Lots of Helpers

Our family's life in New Zealand

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Random Photos

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This one turned three! Here he is with the gifts his siblings gave him.

The annual Dead Boring Bike Hike–ready to take off!

I followed the bikers in the van; I never saw the oldest two boys till the end. I passed these two a number of times.

I also passed Esther and her friend a number of times.

The chicks in the house are growing–when they started doing this trick we had to put a screen over their home!

Elijah got the idea to build this house from skewers and modeling clay. James helped out.

And look who can climb up on top of things already!

This one (Mr. Sweetie) found his daddy’s gum boots one afternoon!

Someone gave the chicks a perch, and they like to sleep on it. It’s rather comical–they try to sleep with their head tucked under their wing, but when they fall asleep their head falls down!

Pretty daring!

Muddy boy! Somebody wants to go outside!

Now this is a cheesy grin (literally)!

Classic Cars

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We had some different entertainment on our way to church this morning.  There was a classic car show in Kaikoura yesterday, and the cars were on their way home this morning.  We probably saw around a hundred of them–didn’t think to count till we were nearly there!  This post is mainly for my brothers who like old cars–we were thinking of you as we enjoyed the “parade”.

A few of the cars were not being driven!

We also saw a couple of railroad track-fixing-machines–made us think of our friend back in Michigan who used to build them!  These were built in Australia, though, it looked like.

We also saw this picture of spring.

Field Trip

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WARNING!  If you are squeamish you may want to skip this post!

We actually took a field trip last week!  We don’t often do that, but Gayle organized a tour for us of the place he works.  It is a small meatworks, although the largest employer in the district.  They process cattle, sheep and pigs, doing everything from slaughter to sausages, hams and bacons.  We found the tour very interesting!  Our children have grown up butchering and were totally fascinated.

Sheep carcasses

Sheep waiting to be skinned.

Sides of beef, and our friendly tour guide.

The best part of the tour–seeing Daddy at work! He was “tender-stretching”–rehanging the sides of beef to make them more tender.

Tender-hung beef

The boning room

Sausages

We had to wear plastic covers and hair nets for our tour.

He’s Crawling

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Baby is crawling already!  He’s been getting around for a few weeks already, pulling himself along on his tummy by his arms, but today he’s nearly given that up in favor of crawling the normal way.  This is the earliest we’ve had one crawling–he is 5 months and 22 days,  about 3 days earlier than our previous earliest.  Looks like a busy life ahead, if this is any indication.

This Past Week or Two in Pictures

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I keep thinking about things to blog about, but real life keeps getting in the way.  So, here are a bunch of pictures to give you a glimpse into the past couple of weeks.

Now that he can get around we have to be more diligent about cleaning up ashes!

Last Tuesday we had the biggest hail I have ever seen. When it hit a boogie board in front of the house it bounced up 3 meters (10 feet)!

After the storm passed, the cows finally made it to the trees for shelter–and when the sun hit them a cloud of steam went up!

Hail on the trampoline.

Almost crawling!Gayle and the boys built the framework for raised beds on Saturday.

On Sunday we stopped to explore some rock pools along the coast.

Starfish Sea anemone

Chicks in the House

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We were peacefully working on finishing school around noon today, when someone knocked on the door.  It was our next-door neighbor, and she had 8 chicks in a bucket.  Something had killed their mother this morning, probably a stoat, and she didn’t have time to raise them.  Did we want them, and two more that were running around in their paddock?  Sure–we’ll take any unwanted animal! (Except a dog.)  She took two of the boys with her to catch the last two chicks, and ran to town for me to pick up some feed for them, because I don’t have the van today.  I worked on fixing up a home for them.  We couldn’t find the hanging light socket we’ve used before for baby birds, so I improvised with a couple of hot water bottles.  The younger boys found wood chips and made a water and food dish out of peanut butter jars (plastic) and we are all set!  There is a cheerful cheeping sound in the living room now.

Music

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Last evening I came into the living room and found Gayle and the two youngest at the piano.  The second-youngest had told his daddy that he wanted to sing him “a beautiful song”.  Totally spontaneously, he was singing, “Jesus is on the cross” and playing the piano to accompany himself.  It was so sweet that I grabbed the camera to record the scene!  The blurry places in the video are just because the light was dim.