What? Me a Tomato Farmer?

I am inclined to believe I am !(laughing out loud!)as small as my area for growing vegetables and tomatoes after I paved most of my backyard. Why, because I have heaps of tomatoes.

After the rain, I went out to the garden this morning to pick tomatoes. This is like my routine every day. It is like I am going to the vegetable shop for fresh produce. As I go inside the house, my basket is filled with zucchini flowers, mustard green, spinach, spinach and spinach (I have 3 types of spinach growing like weeds in the garden).

I did not have zucchini flowers today, however. But I have heaps of tomatoes. I sorted and put the tomatoes in containers for both refrigeration and freezing. WoW! I can't believe I had these many tomatoes.

All I am aiming is to achieve self-sufficiency, ie for example to have tomatoes till next season begins. I had achieved this for the past few years and usually I still have few tomatoes in my freezer from the previous season even before the next season starts. Isn't this amazing? I'd say YES! YES! YES!

The season is not even finish yet and I still have more tomatoes out in the garden, Sad to say my fridge and even my freezer have no more room for even one container of tomatoes(Ooops! quite an exaggeration because my sister supplied me last night 1 liter of Cadbury yummy ice cream. She knows I don't buy ice cream because I don't like to tempt myself and in the process raise my blood sugar up. Sad to say once more (really?), she usually puts ice cream in my fridge so she'll have some fun when she visits me and my mother.

I toyed in my mind the idea probably I could even start selling tomatoes. Haha! I laughed out loud--really loud! I have no ambitions along this line! I remembered what my father told me then when I first bought my house. He said, "with your spacious backyard you might even be able to supply your whole clan from your produce.." I chuckled and at the same time dismissed that idea then..I am cut out to do finer things--microdissections, drawing, crocheting, embroidery...and also piano playing (as bad as a player I am!)

Today, it seems to be a different story. I have in fact given my two sisters few containers of tomatoes plus the spinach, spinach and spinach.

As I continued sorting out the tomatoes. I just couldn't stop laughing...

As I did not even put stakes on my tomato plants,these just grow wildly in the garden that my new safety boots are complaining for scarcity of clear pathways. Further as everything (spinach, garlic etc) seems to grow in the same spots everywhere, I tend miss picking few ripe tomatoes that they consequently just fall off to the ground. By the time I see them, I thought their seeds are probably almost ready to germinate and advance to two leaf stage and higher leaf stages and voila.. more and more tomatoes. Yay!

Other times, I accidentally step on few tomatoes even before they ripen. Ouch! as I hear the crunch and see the poor thing oozing some juice spilling their seeds on the ground. Immediately I always console and say to myself, it's okay... you have heaps...

With the weird weather of rain, rain, rain and then sun, sun, sun these days, I am indeed a happy hobby tomato farmer!Yay!

2012...will I be seeing ghosts?

My sisters and I with Nimrod on a skyped conferencing




We made a banner to wish my brother Rommel to get well soon.




Us before a table full of festive food



New Year! Will I Be Seeing Ghosts? This was one entry in my journal over two decades ago. There was nothing unusual having asked such a question. I was young—not certain of whether I was in the right place, doing the right thing at the right time. I had a good job and establishing a career and yet I felt something was still wrong.


2012. I did not wonder whether I would be seeing ghosts. I think I have reached the stage of my life where I have learned to live one day at a time and technically by the grace of God,not worry about tomorrow. By the same token, I have also strived to live today the best way I possibly can. I have always recalled to my mind what I memorised when I was a youth...Today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of home.


Few days before 2012 came, I got a bad news from the USA. My brother, Rommel was in the ICU. The week before, I also got a call from my other brother, Nimrod, asking me and the rest of the family to pray for his vision. The doctors at the Eye Centre diagnosed him with Macular Degeneration.


Merle, my sister asked then, if we would have a New Year’s Celebration? I was not the only one who would decide, we are a family. New Year’s Eve of 2009, my father was in admitted in the Cardiac Unit of Blacktown Hospital. We did not celebrate that New Year, but only did, when we knew he was out of danger (Five months later though, we lost him because he had a massive cardiac arrest).


Surprised bombshells, so to speak, are not new to us. We are accustomed to them. By the grace of God, we managed not be totally caught off guard. Over the years, we, as Christians, have learned to accept and also considered it joy when we have these trials, problems, or challenges in our life as family. As grievous as these are at the present time, these have taught us through the years to love, care and bear each other’s burdens.


We did have a New Year's celebration. Before us was a table full of festive foods and colours were everywhere around us and in us. This time, however, our top priority for gathering was to have a special praying time for our brothers who are sick. It was good the occassion was rather exclusively for our family. We also skyped Nimrod.


At the time of writing, Rommel is back home. Thank God! Nimrod's diagnosis at the first instance was erroneous, but still needs to be regularly checked. The last time we spoke to him on the phone, he said the dimming of his vision seemed not be deteriorating any further. Praise the Lord!


What does 2012 holds for me or for the members of the family I have always belonged to? I would not have any clue. There may be prospective, unforseen, expected ghosts that may pull me or all of us down to the waters as a family. Just like Peter, however, each of us just have to cry out, “Lord, save me...”And Jesus will always be there to come to our rescue. He will always there to pull as out of the waters when we fix our gaze away from Him. What a Saviour! He promised to be there with us always—even to the end of this age.