Maureen Atsali

I thought I would pop in to give a quick update. The cement work on the house has been completed, and it has been painted, inside and out, and the roof-water catchment and 5000 litre tank installed.

We also had a new arrival on Sunday! We are small enough that every birth is a big deal.

Riona Abhainn wrote:I think its neat that the plot is in your daughters' name so they have something meaningful and as a provision already.  How old are they?

The girls are eleven and twelve. ☺️ They aren’t all that thrilled to be gifted with a farm right now. I hope they’ll appreciate it more when they are older!

Nancy Reading wrote:

Maureen Atsali wrote:Although the indigenous micro organisms are not ready, we went ahead and put them in the first stall with Joyii, our 6 month old kienyeji sow.

Hi Maureen (welcome back!), I don't understand about the indigenous micro organisms, and why the logs in the stall?
I'm looking forwards to seeing your progress - the veg beds look great already!

Nancy, I’m using a method from Korean Natural Farming to create a no-smell piggery. The houses are built with logs, charcoal, and sawdust, and then inoculated with a solution of indigenous micro organisms. The micro organisms colonise the carbon and feed on the pig manure creating a self-cleaning environment that really doesn’t have to be cleaned until the carbon has decomposed and needs to be reset. Theoretically! We will see how it really works in Kenya, where we have termites.

Already we’ve had an issue with the big pig rooting up the logs. If anyone has experience in KNF I’d love to hear how you deal with this!

Aside from construction, we are always working on the garden beds and the perennial berms. We have 20 annual no dig beds planted in rotation, so hypothetically one bed is replanted each week for a continuous harvest.

I’m also working on removing the native Justicia from the berms, and planting sweet potato vine for ground cover, along with planting pigeon pea, desmodium and tree collards. We are taking stock of which of our fruit trees survived the dry season. I know one avocado tree was lopped off by a worker this week - who thought it was a bush in an inconvenient spot!
I’m disabled so when I do the work myself I can only do a few feet at a time.

More pig photos.

We also have two local young men working with my partner to build a 4- stall KNF piggery. The first stall was completed just in time for the arrival of three piglets that we had reserved from neighbors. (2 males, 1 unrelated female.) Although the indigenous micro organisms are not ready, we went ahead and put them in the first stall with Joyii, our 6 month old kienyeji sow.

We have two masons and 3-4 young men from the village applying cement plaster to the outside of our mud house. The mud house was constructed in 2024, the inside was cemented in 2025, now we are doing the outside. The layer of cement turns this into a “semipermanent” house that should last 50-100 years. It prevents the rain and heavy winds from eroding away the mud walls, and protects the wood frames from termites.

My internet connection isn’t that great, so please bear with me as I upload 1 photo at a time. It’s been a chaotic week here, with construction ongoing, a total of 8 workers trampling everywhere, new arrivals, and things breaking all as we try to prepare for the onset of the rainy season.

Let me start with a photo of our newest baby. Oreo, our herd matron, dropped a beautiful little buckling on Monday. These are Small East African goats who normally only deliver singles.

Hi Friends,
It’s been a long time since I actively posted here. I’m Maureen, American who has lived in Kenya since 2011. In 2021 I bought a small plot for my daughters, and with great imagination named it “Patricia and Alice’s Permaculture Center.”
It’s been a long slow process, building infrastructure slowly and step by step as money allowed. We started living in the unfinished house last year. This week we have the masons coming to plaster the outside of our mud-constructed house.
I thought it might be fun to start documenting the progress of things again.

Paula Hudak wrote:So I raise Muscovy for meat... they are not in mallard family and a tree bird. Their meat is more red meat then typical " duck meat"

I tested intolerant/ allergic to duck.... and rabbit...

Does muscovy meat fall under the category of " duck meat" or no, since it's not Oillie and more red meatish? It's a tree bird...

Or would the meat still fall under duck?

I need to decide if I'm out of the muscovy business.

Also I don't like chicken white meat. So what other small game can O raise for meat?

Obviously not a doctor, but to share my own experience.  My gut was/is a hot mess.  My naturopath has declared me an autoimmune sh*tstorm, and I have several diagnoses. I did the comprehensive allergy testing, and I react to almost everything except meat and a few fruits. (Duck was okay for me, but Turkey was in the red). What she told me was that if I gave my body a chance to heal, my immune system would likely calm down and be less hyper-reactive, and I probably wouldn’t have such violent reactions to everything.

My plan has been to go to a strict carnivore diet, but I haven’t succeeded yet 😖. So I can’t say for sure if healing the gut will help… but that’s my hope.

I also raise Muscovies and I love them.  So easy and so delicious.