Shelter, trees, and maize farming on Omodeni 2 farm as viewed from the Ijaye Road across the stream.
Another view of the same section of the Omodeni 2 Farm.
Omodeni 2 Farm, near west end. Area was allocated to farmers and cleared in January, but has not been farmed.
Area near shelter, seen earlier from the road across the stream. Excessive pruning of trees has continued despite repeated assurances that it would not. These farmers (from Togo) will be asked to leave by early December when current maize is harvested.
Another view of the same area including the shelter. Most of these trees have one or two small flowers.
View of the road across the stream from where the earlier pictures were taken.
Same direction as the previous picture, with the farm in the foreground.
Another example of severe pruning.
Another clear section after a few yards of uncleared farm. This is also recently planted with maize by the same Togo farmers.
Section of farm following maize area. This was planted with maize in Oct 2008.
Heavily treed section. Segun has made some progress, but most trees remain.
This area was cleared of trees in Oct 2008 by Segun and me. Here a vine has taken over the tree, and Segun is cutting it off at the roots.
Same tree as previous picture.
Next to the area we cleared of trees last year is a section farmed in casava by a farmer from Ogbomosho.
Looking back at the tree line across the casava. The palm trees mostly rise above the casava.
Following the casava is another maize section managed by the same Togo farmers. Another stretch of casava can be seen in the background.
At ground level, the trees in the casava face little competition.
This is the same tree from above, fighting the casava for sunlight.
In the next section of casava many of the leaves do not look healthy.
Another unhealthy-looking casava leaf.
Overview of this casava farm, showing the inter-planted maize. If the casava leaves were healthy, it would not be possible to see through the top leaves.
In this section of the farm, yams and casava were recently farmed. The yams were harvested around January, and the casava much more recently.
Near the path, the trees look good but have been pruned heavily for easier passage.
Segun is attempting to create a detour that will allow the tree to spread out.
An early fruit bunch in one of the trees along the path, expected to ripen in November or December.
In this water-logged section of the farm, several of the trees have multiple birds nests. It does not seem that the nests harm the trees.
This tree is slightly discolored, presumably from too much water, not from the birds.
Birds nest close-up. The nest is made of strips of palm leaf.
The water in this area is up to 3 or 4 inches deep, and is moving.
Another tree with fruit near the edge of the clearing. This tree has seven bunches, all apparently due to ripen in November or December.
This entire frond has many spots, though most of the rest of the tree is clear.
This is one of the trees the birds have apparently favored for supplying their nesting materials. Still, this tree has ripening fruit on it.
A picture of one of the bunches from the previous tree.
This tree, not a palm, has hundreds of nests. Three of the birds are pictured.
More birds.
Still more birds.
A view of the entire tree.
A close-up of one of the branches stripped for nesting material. A red cloth or two tied to a tree might keep them away.
On closer inspection, this and most of the trees near the shelter are flowering.
Flowers from near the shelter.
One last view of the early un-farmed section.
Near the trail, someone is turning a tree into planking material, probably with a chain-saw.
Unfortunately, when they felled the tree, it fell onto our farm, and so far they have left it there.
Most of the vine photographed on Saturday (26Sep09) now appears dead and brown. Segun is finishing off the remaining strand of the vine.
This section on Saturday was not yet planted - now planted with yams.
This tree has fruit on it, but none of the trees were found today to have ripe fruit.
