Activities at Home

April 2020 Photos

May 31, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 4 Comments

Esther took this picture from her bedroom window one evening. See how Simon’s red van is cocked up? He had just power-washed it inside and was letting it drain and dry.

Simon also spent a day power-washing the other vehicles. Here in our wet climate on the Coast, moss and lichens grow on vehicles, and they need a good cleaning every so often.

I’m not sure what these two pictures are all about! This is Mr. Diligence, followed by Mr. Imagination.

Someone was playing with candle wax!

One day, I made play dough. Mr. Sweetie, Mr. Imagination, and Little Miss spent a couple of afternoons playing with it. Mr. Imagination made this strawberry.

All three of them worked together on this sculpture. I had found a set of playdough cutters at a shop, and they had great fun with them.

Princess loves the fire!

Little Miss says that she was pretending that her bears had a broken leg, but they didn’t.

One afternoon when Miss Joy had been quiet for a good while, I found this. She had found that the lid on the white flour cannister isn’t tight! Such fun! She was puzzled when we all stood there laughing.

I read the book A Grain of Rice to Little Miss recently, and got out some rice to illustrate what was happening.

What a happy baby!

It’s fun having two little girls.

We’re able to make all the cheese we need. Each of these cheeses is made from about 20 L (five gallons) of milk, and weighs a little over 2 kg (5 pounds). We let it sit on the counter, turning it once a day, for a week or two. When it has a good rind on it, we label it with a pencil and put it in the fridge. I have a notebook in which I write down times and temperatures for each step of the process of making the cheese, so we can trouble-shoot if one isn’t good. We’ve been making Colby for the past six months, and it’s turning out the way we like it, every time.

Harvesting in April and May

May 24, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

When I dug potatoes one day, I found this funny duck-shaped one. Mr. Imagination loved it and took a picture of it.

A few days later when the boys harvested pumpkins, he brought this one in to weigh it. He was quite impressed with its size! (That’s 6.3 kilos, or around 13 pounds.)

As usual, we had a lot of green tomatoes at the end of the season. This lot was ripe and could be canned as whole tomatoes or juice: but we also had this to deal with:

I went online to find recipes, and discovered that green tomatoes are as safe to can as ripe ones, or maybe more so, since they are more acidic. I decided to make green tomato salsa first. I didn’t follow the recipe exactly, but the changes I made would have made it safer, since I reduced the volume of peppers. This is the proportions I used; you can find the original recipe here:
1.5 kilos green tomatoes

400 gm onions

2 small HOT peppers plus several milder ones (recipe called for 250 gm; I used more like 50-100 gm)

2 cloves garlic

1/2 cup vinegar (called for lime juice, which I didn’t have)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

I coarsely chopped the tomatoes and onions, then put the peppers and garlic in the blender with the vinegar. After adding the vinegar mixture to the pot, I mixed in the salt and pepper, then brought the whole lot to a boil. I did 4-7 times this amount in each pot, using three pots at a time. And here’s a tip if you do something like this: weigh the tomatoes after chopping, then use a dry-erase marker to write the weights on the outside of the pot. It washes off easily when you’re done, and you don’t lose track of how many batches you’re making! I just discovered that this year. After the salsa has boiled for a little while, put in jars and seal. We don’t like this for eating as salsa, but it’s great in soups. I’m planning to use it through the year when I am making a soup that I want some spice in; I won’t have to chop onions for the soup, either!

Here are the jars of this salsa that we canned. A lot of the tomatoes were half ripe, which is why it looks fairly red. (I should mention that the reason we didn’t leave them to finish ripening was that the slugs were getting them and they would have rotted before ripening.)

I also experimented with pickling green tomatoes (results aren’t in yet), and made a few pots of half-ripe ones into juice. It’s not quite as tasty as juice from ripe tomatoes, but when I use it with ripe ones, we don’t mind it at all. Just a way to squeeze a little more production out of the garden!

