is almost upon us - her icy blue peak looming, guiding us home.

There really is no place quite like it ….

Some Recent Farm Scenes For You To Enjoy ....

Our wheat is starting to dry off now as we prepare for harvest .... but here is a photo taken a month or so ago (above) so that you can see how lush and green everything looked !

A small family of goats walking along a dry, dusty road on the bottom portion of the farm .... they were very friendly and 'talked' back to me as I chatted to them .... and didn't seem to object to having their photo taken !

Sunset from our veranda last week .... I love this time of year .... cold, dry and with so much dust in the air that it makes for magnificent sunsets each and every night.

Mostly pictures today, and no words ..... having a busy day but instead of not posting anything, just thought that I'd share a few recent farm scenes with you .....

Flooded Roads On The Way To School ....

School's back which means a twice weekly 3 hour round trip to take my daughter to school (I home school her on the other 3 days). Quite a lot of fun at the moment with all the rain we've been having. Lots of puddles and parts of the main dirt road which are more like a river than anything else.

Approaching part of the 'river' above, and driving through it ... below ....

Okay, we're almost through it .... but oops, see some more water up ahead ....

The truck ahead of us made it through okay .... but I feel sorry for the poor chap on his bicycle below - those yellow plastic containers he has strapped to the sides of his bicycle are for carrying drinking water in - he had to stop to attach them more securely, before negotiating his way through all the water ....

Finally, we make it on to the tar road .... which used to be dirt road until several years ago, so we're lucky as we'd be negotiating our way through water for most of the way ! Now we just have to watch out for stray cattle and goats .... and the odd pothole ..... and we'll soon be there.

And to think that in the dry season, we had to negotiate elephants (click to read that blog post and to see pics) and giraffe (ditto) on the way to school. I try to explain to our daughter that none of these are usual things that children encounter on the way to school in other parts of the world. But I'm not that sure that she believes me !

I've had a few people ask me for some posts and photo's on our surrounding area and villages, so I'll be taking you on a few road trips with me over the next couple of weeks .... to see some typical Tanzanian roadside scenes, a trip to one of our cities and a famous landmark - and even on an early morning school run with me ... I hope that you'll enjoy these trips, and getting off the farm with me for a while !

(Incase you were wondering - the red plastic Coca Cola crates stacked on top of one another in the right of the last photo are placed outside a local bar/restaurant to indicate to the passing soda delivery truck that they need stock today - or tomorrow - whenever he may pass. No telephoning ahead to place your weekly order here !)

Repairing Our Rain Damaged Farm Roads !

You can see photos of the damage which the recent torrential rain caused to our farm roads in this post over here. The photo above was taken after the rain had stopped (but only for a day or two before coming down again - ha !), to show some of the rain damage to our actual farm lands i.e. where our crops are planted. You can imagine the damage in areas of the country where no form of crop rotation is practiced, where the land is overgrazed and trees are continually being chopped down and not replanted - disastrous !

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so we had to hire a bulldozer in from the city. It was delivered on a flat bed truck - which made it as far as our farm turn off (see photo above), but could not make it up the actual farm road, so the bulldozer had to be offloaded at the bottom of the road (see photo below).

The rain then continued to bucket down for a few more days, and it was so wet that even the bulldozer couldn't do any work .... so the poor driver sat up at our staff quarters waiting for some sunshine and drier conditions ... which eventually came .... and he set to work (as pictured below).
It's school holiday's for us at the moment, so our daughter had fun going out on the farm with her daddy one morning, and watching the bulldozer doing his work. I don't think you could beat the great views he had around him as he carried out his work (see photo below) - which hopefully made up for the several days he was 'stranded' on our farm, waiting for the rain to stop !

Since then, the rain has continued - more rain than we've ever had in the 5 years we've lived on the farm. Everything is damp and we've had leaking ceilings and even a flooded bedroom ! Some of our crops - the seeds - have to be planted at a certain depth under the soil & my husband is worried that the sheer force of the rain may have pushed the seed deeper into the soil .... which will cause a problem when it germinates ..... but only time will tell .... and until then, well - I think I may have to really start work on building that boat I mentioned a while back - so that we can 'float' in to the city to get supplies if we need to !

