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July 2022 Photos

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For some reason, I often end up with only a few photos in July. It’s the middle of winter, so maybe there just isn’t that much that’s inspiring to take pictures of? Here are the few I found in my picture folder.

This is Mr. Sweetie, with Mr. Imagination’s cockatiel, Jo-Jo, on his shoulder. Jo-Jo prefers to sit on the organizers on top of my desk, or on a high cupboard, and watch what happens in the house, but sometimes Mr. Sweetie can coax him onto his shoulder like this.

Mr. Sweetie borrowed a book from a friend. He read it, and then Mr. Imagination picked it up and read the whole book. When they were going to return it, Little Miss found it in the van, and she read the whole book, too! If you know anything about the struggles I had teaching a couple of our older boys to read, you’ll know how much this picture means to me.

One day, the girls were playing on our street with the go-cart. First, Little Miss pushed Miss Joy around–and then they reversed! I tried to get a picture when I could see both their faces, but wasn’t fast enough.

Last Sunday after we came home from church, Miss Joy laid down on the floor and went to sleep. It was late enough that we had decided not to have her go down for a nap, but she obviously needed one!

This was about a month ago. She was so tickled to be able to “read” me this book! She had done a better job a day or two before, “reading” it to me, and wasn’t real thrilled about reading it again, but I coaxed her to and she obliged. I held the iPad above her head to get this clip, so she wouldn’t know what I was doing.

Flooding!

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We had quite a storm yesterday. In less than 24 hours, we got at least 4, possibly as much as 6, inches of rain. Late in the afternoon, as the rain started slacking off, the boys discovered that the creeks were overflowing into the paddock our cows, chickens and turkeys live in. The cows were locked onto higher ground in one corner, and the chickens are on high enough ground to be safe; the turkeys free-range, and they were all fine. Mr. Imagination came running home as soon as they saw the water, to get his camera, and when Elijah went down, he took some pictures with his camera. Several locals said they had never seen the water this high. Part of the problem was that gravel had washed under the bridge, backing up the water into the paddock on the other side of the highway from us. There were also several log jams downstream, which also backed up the water.

The water in this picture is usually several meters away from where the cows are standing. This is a small creek that comes from a culvert that goes under the highway just to the right of the picture. It’s usually a wide, flowing pool of beautiful, clear, shallow water.

The cows are on the high ground at the right of this picture. Normally, there is no water flowing across there! You can see, about in the middle of the picture, where our little creek flows into Orwell Creek. There was a log jam across the mouth of our little creek, which diverted some of the water from Orwell Creek and directed it into our paddock, as well as the little creek having a lot of water of its own. The other two times we’ve seen that overflow, both within the last year, all the water has gone into a drainage ditch that starts just there, near the left side of this picture.

To the right is the normal channel of the creek. The drainage ditch is just left of the middle of this picture. This time, the water went right across the paddock to the left!

Look at all that water! The drainage ditch to the far right normally flows with a couple of inches of water at the bottom of a 2-meter ditch. The other drainage ditch, on the left, is normally just a swampy strip of water that might flow a little but not much. It got a good clean-out this time, though!

The turkeys are unimpressed with the weather. See what looks like a small lake in the distance? Some of our neighbors have fences set up there and have been grazing three ponies there this winter. We were glad to see they got the ponies out and up here to their house before that area was flooded too badly.

This is just across the highway from the gate to “our” paddock. Because of the gravel built up under the bridge, Orwell Creek was backed up into the paddock and around the neighbor’s house.

The boys were pretty impressed with this whirlpool. It goes down into the culvert that goes through into our paddock. They said the mouth of the culvert was about a meter, maybe three feet, below the surface of the water.

After checking out our paddock, the boys went around the block to where Orwell Creek crosses a road at the bottom of the hill on which Ahaura is built. The railroad parallels the road at this point, and this is what they saw at the two bridges:

Two hours later, this is what they saw:

By this time, the water was over the road bridge, and level with the train bridge–and a spot downstream just a little ways was washing out. There is normally no gap under the track here, but the water that went over the road washed it out pretty badly. Simon called Kiwirail to report the washout, and they sent a crew out this morning to fix it. We went past on our way home from church this afternoon and the track was safe again!

Several of the boys took video clips of what they saw, so I’ve put them together here. The power of moving water is amazing! There’s a little bit of fun here, too, at the end; Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination rode their bikes at top speed past James, through puddles.

May 2022 Photos, Part 2

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Here are the rest of our photos from May!

Esther made peanut butter one evening, from 5 kg of peanuts, and forgot to put salt in one lot of it. She put it all in a big bowl to stir the salt in, and was pretty amazed at how that much peanut butter looks. We normally put it in 2-litre buckets as we make each batch in the food processor, so we don’t see it like this.

