Lots of Helpers

Our family's life in New Zealand

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Late May Pictures

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One evening, Mr. Sweetie was trying to make himself a costume with a blanket and clothespins. His little brother tried to help!

We had another heavy rain, and were afraid that we would have another flood, but thankfully the rain slackened just before the creek overflowed. We did have water running along the footpaths in front of the house again, though.

A mob of a couple hundred—maybe several hundred—sheep went past several days ago. The leaders were approaching our place, and the tail end of the flock had still not turned onto our road! Those vehicles in the distance are on the other road, behind the mob. The sheep were spread out over about half a kilometer (over a quarter mile).

This is probably the winner of the giant pumpkin contest for this year, although there is still one more to be weighed. This one weighed 30 kg (66 pounds). Unfortunately, we proved to ourselves that Atlantic Giant pumpkins don’t taste good. Actually, that is a mis-statement. They have no flavor at all! The cow got it, but didn’t get through the whole thing before it rotted.

I came in from milking one evening and found the little boys washing the window! They had great fun.

One Saturday, Gayle took all the older children to clean a house that his co-worker is moving into. I stayed home with the little boys. They get along so well together—it is great fun to watch them play! They got this barrel and set it up under the tree, then climbed the tree to get on top of the barrel. Big brother helped little brother get settled, and they pretended there was a flood. The barrel rocked back and forth rather violently, then toppled over!

Little fellow got hold of a small ball of yarn, and “tied” it onto various things, stringing it from the hallway into the kitchen. Then, someone helped him make it into a “hut”, which he is standing in in this photo.

This is Elijah doing his math—his favorite place is on top the piano!

One very frosty morning, the “lake” in front of the house was frozen over, except for this open spot in the middle where the ducks were.

Another morning, we were eating breakfast when we looked out the window and saw these two herons in the trees across the road.

I was out with the camera one afternoon and enjoyed seeing the ducks relaxing.

On my way back to the house, I opened the door so the chickens could free-range for awhile.

Our landlord worked for awhile on repainting the house and got this side done!

How to Make Egg Cake

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Our ducks have been laying their eggs in puddles–especially in the large “lake” in the paddock in front of the house. The boys ate some of the first ones they found, but decided they tasted like swamp muck. We cooked the rest of that batch to feed to the chicks. The next time some came in, I told the boy responsible that either he would cook them, or we would throw them away. My 9-weeks-pregnant tummy couldn’t handle the thought of possibly cracking open a rotten egg! Of course, he opted to throw them away. Boy #4, however, had a brilliant idea: cook with them! Here is the video he and a brother made of his creation. And yes, he is up high in a tree. What can I say–we have real boys!

Nelson Trip, Part Four: On the Way Home

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The trip home seemed to take a long time—much longer than going! Is that because everyone was tired? Especially the littlest was sick and tired of sitting in his carseat. We did stop a couple of times to enjoy the scenery. The first stop was at an overlook at the Hope Saddle, which everyone agreed wasn’t really worth stopping at. There were some beautiful views, but it was mostly trees in every direction.

We did have a surprise there, though: two guinea pigs in the bush! The boys tried to catch them (of course) but I was not sad when they did not succeed!

A couple of bored boys took pictures as we drove on from there through the mountains.

The highlight of the day was Maruia Falls, where we ate our picnic lunch. Notice the bark/wood floating in the water? It was slowly swirling in a circle.

Nelson Trip, Part Three and Split Apple Rock

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After eating lunch and letting the children play for awhile at Kaiteriteri, we drove a little farther on, to Split Apple Rock. We hiked down a steep trail from the car park to the beach, and suddenly saw this amazing rock!

There was amazing black sand on this beach, which kept itself separate from the golden sand. It was also much heavier. Must be a lot of minerals in it!

We also got to see and hear a tui! That was a new experience. The song is beautiful, but the video I took to try to record the sound only picked up the sound of the waves.

This was another beautiful beach!

The children explored some caves they found at one end of the beach, using headlamps they ran back up to the van to get, and found some Little Blue Penguins back in a crack! That was a special experience.

And then, a tour boat came along and anchored just offshore so the passengers could enjoy a cup of tea in these beautiful surroundings—and the man taking the tour recognized us and shouted hello across the water! That was special.