All fruit and vege shops were shut down during lockdown, and we don’t have any on the Coast anyway. However, I have my own private one. One day I went out “shopping” and this was what I brought home for dinner. So much fun! I love walking out to the garden every afternoon to harvest what we need for that evening’s meal, and getting the rest from the freezer or jar room. We are rich, and I am thankful God has given us this place where we can grow so much food. (I think it’s good for my mental health as well as our physical health, too!)

Taking a Tramp Part 2

May 10, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

This is the rest of Mr. Diligence’s story.

From Elizabeth Hut we wanted to go to Cone Creek Hut. There is no trail going between. We would have had to go back to the hot springs and back up another track. So we decided to find our way over the mountain.

That morning P said he was sick. We asked if we should just head down. He said he could make it to Cone Creek. We set out at 9:00 a.m. We headed up the mountain behind Elizabeth Hut. It wasn’t very steep at first. As we headed up we were climbing over logs. We came to a few cliffs but were able to skirt around them or over. After about an hour we had to go on all fours. We stopped for a rest then went on. By 11:00 a.m., we had made it to the ridge line that we were going to follow up. Half an hour later we came to a cliff where we could look down the valley. J took both tents so P wouldn’t have to carry as much weight. We decided to have lunch at the top of a steep climb. We got to the top and P collapsed and promptly fell to sleep. J crawled up and collapsed.

Looking up the valley during a rest stop.

The bushes from the center to the right of this photo are called turpentine bushes.

The ditch is a fault line. Mr. Intellectual is about in the center of the photo. They walked through the lower right area here, up to where he is and on.

They walked up the spur in the center of the photo to where Mr. Diligence is standing to take the picture.

We had lunch around 12:00 p.m. Simon and C took both tents so J wouldn’t have as much weight. P was feeling a lot better after his rest. We continued on and were soon out of the bush. P was not doing very well so J and Simon started taking turns carrying his pack. We got to the top by 2:00 p.m. We had climbed about 1000 meters. We walked along the ridge. In one place on the ridge there was a rock face that we could go around. But Simon and C decided to climb over. By that time P had taken back his pack.

Going on up the ridge. This is C, J, and P.

Looking ahead where they needed to go. They walked across the scree slope, up to the top near the right side of this picture, then followed the very top of the ridge.

Mr. Intellectual, then Simon, then P on the ridge.

Looking down the valley from the top of the ridge.

Looking back to where J and C were coming along behind.

A rock formation that some climbed over–and Mr. Diligence and some others were “smart enough to go around.”

Mr. Intellectual taking a rest on top of the world.

Lichens on rocks on the top of the ridge.

We were having a rest on the ridge before we began to go down. Some chamois ran below us. We saw one standing on a hill about a hundred meters away. Some of the others started to baa. The chamois came running toward us and got within ten meters. Then it started running circles around us. P said he had never seen that before.

Mr. Diligence took a couple of video clips of the young chamois running around, so I put them together here. It was disoriented, and trying to find the rest of the flock. The baaing in the video is the boys/men trying to get it to come closer. It ran all the way around them, and then off to join the others.

to be continued…

Product Review—Everyday Education, LLC

May 6, 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 don’t know about anyone else, but it seems like writing, and penmanship in general, are very difficult to teach to boys. They just aren’t interested! I struggle to get them to write at all, let alone legibly. Therefore, I was somewhat interested in using Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting ebook from Everyday Education, LLC. The premise sounded great—a simple method for teaching beautiful handwriting, and good reading. I thought I would use it to supplement the Language Arts program we’re using with the boys, and get a start on teaching Little Miss to read and write with it.

When I received the ebook, I was quite interested in reading the introductory pages. The history of our current type of cursive handwriting was fascinating, and I like the premise of this book, which is to simplify writing so that everyone can have beautiful handwriting. I believe the book would work to teach a child to read, as well, assuming the child had no learning disabilities and the mother had enough time to spend with them doing the lessons. For me, unfortunately, it didn’t work well.

