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May 2026 Photos

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A lot of things happened in May! Here are the rest of our photos that we wanted to share. This first one was taken when Elijah was experimenting with the camera on his new phone. He took it down the hill when he was taking care of the chickens one evening as the moon rose.

Elijah took this one when he went up the road one day to try to find a place where he didn’t have cell service. He’s been paying for satellite connectivity for a few months, but it wasn’t working, so he kept testing different things and communicating with his phone company about it. They finally found a setting that was not turned on, in his phone. He thought I would like to see this waterfall (I did!).

Two friends (Mr. Imagination and a friend of his) eating jalapenos. These jalapenos hardly have any spice–very disappointing! I think I watered them too much.

Simon spent a week cutting and welding to mount a winch on his Land Rover.

The girls spent an evening building a zoo.

This is a space right next to our church in Reefton.

My last hatching of chicks for the season. That batch of eggs wasn’t very fertile; I only ended up with 31 babies from 56 eggs.

There was a large patch of these toadstools at a place where we had a homeschool gathering. Before Little Miss could get a picture, though, most had been knocked over.

Ahh… a fire!

Esther came upon a fascinating YouTube channel about Tudor farm life. After we watched one segment, Little Miss created paint brushes the way it was done then.

As I was working in the garden one day, Miss Joy joined me and spent a long time investigating earthworms!

Another day, she helped Esther peel garlic to put in the freezer, so that she could watch the video about 19th-century breadmaking that Esther had playing.

A woolen blanket next to the fire! What bliss. It didn’t matter to Princess that the shape was bumpy.

Esther went away for a weekend, and the girls decorated their room to welcome her home.

Joe wanted another picture of his screw when he had another checkup.

New Floor!

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One day in early May, Esther went into our shipping container to find something that was stored in there. She was horrified to find evidence of mice. We had never had mice find their way in there before, but sure enough, when I went in, it smelled strongly of them. That was on Saturday. We helped someone move on Monday, so Tuesday was our first chance to get into the container. We decided to pull everything out of the area under the shelves and see if we could find where the mice were getting in. We found it! See the hole in the corner and the pile of bits of wood around it? We also found that this corner of the floor was quite damp. After some consultation with the builder and the floor layer in the family, the decision was made to tear up the old particle-board floor, which was water-damaged in many places, and replace it with new, treated plywood, covered with commercial vinyl offcuts that Elijah was able to get for free.

We were surprised, when we pulled up the floor, to find this underneath! The container was a reefer, which explains the channels.

James got the new floor laid that evening (what a blessing that Elijah can bring plywood home in his work van), and Elijah got started laying the vinyl.

That weekend, he finished the job, and on Monday we moved back in! The floor has three different colors, but it is sweepable and washable and we are delighted. And, no mice can get in. The hole through which they were entering has been found and plugged (a plug blew out when someone was using a power washer a few months ago). The cats still want in, but that is because they like the beds that are often in there.

April 2026 Photos

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This month’s photos are a little more varied than last! First are some mushrooms. These first three are pictures Elijah took while he was on a search. He has a new phone and loves the good camera built in to it.

The girls found these mushrooms growing in the garden and took the pictures for Grandma (the ones above were taken with Grandma in mind, too!).

The next one is mushrooms growing on rotten balage!

Elijah loves taking night pictures with his new phone. This was the moon over the Tasman Sea one night when he was in Hokitika for a birthday party.

The same night; this is the boat playground at the mouth of the Hokitika River.

Little Miss is determined to get 1,000 hours of outside time this year, so even when it rains, she’s outside. And when she’s outside, chances are that Miss Joy is, too. One rainy day, this is what I saw!

The girls harvested the first half of the pumpkins by themselves.

When it’s cold, we do school like this. Miss Joy got the coveted position directly in front of the fire this time. The cat makes sure she gets her spot close to it, too.

After being in milk since September 2024, Bluebell isn’t giving much anymore, but there sure is a lot of cream! See the cream line? I’ve been able to freeze great quantities of butter for the winter shortage. Some days, there is even more cream than this. Sadly, after 15-20 years of service for us, this 5-liter jar got cracked a few days ago. I’ll have to buy another stainless steel one.

One morning, I was hanging laundry. I noticed something fuzzy in the basket of wet clothes. My eyes aren’t quite as good as they used to be, and I didn’t look closely, either. I thought, “That’s an odd bit of black yarn; it almost looks like a spider.” I kept picking things up and shaking them out and hanging them. As I got down through the basket, the bit of yarn fell to the bottom… and then the legs moved. It WAS a giant, fuzzy spider! It had gone through a wash cycle and was still slightly alive. Mr. Imagination took it to the greenhouse, but it didn’t live much longer. I think he still has it, though, to bring out when he wants to shock someone.

Mr. Imagination is majorly into weaponry. His latest craze is slingshots. He has created many, many slingshots in the last while, and built this target to practice shooting. The towel is to stop the balls, and they can be recovered in the barrel so he can reuse them.

The day we traveled to Timaru for Easter Conference, the sky was absolutely clear, and the view as we came over a hill and could see Lake Coleridge in the distance was stunning. The photo doesn’t come anywhere near doing it justice.

