Two rains and a long dry

The most common way to get this ground wrong is to plan as though the year had one growing season with a beginning and an end. It does not. Kajiado has two rains and a long dry, and the calendar that will govern this farm goes round twice.

The whole farm is set against this calendar, and every season tests whether we have read it right.

The shape of it

The long rains run March to May and peak in April. The short rains run October to December and peak in November. Between and after them is dry: properly dry, not merely without rain. June to September is the stretch you have to plan across rather than through.

The grass comes in a rush

When the rain arrives, grass comes on faster than any herd can eat it. On the grazing land and on the farm's own fodder blocks, there will be more feed in April and May than the animals need. That surplus is the most valuable thing the farm produces all year, and the easiest to waste.

So the wet season is for cutting

Rhodes and Brachiaria cut at early flowering, dried and baled into hay. Napier and forage sorghum chopped, packed and sealed as silage. The hay goes under mabati, off the ground. The silage stays sealed until the grass has gone.

Which means the busiest weeks on this farm are not the dry ones. They are the wet ones, with every hand cutting, turning, baling and packing while the weather allows.

And the dry season is for feeding

From July the grazing thins, and by September it is mostly bare earth and browse. The animals still walk out (the goats will find something on every acacia), but what brings them home in condition is what is in the store.

The paddock that looks wastefully full in April is the one that feeds the herd in August, if it was cut and put away in time.

What we would tell ourselves

Plan the dry, not the wet. Anyone can keep animals through a rainy season. The whole difficulty, and most of the design of this place, is what happens in the months when nothing falls.