Frustration Continued, Garden, and Fast Movement in Zambia.

The moody skies continue, but the weather has been a farmer's delight. Light showers with plenty of sun

At the time of my blog post last week, my frustration reached new heights. Not about my health, but my old computer. For months, it has been slowing down, and some apps have been doing strange things. For example, last week I posted the previous week’s picture as the header by mistake and couldn't edit it, no matter how many times I tried. Well, that is not quite true; some sites were edited, others not. Another thing that was happening was that the battery would deplete at a rapid rate, making a charger connection essential for more than an hour's work despite the battery being fully charged. I knew I had a problem with it, but I have been resistant to buying a new one. Why would an old man close to seventy-seven want an up-to-date piece of IT technology? They are expensive, and I use them only as a reference for historical events, to reconcile the monthly accounts that Rozanne provides me, and to store pictures. We have to run income and expenditure accounts just as when we were farming, as we rely on income from investments to survive, having, like most Zimbabweans, lost our pensions and savings in the years of hyperinflation, and, for us farmers, the theft of our businesses. 

A bit f a jungle around our pedestrian entry, but I like it as do the bees

“It amazes me how many people, when they question me about events in Zimbabwe, learn that we have no savings or pensions. Sure, in Europe, savings are low in the average household, but, in their view, pensions are sacrosanct. In many parts of the world, this is not true.” - Peter McSporran

In writing my blog, I have to or rather choose to use two apps to carry this out, which I pay for. Grammarly, which in itself is frustrating, wants to change my perfect English all the time. Even when I dismiss it, the very next time I open my document, it demands a change to its interpretation. The other is my publishing tool, Wix, which is not always the easiest beast to manage, often forgetting me and, in doing so, denying me access to my own documents! I have, one way or another, also got the past twenty-five years of my life stored on my computer, business and pleasure, the records in words and pictures, hence my reluctance to change. At the weekend following a very frustrating and bad-tempered Friday evening in my attempts in publishing last week's blog, with everyone else to blame except me and my old computer being the problem I finally asked for assistance from my son, Selby who after spending a whole day on Sunday, his fee a cup of tea, also gave up and said my computer at eleven years old was past its sell by date. Rozanne, being the sensible one in the family, had changed hers, so now I have the use of her old one, of similar age to mine, but the storage is much better configured. I may have as many as a thousand duplicated pictures, for instance, but not as tired or over full, and am promised by Selby he will give me his old one when he changes his, being very up to date as he uses such alien tools as AI and requires the most modern tech you can access, much beyond my limited capability. How I sometimes long for the good old days when a pocket calculator was the only piece of technology you required. I used to tell myself that by doing the sums required on the farm, both in cropping and livestock performance analysis and application and dosing rates, in my head, such as tank mixes, I was exercising my brain. I actually think it did help, but despite this, I am not as nimble anymore, and when I want to know a specific volume of a chemical or nutrient, such as when filling a fifteen-litre knapsack, I ask AI. The advantage here is that it can be asked by voice without grubby, chemical-contaminated fingers touching a keyboard. In fact, you have the answer much quicker than you could type in the question, and you do not have to note it for future use as it is stored for posterity in your device, normally my iPhone. Mind you, that is if you can find it, not always as easy as it seems in my case.

"I struggle with the idea that time spent on a computer is productive. To me, productive is making something, building something, growing something, and even catching something."-Peter McSporran

Rozanne and I received a huge compliment from our son, Selby, this week as he viewed our garden. Seeing the amount of food, in the form of our diverse fruits, he said, "This is not a garden, it is a farm". It was almost like being on your farm when your neighbours complimented you on your crops. For some reason, despite the hurricanes, lots of wind damage, rain, and an unexpected prolonged dry spell before the recent rain, which has been plentiful, gentle and extended, our fruit trees and shrubs have flourished. We have never had so many cherries, mulberries or strawberries at this time of year. Our citrus looks like it's setting good fruit, and our other fruit trees are showing signs of bearing more than we need. Even our walnuts, extremely battered at flowering by the storms, have set a good crop of nuts, and because of the dry spell following the months of rain, little disease as is with our roses, although my stand-in gardener, Rozanne, while I am on light duties, found some powdery mildew which we treated this past week. 