I did not end up using this course as a supplement for my boys. This book teaches Italic writing, which is beautiful and simple, but they had already learned the normal cursive. Therefore, I felt like it would be too confusing for them to try to relearn everything. I did use it for Little Miss, to work on letter formation. She loved doing several pages of the letters, and did very well at learning the sounds. Each letter is given a picture of a word that begins with that sound—like A is apple, E is elephant, I is igloo, etc. We didn’t get beyond writing letters, though. The program doesn’t start putting letters together into words until all the letters have been learned. Then, it introduces short vowel words, consonant blends, compound words and plural words. It then moves on to vowel-R words and vowel teams. Each of these lessons has a list of words to learn to read, and then several sentences using the words. Each of the sentences is printed with blank lines under the words for practice writing. This is one of the strengths I see in this book, that the child is expected to write directly below the example, which makes it easy to follow the model.

After thoroughly learning the shapes of the letters, children are introduced to joining them. With the Italic system, most of the letters are actually not joined, as in most cursive systems. I found that quite interesting.

In summary, this book was not a good fit for our family at this time, both because I have already taught my boys to write cursive with a different system and because of the dyslexia that runs in our family. In the introduction, this book states that everyone will be able to read well by going through this system, but I know from experience that some people will not be able to—at least not with someone like me teaching them. I tried systems like this with my older boys and utterly failed, although I’m sure some people would have done well with it. This book would work well to teach most children to read and write, however, and if I didn’t already have a course on hand to use with Little Miss I would give this one a try. Take a look at it and see what you think!

Fifty families have been using Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting over the past month and a half; see what they have to say about it by clicking the image below!

Perfect Reading, Beautiful Handwriting ebook {Everyday Education, LLC Reviews}

Soap

April 29, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

After my mention on this blog that Gayle made our year’s supply of soap while he was home during lockdown, I received a request to share my method/recipe. It’s very simple; I found it online about eight years ago when I started making soap. I just googled something like, “soap recipes with tallow.” I wanted to use tallow as the fat, since I can usually access it fairly readily by asking a butcher for it. Then, I render it.

So, I guess I should start with the rendering instructions! Sorry, I don’t have pictures of any of this; I don’t do it very often, and haven’t thought to document that part of my life! I get the fat from the butcher. Usually I use beef fat, but I’ve also used sheep fat when we butchered our own sheep and they turned out to be very fat. I put the pieces of fat in a large roaster and put it in the oven at, maybe, 150°C. I think that might be about 325-350°F? Once a lot of the fat has liquified, I ladle it out, then roughly chop up the pieces of fat with a pancake turner. I put it back in the oven and roast it again; a lot more of the fat comes out. When I think it’s pretty well done, I just drain off all the liquid fat I can, before it solidifies.

Another way I get fat is by making bone broth. I get beef bones from the butcher, and roast them for half an hour or so in the oven. Then, I put them in my huge stock pot, cover with water and a splash of vinegar, and simmer for a day or two. Then, I strain the bones out of the hot broth and discard them, and chill the broth. The fat all rises to the top and solidifies. If the weather is cold enough I can set the pot outside (with a good lid to prevent cats from getting in it) overnight; otherwise, I try to fit it in the fridge. I carefully lift off the solid fat and scrape the goopy stuff off the bottom, then put the fat in a large saucepan. I heat it till it’s melted, and then simmer till it stops spitting—that way I know the water is all cooked out of it and it’ll keep a lot longer. Just be careful not to let it cook past that point, or it starts smoking. Let it cool before pouring into a container, if the container is plastic!