After leaving Split Apple Rock, we drove around to Marehau, at the beginning of Abel Tasman Park, just to see the area, then, without stopping, went back to our friend’s house with a very tired family. Despite being tired, however, the boys (and some of their girls) went down to play in the mud flats, since it was high tide. They came in at dark, covered with mud and cold!

I was intrigued by these boats, left high and dry on mud flats when the tide went out.

The view from our friend’s deck:

Nelson Trip, Part One

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We had planned to go to Nelson to visit friends over Easter weekend, but because of the storm had to change our plans. Three weeks later, we were able to go there. As we drove north, we were very thankful we hadn’t tried to go! The scars from the storm were still very visible, and it was obvious that we would not have made it through with our van.

It was hard to capture the destruction with the camera as we drove; these pictures just show a fraction of what we saw.

Vineyards in a valley just south of Blenheim.

Rugged hills and valleys south of Blenheim.

Somewhere between Blenheim and Nelson.

We had the most beautiful day for our trip up there! The sun shone all day, and everyone was happy. No grumping all day—what a blessing!

Lots of Water!

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We still have the aftermath of the big flood Easter weekend. Directly out our living room window, we can see this lake; in fact, I took these pictures out that window! Surprisingly, the boys have only played in it the one time. It’s about too cold most of the time this time of year to want to go swimming. The lake is larger now than when these pictures were taken, since we had another torrential rain a week or so ago. Thankfully, the creek didn’t flood around the buildings that time.Our landlord’s cows visiting with our steer.

And, a brief video clip I got of the boys splashing.

Training a Sheepdog

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One day a week or two ago, I went into the living room and noticed our landlord on the hill above our house, on his motorbike (4-wheeler). He had one dog with him, and the dog went into the trees near the top of the hill and herded a small mob (maybe 50) of sheep out. He bunched them in a tight mob, then headed them across the hill below the trees. The dog took the sheep back and forth a couple of times, with no apparent purpose, but we found out later that he was just being trained. It was quite fascinating to watch!

Early May Pictures

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We’ve had Welcome Swallows around lately. They act and sound a lot like the barn swallows we had in Michigan—I love them!

This is what our milk refrigerator looked like one Saturday evening, after we were given about a dozen ducks, a turkey, and six geese, plus butchered a large lamb! We breasted most of the birds, or there would have been no room for all of them!

Boy # 4 (James) in disguise!

This hen laid her eggs 3 meters (10 feet) up in a pine tree in the hedge! Her eggs hatched while we were on our Timaru trip, and the morning of the day we got home the lady who was doing our chores saw the last one jump out of the tree!

Oamaru

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We went to Timaru over Easter weekend for a conference, and that Friday evening, Esther had an idea. We had most of the next day free, since the only meeting was at 3:30 in the afternoon. She had  met a girl last June at a conference in Christchurch, and has since had some contact with her online. She was thinking this girl and her family lived near Timaru, and thought it would be nice to visit her on Saturday. I thought they lived in Oamaru (pronounced Ah-muh-roo), about an hour’s drive farther south. We knew their last name, but not her father’s first name. I knew what letter her mother’s name started with, but not her full name. Esther looked in the phone book and found about half a dozen listings with that last name. One of them had a wife with the first initial I remembered, and the street name sounded familiar to Esther from a video the girl and her brothers had made, but that was all we had to go by. I told Esther she could try calling them on my cell phone and see if that was the right people, and it was! We went to visit them Saturday, and were able to spend a couple of hours visiting with that wonderful family. They live in an old house in the Victorian section of Oamaru (the most Victorian city in New Zealand), and took us on a tour of the old downtown section. One of their boys is a volunteer helping to restore old steam engines and because of that we got to tour the place they do that. What a special day!

Look at that hill! I was impressed with the way it went up, and then up again, and up again! Oamaru is very hilly.

There are a lot of old grain warehouses in Oamaru, left over from the time immediately after the city’s founding about 130 years ago, when fortunes were made from wheat. The boom ended after only 20 years or so, when there was a world-wide depression, and the city has never recovered. That means, however, that the old buildings have been preserved, because no one has had money to tear them down and build new ones!One of the steam engines that is being restored. A glimpse of the scenery between Timaru and Oamaru:

Probably a plant for making milk powder.One of many flooded rivers—not sure which one this is.Water across the highway just north of Oamaru.