Latest in life and the farm

Wow it has been a almost 2 week since I have posted and probably the longest lapse since I have been on blurt.

Why is that?

Well work has definitely taken its tole. I had to make a major change at the beach resort that involved the accountant and the second in command here under me. I wont go into two much detail here but he no longer works for me and in a lot ways it is a good thing because his energy was toxic. The bad news is that I am having to do way more but better and more efficiently.

For accounting I think I will work with someone that can just take care of the major monthly filings the day to day I have already worked out with staff on hand for documentation and the basic book keeping. I am compiling the reports fully now and everything seems to be working ok.

My wife is also in her last few weeks of pregnancy and we are expecting our boy any day now. Due to this her mother has also come down from the north of the country. She will be helping @dzigbordi recover from child birth, she will also give our son his first baths. She will massage his little muscles from months of being curled up in a ball in the womb.

She will also be cooking a lot of soups and things to make my wife feel at home and also help here heal. This comes with bringing a lot of food items with her. As you can see here.

This is dried and smoked guinea fowel. It is similar to chicken but just a little smaller. They are great to have around because they look like little dinosaurs and they can easily kill snakes. Not to mention they are tasty to eat.

Lots of corn flour, cassava powerder she also brough me some more millet and sorghum seeds for the farm.

Here is some traditional packaging and bundling for the feet and the head of the guinea fowl. They ride together.

This one looks like Pablo Escobar and Santa Clause teamed up, but it is just corn flour and cassava power again.

Please I hope interpol is not watching my mother in law.

This is an okra and ayoyo stew that has guinea fowl, sea fish and some smoked fish inside. They eat it with tizert which is a lump of starch made from some of the flours.

Dzigbordi's niece is also here with her mom and they have had some time to play on the beach and in the pool.

Mom and niece at the beach side.

The weather had actually be very dry this season as we should be getting some rains but it is not really happening to much so the farm has been pretty dry. Even with my lack of time I have been able to keep up with a little bit of weeding there but it is still looking pretty bad. This is a newer transplant from some cuttings that I nursed from the area before putting it in the farm. This is lemon balm it is great for keeping mosquitos away and can be medicinal also, but it has a very pleasant smell.

In the for-ground here you can see first a Pawpaw that was planted this year and it is taking off nicely in the berm of the swale. There is then a plantain tree behind that and a cassava behind that. In the back ground you can see a much larger pawpaw full of fruit that was planted just last year.

The next swale down has a row of tomatoes to the right where the stakes are and then on the other side in the berm to the left there is some more plantain coming and cassava.

Ground nut volunteers have come up where I harvested some last season. When you are weeding and take one out or harvest there are always a few that get left behind. I hope it continues to happen each season and get thicker and thicker. They are great snacks and also nitrogen fixing and can bee good ground cover also.

Some of the basil and tomatoes form last season are still going and producing although they are struggling with the dry conditions as of late. I really need to take some time and do my irrigation well.

A cassava getting quite large.

A giant cassava tuber harvest. I will do a step by step on the harvest post soon.

My tomatoes and peppers are doing alright and suffering through the dry spells. The sweet potato patch is in the back ground and okra patch behind the millet grass. I have cut down the sorghum and used it to mulch and new ones are coming up from the roots.

This pawpaw tree is producing a huge amount and I need to start pulling more down to let them ripen. They are quite tasty, my wife will enjoy eating them green after she gives birth but it is not good to do some while pregnant.

The second third swale berm is finally getting some development this season here is a plantain growing nicely there are also about 5 or 6 others growing on the other side with pawpaw in between. Next season we will have even more shade and wind break and hopefully more water retention in the soil.

The giant head sunflowers from last season have all bowed their heads and completely dried out.

I finally got a chance to go around and collect many of the heads full of seeds. Many of them have bent over to the point of touching the ground I kicked those throughout the area and even threw a lot of seeds around. We will see what comes up later.

I have a small patch of sorghum that came up in the lower field it is already about 20 feet tall and flowering. Since we are going into the dry season these should dry much better than my batch from last season and hopefully produce some more seed and grain.

I got a good amount of sunflower heads in the bag.

I broke them all up by hand.

And then a spreed them out by the water tank to let some of the chaff blow away and just make sure they are very dry. I will probably rinse them with some water and then treat them with some neem oil so they last for another planting next year.

Thank you for reading another small chapter of life as we know it here in Ghana. We are doing our best to stay positive but the Ghana Cedi is in a phase of hyper inflation going from about 6 to over 15 now to the $ in the last year. These are the little things that can distract me while waiting for my son and dealing with work.