NZ Filbruns

September 2020 Photos

October 11, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

September was a fairly busy month. At least, we took a lot of pictures!

Mr. Imagination found this hedgehog walking around in broad daylight one day. He wanted it for a pet, so tried to fix it a house and feed it. Unfortunately, it died the next day. They are normally nocturnal, so I’m guessing something was wrong with it.

Our heifer had a heifer calf of her own the second of September. This cute little calf has a mind of her own! She’s a challenge to handle. There will be a post coming soon with lots of photos of cute baby animals…don’t miss it! We’re waiting for one more calf to arrive and then I’ll publish that post.

These plover eggs hatched a few days after the calf was born. We never got a photo of the chicks, though. They are good at hiding! After the first day, we couldn’t even see them, and then the parents moved them out of our paddock to a park where they would be safer.

One evening the river was roaring very loudly. The children piled into Esther’s car and went down to take a look at the flooding. We normally walk through this space to get to “our” picnic spot.

This is the area we have our picnics!

We went to Canterbury for a weekend. The mountains were spectacular!

Miss Joy loves to sit in things!

We saw this tui on the neighbor’s tree one day. The photo doesn’t do it justice; in the sun, its feathers were glowing iridescently. So beautiful!

We bought a high chair for Miss Joy at an op shop. She loves feeling like a big person! She has to have a pillow behind her so she can sit right up to the tray. (We now have it in a plastic bag!)

What is Princess doing?

We had a cookout down by the river for Mr. Sweetie’s birthday. Some friends were with us, and it was a lovely afternoon, even though it was cloudy and threatening to rain.

Simon roasted an apple over the fire after having his fill of sausages!

This giant spider was found in the garden when Esther was replanting rhubarb. It was at least 1 1/2 inches long!

Greenhouse

October 5, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Today’s helpful tip: If you buy plastic for a greenhouse, make sure it is high quality. We bought greenhouse plastic twice, a few years apart. The first cover was used in Cheviot for a couple of years, and then we bought another cover for another greenhouse. It was never used over there, but we brought it here, and when we set up the greenhouse last year, we used both pieces to cover it. The newer piece shredded after just a year, and when we had a couple of storms in the last few weeks, with high winds, it blew off—in pieces! The older one is still in good shape. So, we bought a new piece of plastic to cover the entire house, so it won’t have to be pieced together. When I got on the website of a greenhouse supply company in the North Island, I found the end of a roll of plastic that was bigger than we needed, for less money than ordering the exact amount cut to size! That gives us enough to recover the miniature greenhouse I use for starting plants. On Saturday, the boys got the old cover off, and they and their dad put the new one on. At one point in the afternoon, I was urgently called outside—all hands were needed. They had unfolded the new cover and put it over the greenhouse—the wrong direction! I got out there to see this:

After I took that picture, Simon said, “Wait! Let me pose!” So, he struck this pose of wondering what to do about the mess they were in.

A few hours later I went out to see how the project was progressing, and they were finishing fastening the plastic to the roll-ups on the sides. They had the plastic securely fastened down to the side of the house, but the bottom foot and a half or so on each side rolls up on pipes.

This is what I have growing inside. Lots of salad stuff! I was out there today, and the lettuce to the left has about doubled in size in the last two days!

Book Review–Jack

October 1, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 6 Comments

About the Book

Book: Jack
Author: Chautona Havig
Genre: Historical Western Romance
Release Date: January 26, 2016

Women are trouble—lying, cheating, untrustworthy bundles of trouble.

Jack Clausen doesn’t need anyone but his horse and a boss who won’t interfere in his personal life—or lack of one.

Sure, he’s a lonely cowboy, but better lonely than brokenhearted.

If only he hadn’t met a girl who made him hope that honest and true women do exist. Maybe he wouldn’t be riding off into a snowstorm with a fresh determination to avoid women—indefinitely.

When Hazel Meissner sees a cowboy risk life, limb, and horse to save a child, she knows he’s someone special. When he finally gives her his heart, she considers herself the most blessed woman alive.

However, when he rides off without a word, she wonders if her heart will survive the loss.

One broken man. One trusting woman. One orchestrated misunderstanding that tears them apart. What’ll it take to bring Jack home again?

It’s Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing mashed up with the old ballad, “Cowboy Jack.” Don’t miss a cast of characters inspired by the Bard himself—especially Dirk and Deborah (Benedick & Beatrice).

