Garden Progress

Our garden is growing wonderfully.

Yesterday we ate the first snow peas.  They never even made it into the house.

 

Tomatoes are thick on this bush.

 Teeny tiny cucumbers are appearing.

Corn is sprouting.  Soon Simon will need to go out with a 

pastry brush and ensure all the corn is pollinated.

 But...  my pride and joy are the roses which are just beginning to open.

I love roses, especially red roses, and these ones (Mr Lincoln's) are meant to have a beautiful fragrance.

Crochet t-shirt design

I've been very busy with these little flowers lately.  I keep thinking of new projects I could use them for and I still haven't completed the original project which involved curtains for Abby's room.  I must get back to that sometime.

This t-shirt was created because of a suggestion by a friend of mine and so I made my first one for her daughter.  I decided to do some little clips to go with it as well. 

I really like my little flowers.

Next job

Today, Ezra decided the bathroom needed cleaning.  He has informed me that when he grows up he wants to be a "cleaning man".  He begged to do the toilet until I showed him how.  Maybe I can assign him that job from now on.  I wonder what other cleaning jobs I can give him...

My helper

When we had our fourth child we decided to name him Ezra because it means 'helper' and I was pretty certain I was going to need one.

Today he has lived up to his name.  He got the cleaning bug.  After wiping down the walls in our stairwell, he got started on our kitchen cupboards.  I helped with the stairs, but my fingers were getting wrinkled by the time we got to the kitchen and he was doing such a good job that I just left him to it.

Hair clips

I had a little friend visiting with me today and she inspired me to get back to work on an idea that has been hovering in the back of my head for awhile.  Here is the result of her inspiration.

Vegetable garden

It's been many years since we have been able to have a vegie garden, so we were glad to be offered the use of one here at college.  Several weeks ago we took our kids shopping and let them each choose something for the garden, and then Simon and I just added the extra things we wanted.

Abby chose strawberries, Tim chose carrots, Ben chose tomatoes (several varieties) and Ezra (with encouragement from me) chose corn.  we also bought cucumber, celery, snowpeas and several different varieties of lettuce. We had already planted a bean Tim brought home from school and some sunflower seeds.

<== Little tomato already growing.

Bean flowers ==>

<== first strawberry

Sunflower ==>

Avoiding Study

Today is one of my study days.  I have an exam next week and I have alot of study to do.  Therefore I am here at my computer, reading blogs, doing holiday research and generally avoiding what I ought to be doing.

Our children have begged us to camp somewhere over Christmas, so I have booked us into a lovely looking Campground at Lake Wallaga on the South Coast of NSW.  My reason for choosing this spot is that it is very close to a piece of my family history.

In 1880 my Great, Great Grandfather, Lamont Henry Graeme Young, who was a geological surveyor, was called to the newly discovered Montreal Goldfields near Bermagui, NSW.  While he was there, he and four other men got in a boat and headed up the coast.  They disappeared.  The boat was found in very suspicious circumstances in a bay, now named Mystery Bay, but the men were never seen again.  No trace of their bodies was found... apparently.  You can read about it on wikipedia here.   Cyril Pearl also wrote a book about this, titled 'Five men Vanished'.

Earlier this year when my parents visited me, my Dad went to the records office and took digital photo's of all the original documentation about this event.  He has been going over some of it and has developed his own theory about who was responsible.  This morning I discovered a new article (well, not really new, it's from a newspaper in 1887) with information I had not read before which strongly supports my Dad's theory that Carl Schneider, Lamont's assistant, was responsible for the murder of his companions and was seen numerous times after the event.

This interesting research reminded me of a story I wrote about this event several years ago.  I am a member of an online Christian Writers group named FaithWriters who have weekly writing challenges for their members.  Several years ago we were challenged to write something in the 'mystery genre' and I wrote a story about my family history.  It was titled The Missing Husband and told the story from my Great, Great Grandmother's point of view. I received a 'Highly Commended' for it, which means my story came fourth or fifth in my entry level.  I was pretty excited at the time.

If you are interested in reading my other entries at FaithWriters, visit my FW's profile page.