Back to My Roots
Today was spent getting back to my roots, literally, ha! I've not done much farming in my life, but I come from a long line of farmers from Bohemia and Czech areas of Iowa. I'm even told my great-grandfather has a strain of tomatoes named for him by the University of Arkansas. I'm really excited about this opportunity to learn permaculture techniques, especially considering we are doing things the "old fashioned way" with muscle power instead of gas power. We started with breakfast and a short meeting at 7:30am, then into the shamba (Swahili for farm) at 8. Everyone worked hard and learned a lot! We are looking forward to tomorrow.
It was a great day to work in the shamba! (farm)
We split everyone into 4 groups and got the teams equipped.
A time of prayer and instruction before getting to the hands-on stuff.
Seiko likes to supervise.
Getting some instructions on the swales (mitaro in Swahili) we are about to dig. Group 1, which happened to be my team, got to dig the deepest swale at 1 meter
JB, our permaculture instructor, teaching Brendan how to use the A-frame level to mark where to dig a swale following the contour of the land.
The team worked hard and learned a lot! We had a good mix of Mercy Home staff, Mercy Christian Academy teachers, Mercy Baptist Church members, Mercy Home teens, and even a couple of teens from our community that we sponsor to attend high school.
Karson is always willing to work hard.
This will be a speed-break between swales. The idea is to slow down the flow of runoff water in order to capture all the water instead of allowing it to carry the topsoil away. We will not need much irrigation, but rather we will capture enough water to keep plants growing even during the dry seasons. Furthermore, we will be raising the water table, which will bring up nutrients to the sub soil and top soil.
A hard day's work, and I have the blisters and sore back to prove it, haha. It sure felt good though.
4 swales down, 4 to go.