Crisp Blue Skies & A Snow Capped Peak ....

If you click on the photo to enlarge the view, you'll be able to see Kilimanjaro's icy peak - as viewed from our farm at the moment

We're having so much rain on the farm at the moment, and there seems no end in sight ! We have a few hours - or a day or two - of sunshine, before it comes bucketing down again. Roads turn to slush, dogs are shooed out as their muddy paw prints cover the floors, cat's stay curled up inside all day in warm spots, washing remains damp and kids are housebound (and, after a while even previously 'fun' things like painting and various crafts are deemed 'b-o-r-i-n-g !') But, as a farmer's wife .... I'll try not to complain !

However, with all this rain comes a certain feeling of 'newness' as Africa's dust is washed clean, shoots of new grass and tiny wildflowers appear at our feet almost overnight, the African earth turns a deeper red, the sky a crisper blue and Kilimanjaro's snow capped peak, a more brilliant white.

You can almost breathe the newness in, feel it all around you and although it's hard to capture in a photograph, I took one to share with you all (click on the photo above to enlarge it) ... to try and give you an idea of what I mean.

This photo was taken last week, just before you turn in to the road which takes you past the farm guest house & straight to our house - the building to the right of the photo is part of our farm labourer's quarters, the dark green triangular hilly part which you see just meeting the skyline is part of the Kilimanjaro forest and, of course, that great white icy chunk looming up ahead is the snowy top of Mt Kilimanjaro herself - in all her glory !

The Rain Came Down ................

And .... washed our roads away !

After severe drought like conditions and months of very little rain .... it's been pouring down for the past 10 days or so ........

Our farm roads are in a bit of a mess at the moment - as you can see by these photo's taken last week on our way back from town ......

But we finally made it to the house .... to be met by Justin (seen below helping to offload the car), full of smiles and happy to have a chance to wear his gumboots (which are a bit of a status symbol on the farm - click here to read more).

My daughter is concerned that the Easter bunny may not make it up our muddy farm roads - but I've assured her that she has nothing to worry about .....!

Hope that you're having a good 'Good Friday' and looking forward to the long Easter weekend ahead as much as I am ....

Camping At The Farm Guest House .....

The children slept in small tents dotted throughout the guest house garden .....

In the afternoons they had 'free time' & would play ball games and 'hide & seek' in the guest house garden

We recently hosted one of the local schools out to our farm for a 2 night field trip. There were around 65 kids in total, plus around 10 teachers who accompanied them. The children were aged around 10 years, and came from schools in 2 different Tanzanian towns.

They all camped up at our farm guest house (you can read a post I wrote about our guest house, and see more photo's of it over here). The children slept in small 2-4 man tents in the garden - as did some of the teachers, and I think that a few of the teachers slept in the guest house (I don't blame them !)

The school came with their own kitchen tent which was pitched at the back of the guest house (which has it's own fenced garden) and a team of cooks - all 3 meals a day were prepared 'bush style' on open fires for the kids and served in a 'dining' tent. They even had special 'toilet' tents set up at the back of the garden ('long drop' style but not quite as primitive as the toilets I showed you over here last year !)

The kids had a great time on the farm, splitting in to smaller study groups and taking part in various activities/going on outings on both our farm and in the surrounding areas. Hubby got to take a small group around and discuss 'Commercial Farming' with them, followed by a picnic afterwards and our daughter got to join in on all of this (aswell as many of their 'free time' activites), which she of course loved !

This group of pupils, in a few years time when they are a little older, will eventually have a school field trip which involves climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and the teachers were telling me that small field trips like the one they held at our farm - which involve things like pitching their own tents, using bush kitchen and toilet facilities and sleeping out under the stars - are an introduction to what they will experience when they climb Kilimanjaro one day.

