\u00a0 Alliance Francais brought the great Malian artist Vieux Farka Toure to Kumasi. His\u00a0performance\u00a0was both earth shaking and grounding, unsettling and deeply soothing. The band was incredibly accomplished and we were honored to be part of a very intimate audience of about 100 people or so. Sadly, musicians in Mali are being persecuted by a rabid sect of Muslims who\u00a0treated\u00a0artists with having their tongues cut out. Find out more here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n RESEARCH CONTINUES<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The fermenters are bubbling away, sludge continues to dry and ocassionaly Bob descends into the bowels of Suame Magazine in search of parts. More at:\u00a0FS2BD December<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n MARKETING NEVER SLEEPS<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Everybody has something to sell and here in Kumasi, the\u00a0billboards\u00a0are\u00a0guileless. The marketing campaigns reflect the culture in revealing ways. Please visit Signs and Sights<\/a>\u00a0for more. <\/p>\n ELODIE<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Camille was happy for the opportunity to spend the day in Obuasi with Elodie and a few days later, the morning at her Ranch at Lake Bosumtwi. They looked at a mare who is in need of a new home and hung out at the ranch with nanny Efia, son Si and father, Daniel. Lots of fun and many more photos at:\u00a0Elodie<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n EVACUATION<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n After an agro chemical spill at a storage facility in Kumasi poisoned the air with dimethoate vapors, we made a quick getaway to Lake Bosumtwi. More on this story at:\u00a0Evacuation<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n COCOA VILLAGE<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n We stayed at the perfect place for a working holiday. As it turned out Cocoa Village was right next door to an ill fated kapok tree which was cut down in the name of progress. See the whole story on this page:\u00a0Cocoa Village<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n TWO GARDENS AND A MENAGERIE<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Our lives revolve around the vegetable gardens, chickens and goats. Bob tends the container garden on the deck, continually adding plant starts which often work their way down to Jeremy’s expansive back yard beds. Jeremy also enjoys messing with the goats and teaching them tricks, such as assisted levitation. There is a lot more to see on this page:\u00a0Farmette<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n ERIC AND HIS FAMILY<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Eric is now the proud father of three children, His wife, Linda holds their day-old baby son who will be officially named at one week of age as is the custom. Eric is holding young Miss Maame.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n MAAME AND THE BOYS<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0 Maame and Eric with Louis, she has not seen obronis (foreigners) this close up before. Outside the neighbor kids worked hard to draw water up from the well.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n WEEKLY SHOPPING – December 18<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n This is Camille’s view during most of our weekly shopping trips, peering out the windows,camera ready to catch pictures of the unusual. We stopped at the Post Office and were rewarded with a Christmas card from\u00a0Carolyn\u00a0and a letter for Justin.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n ON PARADE<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n What looked like a parade on December 18th was actually the NPP (National People’s Party) protesting the outcome of the recent election. And Christmas is also in full bloom.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n COMMON (UNCOMMON) SIGHTS<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n While it is common here, it would be uncommon in the States to see a woman carrying a pan of books on her head or corn stalks growing like weeds on the busy downtown streets of a city of two million people.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n SOLSTICE<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n December 21st, the shortest day of the year began with the sun glowing through a dusty sky. We will soon be receiving copious amounts of dust from the Sahara, so thick the sun will be hidden from view on most days.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n SPOT’S NEW FRIENDS<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n To view all the Spot PIcs from 2012, including those taken with the life-sized Spot, please check out: Spot 2012<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n MORINGA SMOOTHIE\/PINEAPPLE START<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n The moringa, an tree noted for it’s health benefits is growing so quickly in the backyard garden that Camille has begun to harvest leaves to add to her morning smoothies. Bob is growing roots on this pineapple top for another addition to Jeremy’s prolific garden.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n ____________________________________________________________<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n THIS MONTH’S QUOTES<\/span><\/p>\n “To choose doubt as a philosphy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation” – Life of Pi<\/span><\/p>\n “I love what Carl Safina, who writes about the ocean, says in\u00a0Moral Ground<\/em>: \u201cWe think we don\u2019t want to sacrifice, but sacrifice is exactly what we are doing. . . . We\u2019re sacrificing what is big and permanent to prolong what is small, temporary, and harmful. We\u2019re sacrificing animals, peace, and children to retain wastefulness.\u201d So many of us wake up in the morning and eat a breakfast of food we don\u2019t believe in and then drive a car we don\u2019t believe in to a job we don\u2019t believe in. We do things that we know are wrong, day after day, just because that\u2019s the way the system is set up, and we think we have no choice. It\u2019s soul-devouring.” – Kathleen Dean Moore from her interview in the December, 2012 issue of The Sun Magazine<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n “It\u2019s unjust that people in Africa \u2014 who don\u2019t reap the \u201cbenefits\u201d of the reckless burning of fossil fuel \u2014 are suffering from droughts and crop shortages as a result of the West\u2019s consumption of oil.” – attributed to Desmond Tutu from the same interview<\/span><\/p>\n _____________________________________________________________<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Search the site for glorious moments from the past, using this handy Search Engine<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n We blog, too! Just in case the photo album didn’t quite satisfy your appetite, check out Plastic _____________________________________________________________<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n ____________________________________________________________<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a fabulous finale to another fine year, we celebrated life, common sense, fun and fulfillment. Fulfillment in the energy research project that brought us to Ghana, common sense in evacuating Kumasi after a chemical spill fouled the air, fun grooving to incredible live music, horse shopping with beautiful Elodie and chilling out at Lake […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2373,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[143,137,141,76,129,125,80,44,64,34,84,74,136,135,142,140,139],"class_list":["post-2238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photo-album","tag-abattoir","tag-agye","tag-andreas","tag-bosumtwi","tag-chickens","tag-elodie","tag-eric","tag-goats","tag-horses","tag-jeremy","tag-justin","tag-kapok","tag-kat","tag-linda","tag-moringa","tag-obuasi","tag-vieux-farka-toure","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2238"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2652,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2238\/revisions\/2652"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/20121203VieuxFarkaToureBand.jpg\")
\u00a0\u00a0![\"\"](\"https:\/\/troutsfarmtoo.com\/latest\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/20121203BobVieuxFarkaToureCamille.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n
\nFarm Animals<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\nBLOG<\/a> * DIVERSIONS<\/a> * LATEST PHOTOS<\/a> * LINKS<\/a> * OLD PHOTO ARCHIVES<\/a> * TROUTSFARM HOME<\/a><\/h4>\n