Rain, gardens and baskets!

Rain, lovely rain.  We are getting lots of rain.  In Maralal.  In Ngurunit.  Plenty of rain, finally, after so long without.  I have been in Maralal since coming back from Ngurunit a couple weeks ago.  I get news from people there that it is raining well and that our cattle have been able to leave our compound and go back to their normal life of following the pasture and being kept in grazing camps where ever the grass and fodder is.  After over 4 months of feeding them hay and supplements at our Ngurunit home to keep them alive, it is wonderful to hear that the conditions have improved.  I will get my veranda back to myself now instead of having to share it with a bunch of cows!!  Yay!!

Here in Maralal I have been busy getting my yard and garden back in shape.  We have been letting our chickens run free range around the compound and I have gotten sick of them leaving a mess everywhere, especially in the house and on the front veranda.  Stepping on chicken poop while barefoot is a horrible squishy feeling.  Yuck!  So I made the decision to break down their old collapsing pen that we have had them in for over 10 years and expand the newer back pen so that I can keep them locked in, yet still give them lots of room and a grassy area to be in.  The old pen, I have put a fence around for making a secure, very fertile garden space.  It was high time to start growing vegetables again.  With the abundant rain, I have some motivation to give it a try even though in the past I have had some huge garden failures.  Cows eating the corn.  Poultry digging out the potatoes.  Greens getting full of bugs.  Everything dying from lack of water.  Dogs digging things up.  So many disasters.   But a few successes too, so I am determined to make a good show of it this time.  I have started with a secure fence – around two spaces, actually.  The old chicken pen will be for mostly vegetables and the other space I am making into an herbal garden.  Then I also plan to plant pest control flower varieties in both gardens.  I am working on setting up composting piles and separating my kitchen waste again.  I know all the right steps to make a garden, but I am mainly a livestock person.  I usually lose interest with the garden so easily.  I try to give responsibility to others for doing what needs to be done, like watering, weeding or keeping up with composting, but this breaks down quickly and it all falls apart.  This time I will persevere, do most of the work myself and harvest the fruits (veggies) of my labor!  Though first I am still struggling to get the needed seeds.  In Maralal, I can only get the basics, and almost no herbs.  So some of the more interesting things will have to wait until my Nairobi trip the end of this week.  I had potatoes starting to sprout so I planted those.  Then I managed to get head lettuce seed in town here, but leaf lettuce varieties and other salad additives are not available.  Definitely need those.  I planted onions, mostly for pest control and red beets, as I love those.  I want cherry tomatoes, but can only get the seed for the regular large tomatoes.  Those tomatoes I can buy so easily in the market, I don’t need to grow my own.  That is the main aim of my garden, to grow the things I can’t buy in town from people who are so much better gardeners than I am.  Herbs are definitely in the category of not able to get in Maralal.  The only seeds I could get in town was coriander, called dania here.  I don’t really like this herb though Kenyans love it.  Used in a lot of Indian food too.  So I bought a packet and planted today.  What I will be looking for in Nairobi are seeds for basil, oregano, sage, mint and rosemary.  Those, especially when fresh, are amazing in my food.  Yum!  I’ve had all of them growing in my garden before, but due to the many challenges mentioned above, nothing is surviving.  Mainly, the latest drought saw the end of my remaining rosemary bush!  Time for another try!!

Anyway, enough about my garden.  Today I also received a lot of baskets from Ngurunit to fill our latest order from Swahilli Imports in Eugene, Oregon.  I got them all registered today.  Tomorrow packing up in boxes and Thursday down to Nairobi to drop at the shippers.  Managed to talk to the Ngurunit Basket Weavers manager today and give out another order from The Basket Room, which supplies into Britain.  It is so good when the women can be earning from their weaving.  I must make more efforts on marketing and am trying to figure out how to get the Nomadic Baskets website updated and effective.  I have spent too much time in the bush over the years and am actually quite clueless about all this worldwide connectivity.  I am learning.  Though, anyone out there who could help, feel free to contact me!  Any assistance totally welcome!!  Must end here now.  Still have more work to do on the basket shipment before I can call it a day.  Might start a fire in the fireplace too.  The rains do bring on a chill! A lovely chill.  Let rain let it rain let it rain!!  Yay!