Interestingly, the youngest person to ever (illegally) summit Mt. Kilimanjaro was a boy aged 7. The minimum youngest age to (legally) climb the mountain is 10 (and this record is currently held by someone, too) and the oldest person to ever summit was a 79 year old man.

Crazy ! Crazy ! The whole lot of them.

And .... did you hear about the lady who holds the world record for gazing at Kilimanjaro from her back garden every day for the past 5 years and repeating to friends/family 'I will never climb that mountain, so don't even ask !' She has a blog and did have everyone - momentarily - fooled though, when she wrote this post last year.

The Snows Of Kilimanjaro ....

I took the title of this blog post from Ernest Hemingway’s book of the same name (which is actually a collection of short stories) as it seemed fitting for the photo’s I wanted to show you today.

I took these two photo’s of Mt Kilimanjaro (or ‘Kili’ as she is affectionately known) a few weeks ago. The second one shows exactly where our farm is located – all 3500 acres of it completely dwarfed by Kili’s towering 5891 m (19344 feet) height.

At different times of the year … month …. day …. even the hour, she can look totally different, and she’s not always easy to photograph. In these photos I think that her snow looks like white icing sugar (frosting) dripping off a (still warm-from-the-oven) chocolate cake … mmmm !

Her snow cap has been a cause of concern and debate over the years, and researchers stated in 2007 that 85% of the ice which covered her in 1912 had completely disappeared, and that 26% of the ice which covered her in 2000 was also gone. An increase in the Earth’s surface temperature is one of the factors being blamed for this – and Kilimanjaro is not the only African mountain where this is happening.

Some say that her ice cap will, in all likelihood, have completely disappeared within the next 20 years. It is hard to imagine this, and I really hope that they are wrong – for what would this magnificent extinct volcano be, without her ever changing blanket of snow ?

Wet, Muddy Farm Roads ! (And Lush Green Scenery)

The 'main' road leading from our farm to the city, above (before it meets the tar) - is lined with ..... green.

The entrance to our farm - below - welcome ! See that patch of water on the road there ?

Well, this is it - below ! Put the car into four wheel drive mode (and windows UP !) and .... we're off ......

Now we're on the farm itself - don't you think (below) it's looking lovely and green ?

Ugh ..... another tricky bit of wet road to negotiate (below) .........

As you can see in the photo below, we even have our own small stream that was never there before !

Getting closer to the farm house now ..... the road here is much firmer .......

View of the farm fields along side the road pictured above .... this is where our Coriander crop was planted earlier this year - which you can read about here.

330 mm's of rain in 6 weeks - phew ! If it carries in like this, we'll be floating away come Christmas day !

Our Farm Guest House .....

This, above, is the small guest house (which we also sometimes call the 'guest cottage') which sits just behind our farm workshops (the first 3 photo's in this post were all taken when the landscape was still green - it looks browner and drier here at the moment !) I wrote a little about the guest house quite some time ago in a post over here. It is currently used about 2 weekend's a month, for horseback safari clients.

A fellow farming couple, who also live in the Kilimanjaro area (though not very close to our farm) run these horseback safari's. They are also our vets, and have helped me a lot with stray/neglected animals on our farm over the years. The photo below shows some of their horses grazing in the fenced garden of the guest house.

The guest house has 2 bedrooms, a bathroom (with shower/toilet/basin), a kitchen, dining area and a lounge which can be used to sleep 2 extra people - the lounge has a wonderful fireplace, too. (I'm doing some work on the interior at the moment, so might include some interior photo's in an upcoming blog post - it's pretty 'rustic').

The veranda is very sheltered and the views from it look out over Mt Meru and this is where I have another dining table set up - as it's the perfect place for guests to eat ! It's so sheltered infact, that we've had friends over to stay who's children have opted to spend the night in sleeping bags out on the veranda !

The photo below shows the views from the guest house garden .... the base of Mt Meru is barely visible in all that fluffy cloud .......

This below, is the veranda roof - it was looking a bit tatty so has recently been covered with dried banana leaves. This is a very common way of covering outside rooves here - it looks much better than the bare fibre glass roof which it covers.