We had a hailstorm one afternoon. The younger children were thrilled and ran outside to play in the ice that was coming out of the sky.

They scraped up some hail from the trailer bed and brought it in to show me!

James and Princess, enjoying the warmth from the fire. That’s one spoiled cat.

We killed a beef the end of the month, and Esther and I spent three days cutting it up. Lots of meat! This was everything from the two hindquarters, which we mostly made into roasts and steaks. We saved all the bones to make into broth, and all the fat, to render into tallow. We enjoy doing the work ourselves and being able to use everything.

Little sister, delighted to be joining her big brothers for breakfast; they usually leave before she gets up in the morning.

Miss Joy helped her daddy mow lawn one afternoon!

Here’s a quick video of her:

June 2022 Photos

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I told Little Miss one evening that she could eat one of the carrot sticks I had just made, if she brought another carrot in to replace it. I meant one that we had bought, but she went to the garden–and found this giant! It weighed over two pounds (one kilo)!

School does not usually look this peaceful! I enjoy it when everyone works diligently like this, though.

Elijah replaced the carpet in Esther’s bedroom. While he was doing that, James decided to replace the trim. While he took down the trim around the door, he discovered that the frame was completely rotted away on the lower part. So, instead of quickly getting the trim back up, he rebuilt the frame first.

Jo-Jo has decided that he prefers to be outside of his cage. He loves to perch above my desk and watch what goes on.

I found this photo of Miss Joy in action on Elijah’s phone.

While I was away one afternoon, Little Miss helped Esther prepare carrots to eat that evening.

Elijah went camping one night, and took this picture of the river gorge.

Late April/May 2022 Photos

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Whew! Finally I found a chance to sit down and work on this blog. Between visitors on the day I normally blog (two weeks in a row), a three-day migraine, internet issues, driving lessons for James (worthwhile: he passed his test!), and butchering a cow, it’s been an intense couple of weeks. And, the wonderful busyness continues, since we have more company coming this weekend. We are blessed! For the moment, though, I have a bit of peace. The younger children are finishing their schoolwork for the week by doing a small craft project, and then they’ll finish cleaning the house. I need to make a big pot of chili for tonight, when we’ll be feeding 4-5 extra young men plus a man from our church, and start on food for the weekend, and cut up the steaks from the cow, but that can all wait till after lunch. So, what did we do the end of April and in May?

Gayle took this photo on his phone from the top of the hill across the road, where we often graze animals. I like that he has the ability to take pictures, as that way special times like this are captured!

Gayle’s health is much better than it has been for many years, and he has a lot more energy, which means he can do things like take Little Miss for a walk after work. One afternoon they walked down to the river, and he took this picture under the train bridge.

The younger boys took two of their boats down to the paddock in which we keep our cows, and they love to play in the little creek that flows through one corner. Miss Joy loved a ride with Mr. Sweetie! This is a kayak that a neighbor gave the boys. They patched up a hole in it, and it works!

This is a boat that Mr. Imagination and Mr. Sweetie made. It works pretty well.

Gayle liked these toadstools, and of course the little beauty in front of them.

Elijah snapped this picture one evening when he was taking care of the chickens on top of the hill across the road, at sunset. Living between two mountain ranges means shorter days in winter, but we sure have some gorgeous scenery!

This was one of our huge pumpkins. It weighed over 9 kg (20 pounds), and had very thick, sweet flesh. If anyone wants seeds, just ask!

Some friends came for food and fellowship one Sunday evening, on the spur of the moment. After we ate, we enjoyed a lively game of dice. No gambling–just a lot of fun!

Jo-Jo is getting much better at flying. He isn’t loose often enough to be really good yet, so one day he found himself in this predicament when he landed on a blind and had to use every tail feather to keep himself balanced. As soon as she took the picture, Esther took pity on him and helped him down; he couldn’t figure out how to get off the blind by himself.

April 2022 Photos

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Here we are in May already! The months fly by very fast. This first picture is Miss Joy driving her car. We use that crate to take Bibles to church–it keeps them off the floor of the van! She loaded herself into it when it was empty, along with a bear and several books, and pretended to drive. See her hands on the “wheel?”

It is time to finish the salve we started in early March. We had started three jars, and I got one finished just before Easter. Until meeting up with a friend in Timaru at Easter Conference, I didn’t have enough beeswax to finish, so now I need to do the other two jars. The first step is to strain the herbs out of the olive oil. Then, I weighed the oil, and for every ounce of oil, I added a Tablespoon of beeswax bits and the oil from one Vitamin E capsule. Then, I heat it all just enough to melt the wax, and pour it into small jars. The younger children (and a few of the older ones) love to eat the empty Vitamin E capsules! I opened about 50 that day, with such a big batch of oil, and they were all gone before the boys got home from work.

