Kokosa Cattle and Harvesting Vegetables for Sale

Written by Lonny (July 27, 2010)

This morning after a smashed banana and peanut butter sandwich I went out to work the cattle with Mulgeta.  He already had the ones that we needed separated out so it was easy for us to process them.

I walked around the farm looking at the grass and the cattle.  There were a lot of thistles near where the bulls were grazing so I waved the guard over and showed him how to cut the thistles then gave him my knife and motioned for him to continue.  Even though we don’t speak the same language he got the idea.

We loaded the harvested beets, chard, and lettuce into the truck and headed out.  I had Abera pray for us before we left.  The road was scary but we made it out.  At one point I was sure that we were headed into a ditch but the truck pulled away from it at the last minute.  When we reached the main road I stopped to change out of my boots and let Abera drive.  We said another prayer of thanksgiving.

We dropped the vegetables off at the Arsi Negele office for them to sell for us. Mekonen said that everyone was harvesting at this time so the prices were depressed.  We shouldn’t use the results we get from this trial to base our future plans.  The vegetables must have looked good to them because several of the staff were offering to buy them.

We drove on to Adami Tulu to meet with Dr. Hailu.  We arrived early so we went to the cafeteria to see if we could get some lunch.  Abera had driven very fast from Arsi Negeli with that in mind.  Unfortunately they didn’t have any food left so Abera had a cup of coffee and I got nothing.

We met with Dr.Hailu and Ato Taha to discuss our plans for the recipient animals.  I offered to synchronize them and breed them on Friday to Holstein bulls.  They thanked me for the offer but declined saying that they needed to set up their own plan and they could use their own technicians for the breeding.  I was very happy that they took the initiative of doing their own project.  Now I will have more time on Friday to do other things and I won’t feel like I left them hanging with the recipients.  Abera did a great job setting the stage for our discussion.

Mideksa already had the cows ready for us to synchronize.  I felt bad telling him that we had changed our plan and only needed to check one cow.  He took it in stride and quickly separated out the cow for us.  To show my appreciation I gave him the camping utensil tool which has a spoon, fork, knife, can opener and cork screw.  He was very pleased and said that he would hand it down to his posterity.  He was also happy when I told him hello from Joseph.

Abera drove me back to the Lilly Valley.  I had a head ache and needed to rest.  I showered and felt much better so I spent the afternoon doing emails and chatting with my sweetheart on Skype.