Now that the fat is ready, the soap can be made! I use 13 cups of tallow. Put it in a large stockpot and heat till it’s melted. Weigh out your sodium hydroxide/caustic soda/lye—you need 12 ounces for this recipe. DON’T LET IT GET WET YET! Measure 4 cups of cold water into a glass container. I use a glass roaster. Do not use plastic or metal for this step. If you want to use goats milk, put 4 cups of it into the freezer the day before soap making, and let it thaw till just slushy. Carefully pour the lye into the water or the slushy goats milk, and stir with a stainless steel spoon until it is all dissolved—don’t let it splash. This solution is very dangerous if it touches any skin. If it touches wood, it eats it up. I always do this step outside. Once the lye is dissolved, check the temperature of the lye solution and of the fat. They need to be fairly close together in temperature. I think the recommendation is within 5-10°F. If you’re using tallow, either beef or sheep, you need it to be warmer than if you are making olive oil or coconut oil soap, as the tallow solidifies a lot sooner than the other fats.

When the two ingredients are fairly close in temperature, carefully pour the lye into the tallow and stir. Keep stirring until it traces. You can bring it to that point a lot faster if you use a stick blender to stir. Gayle ran the stick blender for a minute or so, then turned it off for a couple of minutes to rest the motor, then turned it on again for another minute. I think it only took about ten minutes to trace, but I’m not sure—it was a busy morning!

Deciding when the soap is tracing is a bit tricky. To check for it, dip a spoon or spatula into the liquid soap and drizzle a bit across the top. If you can see it for an instant before it disappears, that’s tracing. Then, pour it into the molds quickly, before it sets. I use Tupperware 9×13 containers. Use whatever you have. If you have real soap molds that make pretty bars, so much the better—I don’t, so I make a very basic bar.

Keep the soap as warm as possible for a few days. We stacked up the three containers of soap and wrapped them in several woolen blankets, then put them in the warmest place we could find. It needs to stay warm for awhile for the chemical reaction to keep working, turning that fat into fat-cutting soap!

After a few days, you can take the soap out of the molds and cut it into bars. Gayle made the soap on Friday; on Monday when he opened the containers, it was still too soft to pop it out. I usually don’t get to this job for a couple of weeks, and by then the soap is hard enough to pop out the whole slab. Instead, Gayle used a table knife to cut it into bars, then a cake server to lift them out. When it sits in the containers long enough to harden, I cut it on a cutting board with a large knife. We like bars about half the size of the ones you buy, but you can make them any size and shape you want! Save the little bits; mix them with water later (whiz with a stick blender) and you’ll have liquid hand soap or shampoo. For now, though, let all that soap age a month or two to finish the chemical reaction. I’ve heard that a month is good, but two is better before using it, to make sure your skin doesn’t react with the lye. We store the soap in a cardboard box lined with newspaper, with newspaper between layers and space between the bars. We keep the box on top of the water heater where it’s warm and dry, because we’ve had it go moldy when stored under the bathroom sink, where it was cold and damp. When stored above the water heater, we have kept it with no problems for two years.

This soap doesn’t smell pretty like the ones you buy, but we like that there is no artificial fragrance in it. I get headaches from fragrances, and sometimes itch all over after using commercial soap for a shower. This is the soap most of us use for shampoo, as well as handwashing and bathing/showering. I rub a bar over my wet hair, then use my hands to lather it. Doing this two or three times gets my hair nice and clean. Gayle and some of the boys prefer to make it into shampoo by blending bits and pieces with lots of hot water. Esther, on the other hand, can’t manage her hair if she uses this soap to wash it, so she buys her shampoo. So, depending on hair type, it may or may not work for you.

There is a lot of information online about soap making, with pictures or videos showing tracing. Do some more research and see what other people have to say! I was very thankful for a friend who walked me through my first batch of soap—this was something I was a bit scared to try. It’s not nearly as dangerous as I thought it would be, though.

March 2020 Photos

April 26, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Here are the last of the photos from March that I didn’t get fitted into other posts.

