Lots of Helpers

Our family's life in New Zealand

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Activities at Home

The Austin

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Simon’s boss was given a 1953 Austin a month or so ago, and he didn’t want yet another old car to restore, so he gave it to Simon. Such a car must be stored under cover in this climate, so Simon went to town and bought supplies to build a carport for it. He and his brothers have been busily building.

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The car came home a day or two later:

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The boys played around with it but couldn’t get it going until a friend who loves vintage cars came over one evening. With his help, they got it to start. The next morning, I got a video of Simon starting it himself. Several days after that, the car had to be moved so firewood could be put in our carport (his wasn’t ready yet). The car is so small it would have been easy to push—but no, of course Simon had to start it and see if it would go! He got it to go forward, but can’t get it in reverse yet without stalling it. He also can’t run it more than a couple of minutes because the radiator isn’t hooked up.

Boats

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Mr. Intellectual continues to work on his strip canoe. He finally got all the strips glued together, and has been working on sanding it. It’s beautiful! Here it is nearly finished, and then with the last strip in place and part of the sanding done.

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Meanwhile, the boys have been enjoying their barrel boat. Here it is after the first use, when they went down the Grey River.

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This was the day they used it next, when we went down to the creek below our town with some friends to spend a Sunday afternoon in the water. They punted up and down the creek a number of times, but then that got boring, so they decided to sink it. The only way they could get it to sink was to take the plug out of the end and let it fill up with water—and even that took a long time!

Then, they used it on Christmas Day on a lake—I’ll publish a post in a few weeks about that. The most recent time they used it, Simon took Esther and one of her friends, and our two little boys, down the Grey River. They sunk it, and now they have to rebuild the motor—or dry it out, or something. It ended up quite dented, as you can see in this photo that Mr. Intellectual took to show someone.

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December 2018 Photos

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As usual, there are a lot of photos that don’t fit in any other post.

Mr. Sweetie was enamoured with this cicada that he found. It’s only an inch long.

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We planted sunflowers in a square for a playhouse for the two youngest. They figured out what is was pretty quickly, and Mr. Imagination built a table for it. He took these next three pictures.

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I planted zucchinis close to the sunflower house.30-IMG_5155331-IMG_51563

Little Miss loves helping me in the kitchen. She was actually quite helpful when I made Tomato-Cheese Pinwheels recently.

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The canoe continues to take shape. Mr. Intellectual adds a strip or two every day.

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The kittens are growing! Here they are at a month old.

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This is Mr. Sweetie’s lego airplane.

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Here is another example of the interesting vehicles we see driving past. This is an old Land Rover.

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One afternoon, Little Miss helped Esther and I to make tortillas. She loves helping in the kitchen!

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Another day, I sorted through a box of clothes set aside for her to grow into. She was thrilled to find that she could now wear this pretty dress!

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If you want a free Kindle book today, Chautona Havig’s A Bird Died is free for a few days. This is one I really enjoyed; read my review of it here.

Garlic

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Two friends have asked me in the last few weeks how I braid garlic and onions. I happened to have a pile of garlic that I decided to braid this morning, and after I got started thought it would be a good chance to show how I do it, for those who were curious.

Start by fastening three heads together. I usually use string, but rubberbands were handier this morning, so that’s what I used this time.

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Braid a few times, then start adding in another head with each braid.

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Continue till it’s long enough, and then stop adding more. Braid a little farther without adding any, and then tie it off.

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Here are my finished braids of this year’s skimpy crop (I think it was a combination of poor soil and not enough sunshine where we put it), and I’ll have the boys hang them in the food storage room later.

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The softneck garlic I used to grow in Michigan was easier to braid, but I’ve learned that it’s possible with this hardneck garlic as well. When we want to use some, we’ll just cut or twist off a head.

Flax

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We have a very large New Zealand flax plant outside our window. We have been enjoying watching the birds and bees pollinating it since it started blooming.

First, the flower stalks grew buds.

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Then, the flowers opened.

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Sometimes, this tui comes to call.

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There are always bees around.

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We also see a lot of starlings getting a drink of nectar. They end up with an orange cap on their head! I haven’t gotten a good picture of that, so here’s the best we could do.

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Here’s another starling.

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A bellbird has been coming, too, but it’s shy enough that if it sees the camera it is gone. This is the best I could get of it.

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We are really enjoying the birds as they enjoy the flax flowers!

Welcome!

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This is the first post on this site, but it is by no means the first post I have written. If you are interested in our lives since 2011, there are over 600 posts on lotsofhelpers.wordpress.com. I ran out of space to store photos on that platform, so have switched over to this one. Now, I have the adventure of learning a new website! Many thanks go to Esther, my tech support and right-hand helper.