And these are the 2 fundi's who completed the roof in about 2 days - aren't they clever ?! They were very proud of their work, and happy for me to take their photograph once they had completed it.

Since we now have 2 children, and our house only has 4 bedrooms (one for hubby & I, one for our daughter, one for our son and one as an office), if we have visitors to stay in the future, we will put them up at the guest house - mainly to sleep, as they will of course enjoy all their meals and daily living with us at the main farm house.

Just thought I'd let you know ..... incase you were planning on visiting us anytime soon ;)

Come For A Drive Out To The Farm With Me .... ?

Would you like to come for a drive out to the farm with me today ? I know you've said you've always wanted to ! Well, what are we waiting for then ?! Put your sunglasses on (the African sun can be FIERCE and I'm never without mine !) & buckle up - there's plenty of bottled water in the back. Okay - off we go ................................ !

Ahhhhh .... what have we here ? Oh look - it's someone carrying grass & stuff home to feed their livestock. I know, I know - he's a bit overloaded AND there's a guy sitting on top of the load aswell. Do you think he's enjoying the view ? Shall we wave to him as we overtake them ? Yes, let's !

Okay, we've turned off the main tar road now and are heading straight through one of the larger villages you pass through just before the farm .... oh, those places along the roadside ? Shops. You can buy anything there from fabric, to coal irons, to plastic buckets, to sugar, to .... oh, perhaps even maybe a live goat ! Or a chicken - depending on what you feel like for supper tonight ?

Here are some kids playing outside their home. Oh, their poor Mum - look at all that washing hanging outside. Must be washday today ! The kids are playing some game where they're taking it in turns giving piggy backs. You know something ? The children here are so happy all the time. They have so little - well, NOTHING - yet they are happier than a lot of the kids I've come across in some first world countries ... who have so much. They're cheerful, respectful and eager to learn. And so grateful for anything you can give them. Even if it's just a smile - or a wave - so come on, let's wave to the next 'gaggle' of kids we pass around the next corner .....

Okay, this is now officially "The End Of The Tar Road" .... I know what you're thinking ! Hold on tight ! It's a bumpy ride .... don't worry though, I made it on this road at 8 months pregnant ... and they say that the bumpy vibrations of good for cellulite ... yes, you know - like one of those fancy vibrating-belt-weight-loss-melt-the-inches-away thingys ?

The road goes on .... and on ..... see those bluish coloured hills to the right there ? Just below the puffy white clouds ? Those are the western foothills of Kilimanjaro ... that's where our farm is .... Hey ? What was that ? No ! Of course not - I've never climbed the mountain - and I have no intention of doing so, either, thank you very much ! An old school friend of mine has challenged me to climb it with her next year though. (NO ! DON'T YOU EVEN THINK ABOUT IT !!!! You are NOT going to be seeing any "Food, Fun & Farm Life" blog posts 'live' from the top of Kilimanjaro - 'cause it's not happening !)

How good is your eyesight ? Okay, well - if you squint hard enough (or click on the pic below to enlarge !) you'll make out some Zebra and a couple of Thomson's Gazelle (bottom right hand corner) - buck with distinctive white/black stripes down their sides. Do you see them ?

Okay, okay .... see those gently sloping hills to the left over there ? The farm is just opposite those - not far to go now. Well - by African standards that is.

Hey ! We'd better stop the car ! I think that's a giraffe on the left side of the road. Hold on .... it is - yes ! Ooohhh .... how exciting, I love seeing game nearby the farm .... look at him, isn't he graceful ? You know the giraffe is Tanzania's national symbol ?
Hey - look ! Another 3 giraffe up there on top of that ridge ! I tell you something .... that's just where the sun sets. Imagine if we could get a photo of THAT ? Phew - we've finally made it ! Have a seat on the veranda .... just flip the seat cushions down as I keep them up because of the dogs. I'll go & get us something to drink and we can wait for .....

Another magnificent sunset over Mt. Meru ...........................

Thanks for joining me on the drive ;) hope you enjoyed it & will come again soon ?