The view as we came down into the Rakaia Gorge was stunning, too.

Miss Joy with her domino string.

The ultimate pick up sticks game–arrows!

This was part of Joe’s engineering course; he had to design a suspension bridge and then weight it down.

She’s protecting the chicks that are hatching! (Or maybe coveting….)

March 2026 Photos

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Cats and garden and truck… that covers most of the photos I liked from March! This first one, though, is of the lunar eclipse that month. What a spectacular sight! Elijah had a pair of image-stabilizing binoculars here at the time that he was testing out for his Land Search and Rescue group, and they made the moon amazingly clear. We also got to see the four biggest moons of Jupiter through them. What a thrill! The last time I saw those was with my dad, probably in the 1980s when he was given a telescope.

My girls love books and cats! Little Miss has been reading to Miss Joy a lot.

Mr. Imagination and Elijah with their stack.

The garden was gorgeous at that point. (It’s mostly dead now.) Esther took this picture one day while she was harvesting chamomile. The smell of this area… wonderful!

Sometime in March, Simon bought another Land Rover. This one started out life in 1963 with a different body; this one was put on in the 1980s. It isn’t running, and he plans to junk most of it, but he got it for certain parts that are especially good in that model. Anyway, the price was so low he couldn’t not get it!

And, cats! Goofy cats that rest in odd places and positions.

Boxes are the best.

Even if the box is so small it’s difficult to fit all four feet in!

This picture requires some explanation. One morning, around 11:00, someone saw Grizzly sitting like this in the yard, looking quite unhappy. It had started to rain an hour or so before this; she had been sitting there since 8:30 or so. She was very wet, but didn’t wake up enough to move until I nudged her as I went past, shortly after the picture was taken. Then, she got up, leaving a dry spot on the grass where she had been, and went under cover.

Recovery

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After he broke his hip, Joe (formerly called Mr. Sweetie) spent six weeks in a wheelchair. That was a challenge, in a house the size of ours with this many people living in it! We managed, though.

First, here are a couple of pictures Esther took while they were in the hospital

As soon as he was allowed to sit up in a wheelchair, Esther took him outside to a park across the street for some fresh air. This furniture is concrete with mosaic decorations!

I purchased an engineering course for Joe to do, since when he got hurt he had only a week’s worth of school left. That kept him busy for the entire time he was in a wheelchair, and he thoroughly enjoyed it! Here are a few of the projects he did. The first assignment was to hold a stack of books an inch off the floor, using only one sheet of printer paper and a foot of masking tape. He accomplished it!

This assignment was to create a free-standing tower with a given amount of paper and tape.

When we went back for his six-week check, to receive permission to start walking again, they took an x-ray to check his healing. Quite an impressive screw! About half of it is inside the bone.

February 2026 Photos

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February was a very eventful month! My last eight posts of family adventures have been of things we did away from home with Mom and my brother. Here are the rest of the pictures I have from the month, showing a few things that happened at home and the big trauma that Joe endured.

There was time for the children to play a few games with their uncle, and for him to enjoy the budgies.

On the way to church one Sunday morning, we had to stop for some cattle that were being moved down the road. What fun–we don’t see that very often anymore.

Mom did a few more puzzles, with occasional help from the rest of us. She started another puzzle the day before she left, but I don’t think it’s been touched since then!

I spent a lot of time harvesting. That was when the garden was still beautiful, before the late-summer diseases hit. I loved all the colors here in the pea/bean trellis!

Goofball came along to get some attention one day when I went to pick a few beans for dinner. She sat in the tub for a few minutes, then got out and walked away.

We hatched some more chicks. That never gets old!

One of the girls caught Grizzly in a box.

The day we went to Jim’s Hut, while he was walking along the road, Joe thought he pulled a muscle. For several days, he limped. I asked him about it several times, and he just said it hurt a little, but not bad. Then, on Monday morning, his brother startled him and he jumped. Suddenly he screamed in pain and couldn’t walk anymore. I came into the house just in time to see Elijah carrying him to the couch. An hour or so later, I took him to the hospital. The x-ray showed that the growth plate on his left femur had slipped apart, as you can see here. He was flown to Chrischurch in the helicopter within a couple of hours, and the next day he had surgery. They realigned the bone and put in a screw to hold it in place. He was in hospital for three days. Esther drove over there to care for him and bring him home when he was released.

We were all very thankful to have Joe back at home on Thursday evening! He spent the next 6 1/2 weeks in a wheelchair.

Right after Mom left, I found another slime mold in the greenhouse. That must be a perfect environment for them!

One evening, Gayle took pictures of what was happening outside. Two boys were practicing archery.

I was reading to the girls.

January 2026 Photos Part 2

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Here are the rest of my pictures from January. The big project in January was to replace the roof of our church, Reefton Baptist. The building is an old A-frame Scout hall. The first picture here was the day they trimmed trees away from the building and took part of a wall off, and started taking the top off the chimney.