Jack: a lot of hullaballoo on the prairie.

My Thoughts:

I first read Jack several years ago when it was published. I enjoyed it then, but it wasn’t one of my favorite of her books—probably partly because I am not into cowboys. I read it again last week, and enjoyed it more. I would still say it’s not my favorite, but I do like it! I laughed at Deborah and Dirk, and the way they gave each other such a hard time. The conniving of the other cowboys, and Hazel, was fun. I think I actually liked Deborah about as much as Hazel, although Hazel was the main character in the story.

Hazel is a dear, sweet girl. I enjoyed watching her with Jack. He, on the other hand, had a lot to learn about trust. Childhood experiences can shape so much of a person’s character—would he ever be able to trust women, after what he experienced with his mother? As in so many of this author’s books, there are a lot of things to think about in this story. Try it—you’ll enjoy it!

I received a free copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it.

About the Author:

Chautona Havig lives in an oxymoron, escapes into imaginary worlds that look startlingly similar to ours and writes the stories that emerge. An irrepressible optimist, Chautona sees everything through a kaleidoscope of It’s a Wonderful Life sprinkled with fairy tales. Find her at chautona.com and say howdy—if you can remember how to spell her name.

More From Chautona:

The Inspiration I Hate to Love

The plaintive notes of a ballad filled the living room. People sat on couches and chairs or stood in the doorway, listening. Three steps up the staircase, out of view of most of the room, a little girl sat, chin in her hands, listening.

If you looked close, you’d see freckles dotting her nose and crooked teeth that never were too large for her mouth like most children’s were. Just a bit closer, and you’d see wide, hazel eyes riveted to the man with the guitar seated on the hearth. To his right, a cup of coffee and sometimes a shot of whiskey.

With a voice like Jim Reeves (the non-twangy Reeves, mind you), the songs told stories, like all ballads do—a little blind girl praying for her father’s future happiness, a girl of thirteen who barely escaped a massacre in 19th century Wyoming. “Hazel eyes,” the man called her. California Joe—he was a real man, although not as good of one as the song made out.

Sometimes the man sang happier songs, but most of them were slow, western ballads that could keep Nicolas Sparks writing for decades.

And the little girl loved them all—especially California Joe and one about a cowboy who left his sweetheart alone on the prairie after a quarrel. One called “Cowboy Jack.”

As you’ve probably surmised, I was the little girl, and that man who sang and stirred the hearts of our family at nearly every gathering was my father.

How I miss those days.

For years, I wanted to give Jack a happier ending. See, the song goes like this. A lonely cowboy (with a heart so brave and true) meets and falls in love with a maiden (with eyes of heaven’s own blue). Alas, as with all good romances, the couple quarrel and Jack rides away. He finds a new band of cowboys and would have been just fine, but someone asks him to sing a song to “drive all cares away.” Alas, the song he devises is one about a “lonely maiden who waited for her Jack.”

Of course, he rides off to ask forgiveness. It’s all his fault. He arrives too late. She died of a broken heart on the “lonely prairie where skies are always blue.”

After I began writing, the idea came to me to turn those songs Dad sang—old ones that had been passed on and down through many different versions—into novels. I’d write all the subtext the songs left out.

I’d give them happy endings.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. One by one, I figured out how to do it, but Jack… well, I didn’t want to change the stories. I just wanted to leave on hope instead of despair

Shakespeare to the rescue!

I was watching Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado about Nothing adaptation, and the answer came to me so clearly. It had the solution I needed. So, I smooshed the song and the play together. Inside, you’ll find the characters Shakespeare created (including Dirk and Deborah and their biting repartee—they steal the show!) in the setting and with the elements of the ballad, too.

Dad’s older now. His hands are gnarled with age, swollen with arthritis. His mind is slipping away. Today, you’ll find his guitar at my house. My son now owns it, but he doesn’t know the songs I heard played on the old Goya. Still, when I take it out of the case, tune it up, and pluck the strings, everything shifts. Suddenly, I’m nine years old again, sitting on my uncle’s stairs, just out of sight, watching. Listening. Heart breaking.

See, I’ll never hear my father play again, and I can’t play either. So, the songs will have to live on with stories of Mary, Jethro, Maggie… and of course, Jack.

To purchase your copy, click here.

To visit more of the blog stops on this tour, click here.

To enter a fun giveaway, click here.