For science this year, we’re working our way through Exploring Creation With Zoology 3: Land Animals of the Sixth Day. When we studied the chapter about cats, the grand finale was to cut out pictures of cougars and deer from the notebooking journals, and toss the cougar onto the deer. If the cougar landed on three deer, that meant it had enough food and could live and reproduce. If not, it died. Each deer that didn’t get eaten reproduced, and another cougar would move into the area. It was very interesting to see how the number of cougars rose with the number of deer, and then the deer population dropped when there were too many cougars. It was a very vivid illustration of the balance of nature!

Mr. Intellectual dissected a shark for his Biology course. He was supposed to have a perch, but we made do with what we had. The shark had been in the freezer for a year!

Little Miss loves to haul things in her wheelbarrow! This was before Simon fixed it up and painted it.

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I’m not sure who took this picture, but I liked it. This is a rare picture of Mr. Diligence sitting still for a few minutes—obviously Goofball made herself at home on his knee very quickly!

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Miss Joy

April 18, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Miss Joy is growing fast! At nearly 8 months, she crawls anywhere she wants to go. She stands up against anything that will support her—or not; she’s always experimenting to see what is solid and what is not. Nearly everything goes in her mouth; you have to find out if it’s edible or not! She has learned to leave the cat alone. That tail is so tempting—but the cat has made sure that Miss Joy knows she is off limits! No scratches, but there were definitely some warning slaps and growls. We’re also treated to a fast-growing repertoire of sounds, as she practices with various syllables. She has the funniest growling cackle that makes us laugh every time she does it. She was sick the last two days with a mysterious fever, which made her quite lethargic. We enjoyed the extra cuddling time, but we’re all thankful today that she’s well again, after a solid night’s sleep. I think I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: We thoroughly enjoy this baby!

I think this first picture was from early March. She was thrilled to find a window she could see out of! She likes being outside better than in the house.

The dishwasher is such fun to explore! I have to take the cutlery basket out and put it out of reach when dishes are drying, or spoons and forks end up strewn all over the floor.

She was tickled one day to find the pea vines in the bathtub planter. Peas are so yummy!She crawled into Esther and Little Miss’s bedroom one day and gave Esther this beautiful grin. See those two little teeth?

Tomatoes are so delicious.

Little Miss asked Esther, “Is it all right if we share germs?”

Mr. Imagination got out the box of games and puzzles one day. It was such fun to climb over and through, and then sit up in!

She found an apple under the table. Mr. Imagination took this first picture. I love it even though it’s blurry. Esther got two more, which are clearer, but I don’t think they’re quite so cute. The poor baby ends up stuck under the table sometimes because she can’t crawl under the benches.

Here are a few video clips we made of her laughing. I love how she laughs so hard sometimes that she loses her balance!

Lockdown

April 12, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Here are a few of the things we have done during lockdown. Gayle has spent a lot more time than normal playing with the children! He has never been at home without having a lot on his mind, and had energy to do things with them. His health is better than in past times when he had time like this. He has helped Little Miss with her preschool work a number of times.

He did an art lesson with Mr. Imagination and Little Miss one day.

Miss Joy loves having him around! She can steal treats from him sometimes. This was apple crumble with coconut cream on top.

Mr. Diligence hauled home grass clippings and other stuff for mulch from across the road one day. Little Miss helped him, so he gave her a ride home.

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Gayle made soap for us. I had intended to do this job in January, and got the tallow out of the freezer for it then. In early March I got the supplies out to make the soap—and discovered we didn’t have enough caustic soda (lye). I ordered more, and it arrived just before lockdown started—was I ever glad I ordered when I did, as we couldn’t get it now. I still hadn’t gotten the job done, so Gayle did it for me, with my supervision, one morning while I taught school, and then he cut it into bars a few days later. Now we have enough soap for a year or two.

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He also pumped a ham full of brine. We’ll eat the ham next week, after Mr. Intellectual smokes it for us.