Also, a few days before Easter, Mr. Imagination brought up three baby turkeys! Because a hawk has been destroying all the turkey nests, these are the only ones we got this year. We kept them in the house for about two weeks; while we were gone a neighbor came in a few times a day to check on them. Now, we’ve gotten them acclimated to being outside in a small cage that we move around on our lawn. They got a lot of love the first week!

The day we drove over the mountains to Timaru was a gorgeous morning! It’s impossible to capture all we see with a camera, but here’s a tiny glimpse.

We harvested most of our pumpkins a couple of weeks ago. This is about 100 of them! On the far left you can see our biggest, a Hubbard. One end was rotting, so I cooked it immediately. It took a lot of work to get inside it. I had to use a cleaver and bang that with a piece of wood to finally crack the hard shell open. After I cleaned out the rotten bits and the seeds, I tried to weigh it. Both halves overloaded my 5 kg scale! I’m guessing it may have been about 13 kg, or 26-28 pounds. It was delicious, too! Very sweet. One of the gray ones was also almost that weight. It didn’t look quite so big, but had a smaller seed cavity. It was also very sweet. If any of my friends here in New Zealand want seeds, I saved all of them. The long brown one to the right is actually a zucchini. I hand pollinated it so the seeds would be what I wanted, and then watched it swell through the summer. It took only about three weeks to reach that size! I haven’t opened it up yet, because I’m making sure the seeds are totally mature. Anyone who wants zucchini seeds can have a few of them, too! I hope they are viable, anyway!

This is Elijah with his favorite toddler.

One morning right after we got off Daylight Savings, the girls were both up early enough to “help” take the cows back down to pasture.

At one point we had too many zucchinis, so I told the younger ones to cut them up. We cooked them a bit and fed them to the cows. The children had fun, and the cows had a feast!

Miss Joy loves to cut paper. She was delighted when Esther gave her an old phone book to cut.

The little girls set themselves up on Esther and Miss Joy’s bed one evening, with lots of pillows, soft toys, and books. They had great fun reading.

Fresh Salsa

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This post, like the last one, has to do with food. However, this food is much less controversial!

This time of year, our garden is overrun with tomatillos. These unique fruits look like small, green tomatoes, and grow in papery husks. They readily self-seed all over the garden, wherever they drop and don’t get picked up. In Michigan, I had a lot of trouble with worms getting inside them and ruining them, but that doesn’t happen here. I really like food that grows itself without my input! This spring, I wanted them in a particular area, so I dug up seedlings where they grew by themselves, potted them, and when they had roots established, planted them in the section designated for them. Then, I thinned the ones that were growing in other parts of the garden, so there would be only one in a space instead of two dozen. Now, I harvest them while I harvest zucchini or cucumbers or green beans. They often fall off the plant when they are ripe; I also harvest them green sometimes when they are big enough to burst their husk.

The problem is, what to do with all this bounty? We put them in the salsa we make to can every year, using about half tomatillos and half tomatoes. We were done with that a month ago, however, and now the main crop of tomatillos is ready! I made salsa verde last year, but most of it is still on the shelf. Our favorite way to use them is by making fresh salsa. I made a batch a couple of days ago and took a picture to show you this deliciousness.

I have no idea how much of most ingredients I used. That’s a two-quart bowl, and I filled it over half full with chopped tomatillos. Then, I added three or four chopped tomatoes. The proportions really don’t matter; we’re short on tomatoes now, so I used extra tomatillos. I don’t have a lot of bell peppers, either, so I used one, I think, but you can use two or three. I also put in half an onion (red is best, but I don’t have them this year), and about four minced cloves of garlic. Also, add maybe half a teaspoon of salt, several shakes of pepper, and a quarter cup or so of cider vinegar. The tricky part is the amount of chili. My chili peppers didn’t do well this year, but my neighbor, who moved away and let me take over her garden, has two plants that are loaded. One of them is consistently very very spicy, and the other is sometimes spicy and sometimes mild! I put in one finely diced chili from that second plant, then gingerly tasted the result. It wasn’t very spicy, so I added another. Wow! That took the heat level way up. So, use your own judgment as far as the amount of chilis or jalapenos you use. Dig in with corn chips and enjoy.

Finally!

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Warning: If you have problems with hunting or eating meat, stop right here! There are details you may not want to read or see.