Punakaiki Caverns

September 30, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

When we took our visitors to Pancake Rocks a week ago, we also went to Punakaiki Caverns. This is a cave just down the hill from Pancake Rocks. Gayle and all the children have been there many times, but I had never been inside. It was delightful to be able to go into a cave without a guide and just look around!

Esther is headed into the entrance to the cave, at the base of this cliff.

Going in!

There are several levels to the cave. The boys went up to the upper levels. I did not.

This is another opening, but to use it as an exit requires climbing up this cliff, then clambering down one equally steep, on the outside!

I went around this corner, to a lower level. There were a few stalactites here and there, but mostly just damp sandstone.

Here are some of the best stalactites.

Miss Joy thought it was pretty fun to touch the walls and ceiling!

Three of our boys headed much deeper into the cave than anyone else. I got pictures from Mr. Diligence’s memory card.

See Simon’s coat? By the time the three boys emerged, he was completely covered, from head to toe, with that cave-smelling sand. I should have gotten a photo of them when they came out, but I didn’t think of it till after they had scrubbed off in the sea.

While we were at Punakaiki, we stopped at a gift shop, and this giant croc was there. Miss Joy fit into it!

Pancake Rocks

September 21, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

We had visitors over the weekend, and since we noticed last week that there was to be a king tide this weekend, we thought it would be a good time to go to Pancake Rocks again! The extra-high tide, we figured, should make for a decent show at the blowholes. We were not disappointed! It wasn’t as good as a couple of other times we’ve been there, but lots better than several times. I apologize in advance if this is too many photos for you. It was a beautiful day… and three of us were taking pictures… and I only saved the best from each of the three memory cards… but there ended up being so many beautiful photos I couldn’t decide which ones to leave out!

The waves were fairly high. I love watching them roll in past the rocks!

The first blowhole we reach is the Chimney Pot. It is spectacular—just like I would imagine a geyser looks! This time, there was a rainbow formed in the mist, when you stood at the right place.

Esther carried Miss Joy for a good part of the way.

This is the largest blowhole. We stood here for a long time, watching the water spurting up into a fantastic fountain!

I love watching the water in the Surge Pool, too! It’s so wild.

The waves hitting these rocks are spectacular, too!

See the seagulls nesting on top of the rocks?

Notice the people on the bridge in the background, just in front of the Chimney Pot blowhole? That might help you get a feel for the scale of this place.

By the time we reached this viewing platform, Miss Joy wanted to get down and walk around by herself.

Simon took her, but she wanted to pick things up.

A bunch of the boys broke off flax stalks and had a mock sword fight with them.

They gave one stick to Miss Joy.

She was delighted with, and ran around brandishing it, until…

…she suddenly spotted some flowers! She recognized them; I often pick a few in our yard and give them to her. The stick was instantly discarded, and she got down to pick them.

Simon picked her up again, and held the stick behind her back. She reached around and got it, then started whacking him on the head with it.

This was a wonderful day to be outside! It’s the rainy time of year here, and in the week before this day, we had had 1 1/2 sunny days. It was great to be outside, enjoying such a beautiful part of God’s creation.

Here is a five minute video I put together from a lot of shorter clips, to give you a little bit of our experience. One clip, which starts at about 3:22, doesn’t have much action, but I loved the happy baby noises that can be heard.

More of Miss Joy

September 16, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

Most of the photos I find on my memory card are of Miss Joy! She’s quite photogenic, in our opinion, right now.

I don’t know who took this photo—I suspect possibly Mr. Imagination.

She loves apples—and she loves boxes and climbing!

One warm, sunny afternoon, she took off on an exploratory trip. She absolutely loves going outside, and can’t understand when we won’t let her go out (because it’s cold and wet!).

When she turned around, I got this video clip:

I was quite amused one day to see her sitting in these tubs that were laying on their side!

This is a very common sight. If she’s at all tired or hungry, she finds her blankie and brings it to me, saying, “Eye-guy-guy.”While I was reading aloud yesterday, Mr. Intellectual was laying on the couch. Miss Joy climbed on top of him and sat herself down to read a book.

When her daddy came home from work and squatted down to clean his work shoes, she grabbed one of my crocs that was handy, got herself a towel, and cleaned my shoe! She quite diligently worked at it for several minutes, as long as Gayle was cleaning his shoes.

One afternoon when she and I were the only ones at home, I was enjoying watching her play. I decided to get a quick video, just because times like that are so fleeting.