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Today (Sunday) there are two board games going on at the kitchen table. Esther and Mr. Intellectual are playing a variation of Settlers of Catan, and Gayle is playing Monopoly with Simon and Mr. Diligence.

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Since Simon is home, he’s been working on his van. He also took time to wirebrush the rust off a little wheelbarrow that was given to Little Miss, weld it together, and paint it. She is very happy with her “new” wheelbarrow!

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As we walked home from our picnic down by the river today (we beat the rain!) we saw something unfamiliar beside the highway across the river. Esther zoomed in with her camera, and this is what we were seeing! Someone got creative.

Picnics During Lockdown

April 5, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We decided, to make Sundays a bit more special while we’re on lockdown, to have a picnic by the creek down the hill from our town. We built a small fire and roasted sausages and marshmallows, and then played in the creek with Simon’s kayak and a couple of boats the boys built. When everyone had their fill of the water, we went across the creek and did target practice with Simon’s air rifle, aiming toward a sand dune. We really enjoy having this safe, private place to be outside! It’s within walking distance of our house, and the water is shallow enough there is no danger even if a boat flips.

Miss Joy loves boat rides! I apologize for so many pictures, but I couldn’t decide which of these to leave out.

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination wading in the creek. That’s the Paparoa Mountains in the background.

Esther wanted the water drained out of the kayak before she got in. It took too long—she gave up waiting!

This is the boat Mr. Intellectual built. It’s nearly unsinkable, at least on this kind of water.

The willow trees near the creek were covered with these big aphids!

The trees were also swarming with bumblebees and wasps. I found out how hard it is to get a picture of an insect. Esther did better, though.

I tried out the kayak—fun!

These boys rocked the boat…

…and these two rode the waves from it!

When we went across to shoot the air rifle, Miss Joy discovered something new—sand! She was thrilled to have something new to investigate.

Simon really wanted me to try shooting. It turns out that I’m a pretty good aim when I can lean on something like this…but not when I have to hold the air rifle up myself!

Simon likes to give everyone a turn shooting.

The previous pictures were all from last week, when it was cloudy and cool. This week, it was sunny and warm. This was the view up the river as we walked down to the creek.

We pass this row of trees on our way up. It was such a beautiful day today!

Here are a few video clips I put together from our afternoon at the creek.

March 2020, Before Lockdown

March 28, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

As of three days ago, our entire nation is in lockdown for a month, to try to eliminate COVID-19. We’re still trying to adjust mentally to not being able to leave home without a very good reason, and not being able to order anything non-essential online. We can still buy groceries and animal feed and fuel for vehicles, and medicines, but that’s all. Gayle is off work for at least four weeks, although Simon, as a mechanic, has an essential job and is allowed to continue working. For the most part, our life hasn’t changed, other than Gayle being at home, since the children are at home every day, anyway.

Here are pictures of some of the things we did earlier in the month, before things suddenly shut down. Simon got to help cut down this huge pine tree that was on the hill above the garage in which he works. The fear was that someday it would fall on the building, so a neighbor from the top of the hill helped cut it down. Esther took the younger children over to watch it fall.

The garage from above. This is where Simon spends his days!

One day, Mr. Imagination cut up a cardboard box to make himself a zoo.

The figure on the left is a horse with a carrot in its mouth; the one on the right is a donkey. The box is the feed trough, with vegetables in it.

This is a scarecrow, a cat and a mouse, with a fence in front of the cat.

These three boys took a tramp two weeks ago with three friends. They spent two nights in remote huts up in the mountains, and climbed to the top of a mountain on the day in between. Esther took these photos as they were leaving. They had the time of their lives! They came back very tired and needing showers, but they want to do it again!

Little Miss got to vacuum the living room. She wanted ear protection—and wore a crown!

This Land Rover pulled in at the neighbor’s one afternoon. We took a picture to show Simon. He said, “I’ve worked on that Land Rover!” He says he spent 4-5 days working on it.