This picture was taken over at the dairy, you can see Gabriel in the background.
Wofsho (which means mill)
We had no electricity at Mulu Farm, but we did have tractors which were fuelled by diesel.
However, some years later we could access electricity as the company that operated the telephone had electricity brought to Mulu on tall pylons. So, we were able to access electricity though I seem to remember it was quite expensive. I don’t ever remember having electricity at the house at Mulu, but we probably used it on the farm to operate the spray race and possibly the mill to grind up wheat for the local people (which we probably charged them for) and grinding some up for us to use as part payment for the staff who worked for us, as we would charge them far less than what the government would charge them. I don’t remember ever having electricity at the house at Mulu, although I do remember having an electric plug for operating a fridge to keep the milk from getting sour so that we could use it for longer. We also used it to keep the milk we bought from the local people from going sour so that we could use it for making a soft cheese (coulomiere) which we could then sell to our customers in Addis Ababa. We also tried to make cheddar cheese but that was not so successful as we did not have the means to press it for long enough to make it last although we did use it for ourselves to give us cheese, we could grate to make all sorts of recipes that we had never managed to before. I seem to remember that we tried to make a press that we could use on the curd to squash it for long enough to harden it so that we could grate it to eat or to make recipes that we had never managed before. It was not very successful as we tried to make it with two parallel lengths of wood strapped together, with a heavy stone hanging from them to squeeze out the water but somehow it did not really work, although I think we tried to use it to make a cheese we could grate. I can visualise it today, as I sit writing about it in the kitchen at Sweet Pea house in Hemyock in November 2023.
It was such fun trying to make all these things rather than just going to buy them in some shop or ordering them on the Internet. SO boring and failing to use your brain or imagination to make all these items and probably far more expensive as well.