August 2020 Photos

September 5, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Here are the last of the photos from August!

Little Miss helped me harvest some purple broccoli one day with the basket a neighbor gave her, and then she took it to her bedroom to show Esther.

We did an art project one evening as part of our study of New Zealand for geography. The three children each cut out shapes and made them into a picture of sheep, then glued on cotton balls and eyes after painting part of the picture. They love projects like this!

When I cut open the first of the three giant cheeses I made in June, Mr. Imagination thought the moment needed to be documented. The cheeses are delicious! We’re nearly through the second one.

Simon has been fixing a car for Esther. It needed a new heater core, which he had to order from the States. When it came, he had to change the hoses to make it work. We took a couple of pictures to document this for his apprenticeship.This picture is for the apprenticeship, as well. He had to take the head off the engine and replace all the valves; they got bent when the timing belt broke. That meant he was able to buy the car for very little, and hopefully Esther will have reliable transportation again! (Her car broke down in June and wasn’t worth fixing, so she’s been borrowing since then.) He just finished fixing up the car today; hopefully, it will get the new Warrant of Fitness sticker Monday, and Esther can start using it!

The power went out one evening just as I finished cooking tea. We ate by candlelight—something that delighted the children! It turned out that our neighbor had been driving a tractor back here, which he does practically every day, since they are agricultural contractors, and a car that was passing him hit the rear wheel. The tractor turned over a couple of times and landed against an electric pole. The tractor ended up supporting the pole. The power was turned back on after about 45 minutes, but it took several hours to get the pole replaced. Thankfully, our neighbor wasn’t hurt too badly. He had a large bandage on his head, was limping, and had a lot of bruises, but he wasn’t thrown out of the cab, which we’re thankful for. The car turned over, too, but apparently the driver wasn’t hurt. The tractor had all its lights on, which means it would have been extremely visible—obviously the driver of the car made a big mistake.

July 2020 Photos

August 30, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Here are the last of the photos from July!

We bought a set of books from Creation Ministries, five books whose titles all begin with Untold Mysteries. They have been very popular—especially the Monumental Monsters one, about giant animals from the past. That book has been thoroughly studied!

Mr. Imagination loves to make cardboard and paper creatures.

We get a lot of cream when the cow is in milk! She’s dry at the moment, but I was finding myself with up to three gallons of cream a week to make into butter. Through the winter, it was taking long enough to make butter in the food processor that I started brainstorming with the boys about how to build a butter churn that would do it all at once. Simon got started building a mechanical one, but in the meantime we tried this system. We strapped the bucket full of cream into the barrel section and rocked it back and forth. Unfortunately, we wore out long before butter was made. After 2-3 hours of rocking it, all we had was whipped cream. Oh, well. Not all our inventions work!

One of the many pieces of heavy machinery that go past our house.

Mr. Diligence is raising chicks again this year. He hasn’t had as good success as last year, when he only lost 1 out of the 100; this year, he has lost 9. They’re growing well, though! This picture was taken when they were a week or two old; now they’re about six weeks old.I heard a call of distress one evening and found this. She had gotten onto the couch, then climbed onto a wooden crate behind my chair and lost her balance as she knocked the lamp over. She was desperately holding on to the swivel chair and the sliding pile of books, wanting rescue.

Doesn’t that look delicious? It’s a leg of lamb that a friend here gave us.

We have a beautiful crop of purple broccoli and green cauliflower. I’m not sure which this is, but it almost looks like a cross between the two! I loved the colors on this head.

Miss Joy Turns One

August 26, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Miss Joy had her birthday last week. We have a one-year-old again! We finally celebrated tonight; first, Esther was away, and then everyone came down with a tummy bug. Tonight, finally, enough people were feeling better that I made a pumpkin custard and we whipped some cream—two of her favorite foods. We gave her a bowlful of it and she was delighted!

She continues to be a very busy little girl. We sure enjoy having her in our family! She loves books.

She loves water and was thrilled to figure out that she could reach things at the sink one morning.

Little Miss gave her some food—and she gave it to the cat!

Escaping outside is so much fun—especially when there’s mud!She has fallen in love with dolls, especially this one, although she also lugs around the ones that are nearly her own size, too.

She loves to play the piano, too.

She got hold of a small New Testament today. I was in another room sewing, and was showed this picture by a happy big brother.