The next Saturday, more people went. They took off the old roof and replaced it, and a couple of people spent the whole day jackhammering and sawing the chimney to finish taking it down below the level of the roof. They had the building water-tight by late that night.

Little Miss wanted a picture of my harvest one morning.

One day, Mom and I took the three youngest on a walk to the bridge. We located all three geocaches that are around the bridge–what fun!

Esther was in Timaru for a couple of weeks in January, and one evening she sent me a picture of the sunset. I returned the favor–ours was more brilliant!

The budgies are tamer all the time. Mr. Imagination enjoys them.

So do the girls!

When I went to the greenhouse one day to work, I found two cats enjoying the dry warmth in there!

A friend of ours bought a berry farm last year. He allowed us to come in and pick crops that would be going to waste. These were blueberry bushes in among tayberries. We came home with enough blueberries to last us most of the year!

Picking peas and beans is very enjoyable–see all the colors!

January 2026 Photos Part 1

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I’m not going to attempt to organize these pictures into categories. I’ve had enough trouble getting anything posted that I’ll just put them up in a few posts.

We finally threw this old foam mattress out, after it hadn’t been used in many years and was just taking up valuable space. The girls had fun with it for a couple of days, and then Mr. Imagination cut it into pieces for archery targets.

Some friends from Australia came to visit one evening, and the girls appropriated the man’s hat and sunglasses for a little while!

The cat got dressed up, too. Think she liked it?

One of Mr. Imagination’s knives.

One Sunday we had lunch with and spent the afternoon with some friends at Maruia. They have an outdoor aviary with a number of budgies, and the girls enjoyed seeing them.

This is the view from their deck, as one storm after another rolled through the mountains.

We did a lot of puzzles with Mom. That was a great way to spend relaxed time together! This first one was Miss Joy’s; the others were a group effort.

We had another hatch of chicks in January. After I took them out, while the unhatched eggs were still in the incubator, Princess took a nap with them. As soon as I started picking them up, to take them outside and open them to see what went wrong, she was wide awake. She knows that they will be her snack!

Birds and Slime Mold

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Usually, we see many birds on the flax blossoms in December, but this year they didn’t really show up until January. Then, we enjoyed many different species. It was fairly easy to get decent pictures of the tuis.

The bellbird was a different story! These are not only shy, they move fast. Most of the pictures turned out blurry.

These birds are frequently photographed, too.

This bird is Little Miss’s pet. The girls had great fun one day when they let her out in the garden.

I walked into the greenhouse one morning to turn off the water and saw something very strange on top of the mulch. When I looked closer, I decided it was probably a slime mold, so when Mom got into the house I told her about it. We went and had a look, and she agreed with me. It had already started to disintegrate, just an hour after I first saw it! The first picture was taken about 8:00 in the morning.

This was about 2:00 in the afternoon.

3:00 in the afternoon.

Two days later.

This was a fruiting body, where many slime molds join together to reproduce. Look up slime molds–they are fascinating! They are not animal, or plant, or even fungi, but in a classification of their own. They move, and have intelligence–without a brain. Amazing creation of God!

December 2026 Photos

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Here are the rest of December’s photos! For some reason, we end up with a lot of pictures of Princess. One would think she’s a popular pet?

My animal-lover was delighted to find this hedgehog in the garden one afternoon. We told her she had to put it back out there, so the little girls found it a lot of slugs and watched delightedly as it slurped them down.

Jenga blocks rarely get used for the game….

We enjoyed watching the birds on the flax blossoms, as usual in the spring.

Our summer holiday project this year was to replace the lower part of the garage wall in the carport. It was pretty rotten. They ripped off the old weatherboards and dug out a trench for a footer, after propping up the roof. When they were digging, they broke into a cave we didn’t know about, which, at some time in the past, had been formed under the floor of the garage! We don’t know for sure what the purpose was, but based on some paraphernalia found in the attic of the garage when we moved here we have some suspicions. It is filled in now.

The carport was quite a mess for awhile. It was a good thing we didn’t have much rain for that time! I hang laundry in there when it rains.

The flower garden before it turned into a jungle!

This was one of our favorite visitors to the flax–a tui!

Another hatch of chicks. We’ve had very good percentages with the last two hatches–so fun!

One evening, we went to the Domain for a cookout with Elijah’s LandSAR group. One woman brought these balls on strings, and taught Maria how to swing them rhythmically. It’s a Maori game.

We’ve done a number of puzzles with Grandma; this was the first.

The girls created this one afternoon on their bedroom floor with thumbtacks!

We end up with a lot of photos of the birds, too. They are also popular pets.

Half-grown chicks–I think this was the batch in the incubator in the earlier picture.

One Saturday just before Christmas, the boys went on an overnight kayak trip on the Ahaura River. They started in the Haupiri, which flows into the Ahaura, and ended at Jim’s Hut. James met them there with their food and camping gear (he couldn’t go on the water because of a badly-cut hand), and they all spent the night. They had planned to kayak the rest of the way to Ahaura on Sunday morning, but decided instead to load up and come out for church, which decision I was quite happy with. Mr. Imagination found this beetle at the hut.

The river just below Jim’s Hut.