The view from my seat under the peach tree of our back wall. The tree on the upper right is a mulberry from a short piece of stick brought to us by Bob Cary

Regarding the flowers, we have never had so many daffodils and tulips; the white lilies have been and gone. Meanwhile, we seem to have so many other lilies, which are about to flower in multitudes, where there were few in previous years. The roses are very robust, and it is a constant daily task to reduce the number of buds to ensure large blooms rather than multiple small ones. Not all the roses are out yet, but many of the other buds and climbing roses are out, along with our decorative shrubs, including our bottlebrushes. We do not grow many vegetables, as we find growing your own always results in feast or famine. Our neighbours often have excess to their needs, dropping in with handfuls, and they are cheap in the markets and shops, without the expensive flights from the field to the market. The same with the fruit, but we always think our fruit is the sweetest and tastiest, as it spends no time in a cold room. In my spare time back on the farm, I used to go down to Darwendale Dam or Mede Dam, throw a line in the water, and contemplate the world. Now I find myself sitting under a cherry tree or a peach tree, contemplating the garden. I never thought it would bring me such a feeling of solace and peace. Not quite the same as on the banks of the Zambezi or in a boat watching the elephants on Kariba, but a very good third under the circumstances. Certainly a lot better than the tar streets of the UK and its inclement weather. Portugal has the most annual sun hours in Europe, three hundred days a year, just for your trivia knowledge. Luckily, Rozanne also enjoys the garden and has done much of the work over the past three months. She complains I am a hard taskmaster directing her from the chair, but ‘I KNOW’ she enjoys it.

Abundant strawberries in the hanging boxes around our eira(old threshing floor).

Meanwhile, in Zambia 2002, our offices at the ‘Big Brother’ house were humming. I never watched ‘Big Brother’ on TV, but Joan Craft, wife of one of my managers, Dave, was addicted to it when they worked for me on the farm in Darwendale. Our initial abode in Zambia was, as she described it, no privacy. Sadly, both Dave and Joan are no longer with us, but in 2002 they came up and joined us on the farm in Zambia to grow our first trial crop of tobacco that year. We had a constant presence of farmers, bankers and lawyers. We had lawyers, the farmers had lawyers, Universal Leaf Africa had lawyers, and although the agreements between us seemed well laid out, they all had their differing opinions on interpretation, often changing their own initial opinion in the formulation of the final loan agreements, lease agreements, along with sponsors' sign off on the business plans, including cropping programs and equipment purchase. There were a limited number of suppliers in Zambia, although the Agrochemicals were pretty well up to date and available, and could get stock in fairly quickly. Not so with other suppliers, unfortunately, with no competition on fertiliser and the volumes our scheme required, putting stress on them. As there was no local fertiliser manufacturing industry, logistics were the biggest challenge, and theft of this commodity was becoming increasingly common, especially if a railway wagon was stuck in some obscure siding. Luckily, in the end, most of it would arrive, but delays were common. It would not be required until 2003 that crops would be planted, but supply chains into central Africa are slow. Buildings, equipment procurement, land clearing, and other infrastructure would have to be completed well before the crop was planted.

For the first time, even our rhododendron has produced decent flowers

As for equipment suppliers, small tractors were readily available through a Zambia-Asian-owned company, Saro Engineering. This company was a godsend, able to supply the Indian equivalent of the small Massey Ferguson tractors at very competitive prices, despite no competition, along with most small equipment and trailers required for everyday farming operations. For larger tractors, it was harder, with a poor agent for Case, large Massey Ferguson tractors and New Holland. They had never been able to afford to hold stock, so nothing was on their sales floors. Baines from Zimbabwe established a branch which enabled us to obtain ploughs, disc harrows, trailers and ridgers. Tobacco curing equipment and irrigation were supplied mainly from South Africa, and in 2002 we were happy to accept that the South African Rand would not strengthen against the US$, which we had borrowed to buy the equipment. Although the Zambian Kwacha was stable at this time at K4,500 to the US$, most bulk fertiliser and equipment, even if sourced in Zambia, were paid in US$. In mid to late 2002, when we started placing our orders, the Rand to the US$ was roughly 12 to 1; little would we know that when this equipment arrived in Zambia, it would double in US$ terms as the Rand strengthened to 6 to 1 over the next year. When in Africa did local currencies ever strengthen against the US$? We were about to witness it and feel the pain it could cause. 

A late medical update. My biopsy to date has all been negative, waiting for CT results.

Disclaimer: Copyright Peter McSporran. The content in this blog represents my personal views and does not reflect corporate entities.