Product Review—Homeschool Easy

August 25, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in
exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I
compensated in any other way.

I have been using the 1st Grade Entire School Year Curriculum from Homeschool Easy with Little Miss lately. She finished her preschool and kindergarten books about a month ago, and was eager to learn to read, so I thought this level would be a good fit for us. She was excited about trying something new, too.

We received the entire year of materials from Homeschool Easy in a zip file.When I extracted it, I found seven folders, one per subject, plus two PDF files about how to use the curriculum and an overview of it. Each week, I opened each of the folders, found the folder inside that for the week we were ready for, and printed the pages for the week. We simply worked our way through the worksheets each day, going back to the guide for some of the subjects in order to find the links we needed for videos or online books. It took an hour to an hour and a half a day to do all the work, which I thought was pretty good. Little Miss enjoyed most of this schoolwork, and it took little enough time that she didn’t get bored.

We started most days with the Math. I was very surprised, when we started working with this math course, that it jumped right into place value. Obviously, children are expected to know their numbers when they start this course! Little Miss is quite advanced with her numbers, so it wasn’t a problem for her. We cut out the paper place value blocks that were provided, and she enjoyed building each of the numbers she was told to. She quickly caught on to place value and had no trouble with it. By the fourth week, she had worked on ordering numbers up to 200, and was adding, too. This course seemed to move ahead very quickly; I have some children who wouldn’t have been able to handle it as well as Little Miss did. Looking ahead, I see that addition and subtraction are pretty thoroughly covered, as well as skip counting. Money and graphs are also introduced. In this photo, she had built the number 145 with the paper place value blocks.

We usually worked on Reading next. This presumed that the child would know the entire alphabet and how to sound out words already. The first lesson introduced a number of sight words. I made a number of changes in how we used the program in this subject, since Little Miss wasn’t ready for reading sight words yet. She learned a few of them, and I helped her read the content in the lessons. Each lesson introduces a group of words (words with a particular short vowel, or long vowel, or other combination, or simply high-frequency words). The first page has a word list and several sentences using the words. Then there are several pages of flashcards to print, cut out and glue together, and then a couple of pages of sentences with blanks to fill in. There is a crossword puzzle and a word search with the week’s words, and some comprehension activities.

The next thing we usually did was Grammar. We learned what makes a sentence, and then about different kinds of sentences. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are introduced later in the year. Each week has a page for each day, in which the child either copies a sentence correctly or writes their own.

Little Miss’s favorite subjects were Book Reading and Science. She especially loved the Book Reading. We were able to access books online to read together by clicking a link in the monthly guide. Most of the books are very simple and repetitive, and she loved helping me read them, and enjoyed answering the questions on the worksheet, too. Some of the books are nonfiction, and some are fiction. She wants to keep on doing them! For Science, we often watched YouTube videos and then answered questions about them. She didn’t like the first one, but she enjoyed the rest (the first was “too silly”). We studied plants while we used this course; bugs, mammals, birds and water animals come up later in the year. This was one of her favorite science projects—she has always loved picking flowers!

History is one subject we struggled with in this curriculum. It is very American, and the first month’s theme is Patriotism. We don’t live in America, so it didn’t apply to us. We simply skipped a few things, like the page that said to color the country we live in—it was a map of the United States! Month 2 covers the Presidents, and Months 3-8 study the geography and history of the United States.

I appreciated the Writing subject. Each week there are two writing prompts given, with several lines on which to write a short story. These have been very helpful. We are part of a writing group, and it’s hard to come up with topics. Using these papers has really helped Little Miss come up with things to take along to share with the group.

It was interesting to use a new curriculum for a few weeks. I was disappointed in how advanced it was, since it was for first grade. I would have expected it to start out a lot simpler. Little Miss is advanced enough that I would have been able to teach her to read using this, but it would definitely have taken longer than the schedule allowed for. Most of my children, however, would not have done well with this. There are very few directions for the teacher; you need to know how to teach a child in order to use this. If you are confident, however, and just need a framework, this might be a very good choice for you. The cost is fairly reasonable for a full year of school curriculum, and since it’s digital, it’s fully reusable for other children. A lot of printing is required, so that has to be factored in. All the materials needed, though, are available online and easy to find by just clicking links. Have a look at what other people have to say about this curriculum—I’m especially interested in reading some reviews of other levels, since there is a complete year’s curriculum available for grades 1-5. Click on the image below to find the other reviews.