Laikipia
For a rancher north of Mount Kenya, a man’s best legacy might be a good bloodline of Boran beef cattle. For years I wanted to buy a bull from George Aggett. His Borans are wide and deep and they are natural polls, that is, they are born hornless. George’s grandfather settled on the Laikipia plateau in 1920 and for nearly 100 years the Aggetts had kept almost a closed herd. I heard they never, ever sold bulls, and so it took me a long time to pluck up courage to approach George, an ex-Royal Marine with steely eyes and a fighter’s frame. When we acquired our first few cows a long time ago, the craggy man who sold them to us observed (and it was not a question), ‘You’re not a proper farmer.’ Fifteen years later I’m just about tolerated by other ranchers. Good advice is what a learner like me needs most and it’s hard to come by out here.
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