Small Gardens

My other garden-related project has to do with the small yard inside our tin fence, directly surrounding our house. When we moved here it was a patch of sandy dust, with hardly a green thing in sight. I have made it my goal to turn the whole place green, and create a papaya and flower garden. I started the papaya trees from seeds, and thankfully they grow fast. If they can survive the little boys I think I will have the garden I’ve been hoping for. 

I have also planted lots of purple “sand flowers” and green beans. The green beans had a promising start but recently have been attacked by bugs. We only got a handful of beans before that happened, but they are extra long! See photo.

The flowers are still thriving, and so far only two papaya trees have been hacked up by the boys. One of them has recovered quite nicely. 

Orcxance has gone to work with a will to grow a special kind of yellow flower that eventually becomes a bright and beautiful bush. Despite multiple destruction attempts by the little boys, he does not give up. He has also added some other edible plants to our garden: ngayingayi and pondu, two local leafy green plants.

Recently I took the risk of transplanting some papaya sprouts to our garden patch outside our yard, and we’ll see if they survive. I also planted half the plot with peanuts again.

“No More Hand-Sewn Clothes!”

We found a little sewing shop nearby our house and about 1 Saturday a month I go there and sew. The owner is a little old man who is kind enough to let me use one of his two machines, as long as it’s on the weekend and his employees are away. 

I have enjoyed designing and making several little girl/baby girl outfits. Some are for gifts, and some are to keep for our little one.

Before we found the sewing shop, I tried sewing by hand, thinking I could follow my older sister’s methods - but I didn’t have the patience, or the tiny stitches, to make it work. I soon gave up and waited for an opportunity to use a machine. 

That opportunity soon came, and now I can happily machine-sew as the need arises. I usually do my designing and cutting at home, and then bring a bag of projects along with me to the shop.

P.S. Bonus points to the first one to guess where the quote is from

Before and After

Here are some “before and after” photos to show the differences and improvements between when we moved in (December) and now (Aug). It is still a work in progress, but overall the yard has changed from sandy dust to a luscious green - which was what I wanted anyway.

Before

After

Before

Now

Now

Back in December

Morning Times

Our Thursday morning tradition is to get up at 5am and go for a jog/run and then play volleyball (or some kind of variation on volleyball). Afterwards we walk about a mile back to our neighborhood and then have a breakfast picnic on the front porch with our neighbors.

“Truly, it is worth being poor and greatly tried in faith, for the sake of having day by day such precious proofs of the loving interest which our kind Father takes in everything that concerns us. And how should our Father do otherwise? He has given us the greatest possible proof of His love which He could have done, in giving us His own Son, surely He will with Him also freely give us all things.”

-George Muller (excerpt from Answers to Prayer from George Muller’s Narratives)

Harvesting another small crop of peanuts. 

We have grown peanuts several times in the small garden patch behind our house, and now we are trying to see if potatoes will grow, but we are using a different place because after our latest harvest some of the neighbors filled our peanut patch with trash, and we haven’t taken the time to remove it yet. Somehow they couldn’t figure out the difference between a “compost pile” and a “trash pile.” At least they’ve stopped dousing the area with charcoal, which completely ruins the soil and leaves it unproductive for months.

Window Grids

Thanks to some kind and generous friends from my home church in NC, we were able to get bars for all three of our windows. This should deter future thieves from trying to break in and allows us to have a little more ventilation in the house which is perfectly fine with me! After buying the grids, Orcxance did the installations himself with some help from a friend who’s been staying with us this past week. 

Most houses in our neighborhood already have these bars but ours didn’t so we were very thankful to be able to install them after living here for 7 months without! Another way God has provided for us through His people.