Stacey's Family Farm

I wrote about a visit to Stacey's family last weekend. I thought you might be interested to see what a middle class family's farm looks like. They moved back to their home area 5 years ago and bought 11 acres. The first thing they did was to plant a hedge around the homestead area with eucalyptus trees also known as sweet gum trees. The are fast growing trees that are used for lumber. Kennedy, Stacey's dad said, "It won't be long until Ryan and Stacey will be needing them for their own homes. The trees were probably already 60 feet tall. The next thing was building of a brick house.

They started an orchard with many types of fruit trees: mango, guava, macademia nut, orange, apple, sweet apple, passion fruit, and papaya. This one is a papaya.

This apple tree was grafted and had several blossoms.

The banana grove probably had at least 30 varieties of bananas, some for cooking and some for sweet eating.

Passion fruit vines had started producing and they weren't even a year old.

They had recently sold over 50 chickens and were starting to rebuild their flock. It was unusual for the chickens to have an inside place to go.

This is Margaret's outdoor kitchen. It is unusual that it is located inside a building. Most Kenyan women cook outside using sticks and charcoal. It is a new development from Kennedy's project, being more efficient. A fire is lit in the bottom part, the fire and heat are contained, the cement around it is heated, smoke isn't a problem since air can't interfere with it and cooking is more efficient. They have only had this stove for a month and were very proud of it. Kennedy was telling that all farmers involved in his project were required to have one.

This is napier grass that is grown to feed cattle. Their hired man was chopping it up to make silage. They also showed us a hedge they have planted that is also used to feed both the cattle and chickens that has protein in it.

Directly behind the bull calf is the house. To the right is the outdoor kitchen building and chicken room.

Uncovering our feast of pilau (spiced rice), spaghetti, meat sauce, Maryland chicken, meatballs, chicken stew, salad and chapati. There was cake, probably the best cake I've had in Kenya that Stacey made for us, fruits from their orchard and ice cream. That's a mango tree behind Kennedy, Stacey's dad.

Behind the family you can see the corner of the outdoor kitchen building and the stand they use to wash and dry dishes and the firewood pile used for cooking.

In the backgronud the closest building is the outdoor kitchen and chicken room, on the right is their house and the far building is the barn for the cattle.