When Simon was about seven, and James was about three (maybe eight and four–I’m not sure), the two of them and a cousin who was in between their ages, who lived on our property, disappeared one afternoon in November. This was in Michigan, and in Michigan, the last two weeks of November are Deer Season. (Maybe that should be in all-caps; it is that important to a lot of people, and the first day is nearly a state holiday!) People who are not hunting stay out of the woods and near buildings during that time, lest there might be stray shots. It can be dangerous to be walking around in the woods or fields during that time. Anyway, these three children disappeared. When someone realized they were missing, both families started searching. By the time we had been looking for 45 minutes, my sister-in-law was about ready to call the police–and then they showed up. They had been out hunting deer behind the woods at the back corner of our 40 acres, over a quarter of a mile from the houses! They were armed with a baseball bat and a stick, and Simon apparently fully expected to bring down a deer. They were totally unafraid, with no idea of the danger that the adults knew about!

Ever since that time, Simon has dreamed of killing a deer. He would love to live off the land, with a hunter-gatherer type of lifestyle. He has gone on hunts with friends half a dozen times since we moved over here, and never saw a deer when anyone in the group had a gun that could bring one down. This week, he went hunting twice with a friend who moved to the area a few months ago and who, importantly, possesses a gun license and a deer rifle. They went out in the middle of the afternoon the second time and searched for likely places to see a deer. After several hours, an hour or so after dark, they gave up and started out, and finally got a possum for their pains. Then they continued on down the road–and saw a deer in the middle of the road! It took a couple of minutes for Simon’s friend to get his gun loaded again, and Simon kept the spotlight on the deer. The first shot only wounded it (they hadn’t realized the gun wasn’t sighted in properly), so Simon took off up the river, following it. He soon caught up and delivered the killing shot. Then, he got to pack it out of there to the car (probably a good thing he had so much adrenalin in his system–it was heavy!) Finally, his dream of bagging a deer came true.

Mr. Imagination was along, since I had gone to town that day, leaving him with Simon, and no one was home to keep track of him. He was over the moon to be a part of this experience.

I love the grin on Simon’s face! The second picture is the Daihatsu–the gutless car that is often scoffed at, but which can go almost anywhere.

Simon brought the deer home and hung it in our carport. The next evening, Little Miss helped him skin it, and then he and Gayle brought it into the kitchen where we boned it out. The friend he went with, and his wife, stopped in while we were working, and he was excited to see that part of the process. The next day, they came back, after we had minced all the meat, and helped turn some into sausage and package it all. We got 34 kg of mince and 5 kg of backstrap from that deer! (That’s about 86 pounds.) It was a young stag, so quite tender and tasty. We had venison sausage patties with breakfast, venison hamburger patties for lunch, and backstrap for dinner. The boys were delighted to get to eat all that meat! Now, Simon wants to go hunting even more.


Half of the bones are cooking in a big pot right now, to make bone broth, and the other half are in the freezer waiting. There was very little waste from this animal, something that makes me feel good about them killing it.

Multiplication and Division

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I have a child who really struggles to memorize his multiplication and division facts. They just don’t stick in his brain–so many other things are much more interesting to think about! Esther has been helping a local family for a few hours a day with their homeschooling, and she came home one day asking for advice for their children who have a similar problem. I suggested making speed drills for each multiplication and division table, to help them practice. She set to work and soon had them made up for each table from 1-12, with four different arrangements for each table. Genius! This way, it’s hard to memorize the pattern of answers. She also came up with charts to track the progress.

I have been having both Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination use the multiplication speed drills. I time them on two of the speed drills each day, and the goal is to get below 30 seconds for each table. I figure that if they can write down 12 answers in 30 seconds, they know those facts pretty well! Of course, instant recall on multiplication facts will make all of math much easier, which is why we spend time focusing on them. I have them keep practicing until they get below 30 seconds three times in a row.

If you think this kind of speed drill would help your child, you are welcome to download and print these pages. I hope they can be a blessing to you!

Fact Family Speed Drills

So Far in March….

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We have not taken many pictures this month! I’ll have to be more intentional about taking some if I want to keep blogging. This was a potato someone found in the garden. It weighed an entire kilogram (over two pounds!).

We got our year’s supply of salve started. Packed into those jars is comfrey, plantain, lavender, calendula petals, and a bit of self-heal. We filled the jars with olive oil, and it is currently soaking for six weeks.

Miss Joy was delighted to figure out one day that she could tuck her doll inside her dress. That was her baby carrier!

James signed his apprenticeship papers, and to celebrate, his boss took him to the store and bought a bunch of tools.

Elijah took Mr. Sweetie on a trip to Dunedin to visit friends. They spent a day in Timaru with a friend, who took these two pictures of Mr. Sweetie using a giant slingshot at the beach.

They stopped at Moeraki Boulders, and Elijah caught a picture of Mr. Sweetie balancing this boulder on his head!