Sunday 23rd March 2008 Sleeping beaty sleeping beatifully.

Isn't she sweet? The baby that is. That's Cathy on the floor. Mum is parked on the seat. Mind you they are both a picture of loveliness. We got the idea for Cathy on the floor from here
although we do it for different reasons. The outcome is the same. Mum keeps her sanity and baby gets to be a sleeping. The particular night this photo was taken, Cathy wouldn't settle in her own bed or our bed. Normally she will settle quite well in one or the other. The other option was for her to sleep on Stephanie until we all went to bed. Not the best idea I think you will agree. Now we had heard that Katie had her second youngest sleep on a blanket on the floor at her feet. The idea being she could keep track of him and at the same time get done what she needed to get done.
The night we did it, Cathy wouldn't settle, so Stephanie got an old sleeping bag come donna come what ever plus Cathy's favourite blanket. Dumped them all on the floor, put Cathy on top and 2 seconds later Cathy was out like a light. Mission accomplished. Daughter happy and sleeping, mummy happy and playing on her computer. Daddy happy. Why? Coz the women are happy. If the women are happy then Daddy is happy.
Today was/is resurrection Sunday. What did we do? Went to church then home and did nothing. I caught up with some reading. Apart from that all we did was to read to the children and nothing else. A rather boring but relaxing day. The type I like occasionally.
And we might just, ha ha, get some rain. These people have the dart board that is supposed to tell us when it is going to rain. If you were to look right now, you would say we had a good reason to be optimistic about getting some rain. I wont hold my breath. I have a 3000 litre tank that I need to be filled. It has around 300 litres in it now. I have another tank with about 70 litres and another with about 120 litres. After that I am back to no watering my herb garden. Yes Melbourne has severe water restrictions. Go here to read all about it. Here is more information.
I put in water tanks around 4 months ago just at the beginning of summer. Fortunately just before Christmas we had a big storm go through and filled my tanks in 2 days. Since then we have had just enough water to keep us going. It is around 5 weeks now since our last rains. We have a small lawn out the back and a herb garden in pots and a pumpkin plant. There is also an olive tree and a grape vine. We use the water from our washing machine and the kitchen sink also. The water from the washing machine goes on the lawn and the kitchen sink water goes on our grape vine. By careful use we do not use any water from the Melbourne water supply on our gardens at all. We are allowed to but don't.
I would like to increase our vegetable production. But I need more mulch and more water storage capacity. I am convinced that if I can get more humus in my soil I can grow more and better vegetables. I also need more water. In this modern day and age one simply cannot expect the government water storage to provide all our needs.
In a week or two I am going to plant broad beans. Two reason. I want to increase the nitrogen in the soil. And i want to get some mulch for my gardens. No we don't like broad beans. But they do have a use and I will use them.
Oh, there is one other reason. I want to encourage Michele to gain an interest in growing things in the garden. She already has two pots that are hers. One she is growing Alison in plus sweet peas. the other has vegetable peas in. The sweet peas are for flowers and the other is for eating. They all grow very fast and are easy to grow. When a girl is 4 years old one wants something that is easy to grow and fast to grow. These are both.