And We're Back

We're back to not doing things, I mean.  

Pretty much all I did today -- again-- was watch TV and knit.  I finished a hat, 

and cast on another.  

I also cast on another headband, but so far, it's just the cast on row, so no picture yet.  

The only thing of consequence I did was to move a few more of my daffodils into the back corner of my yard. 

While I was out there, I noticed my mint is starting to come up. 

By the way, if you ever decide to grow mint, be forewarned, the stuff spreads like wildfire and is nearly impossible to kill, so make dadgum sure you really want mint in your yard.  My neighbor gave me this when I first moved in, telling me it would keep mosquitoes away from my back door.  It doesn't, but hey, I've got mint tea whenever I want it.  

I also found something that looks like it might be wild blackberry, sprouted from seeds dropped there in bird poop most likely. 

I think I might try to cultivate these and see what comes from them.   I'm not a huge fan of blackberries, but they do make a good cobbler.  

Not much else is going on, but I did want to show you something.  In that drawer in my computer desk, I found some old USB drives and memory cards.  A couple of them were empty, but others had old photos and some documents on them.  One of those documents was a file sent to my by my brother years ago, in which a cousin had been tracing my maternal great-grandmother's ancestry.  It was all very interesting, but here are a couple of gems I want to share with you. 

This was the first man in that line to come to America, and apparently, he came as either an indentured servant or a full on slave. 

Yes, they had slaves in Europe, and yes, they were white slaves.  Usually they were either criminals sentenced to transportation, or debtors sold because they couldn't pay what they owed, or they were Irish. Peter Wells was made a freeman in 1679, because he either served his sentence or worked off his debt.  I wish I knew more about him, but I had to cut off my subscription to Ancestry.com when the economy started tanking. I know there are free sites out there, but I don't trust them -- especially after one claimed I was a descendent of Jesus Christ.  Yeah...

The second part I found really interesting was this one.  The fourth Peter Wells.  Apparently, that was a family named passed down through several generations.  What is interesting about this one is that he served in the Revolutionary War.  

I've got ancestors who served in every war the U.S. fought in, from the Revolution through the Korean Conflict, except for the Spanish American War.  There may actually be someone in my family who served in that one as well, I just haven't found him yet. As for the wars after Korea, I've got family members who served in those, but they weren't ancestors.  I'm not completely sure about Vietnam, but I seem to remember a distant cousin who fought in that one -- and by distant, I mean 2nd or 3rd cousin.  I'll have to look into that more. 

But not tonight. 

Tonight, I'm going to bed.

Goodnight.