The garden is nearly done for the year, and not pretty anymore, but I decided to make one more video of it, to record some observations I have made recently. I’m not completely sure I have come to the correct conclusions, but preliminary observations seem to indicate that compost is pretty powerful!
Activities at Home
My Cat Sleeps in Boxes
We have a cute picture book about cats. It describes cats around the world who are very talented… they might dance, or sing, or many other things… but every second page says, “But MY cat likes to hide in boxes.” Well, we have a cat who loves to sleep in boxes, any boxes. Grizzly was overjoyed when we were emptying boxes of jars during canning season, and putting the empties outside to be taken back to the garage. Perfect places to sleep! We’ve also found her sleeping in a child’s wheelbarrow, carefully braced so she didn’t slide out, or in the trailer (very big box!). One day, when Elijah’s bedroom door was laying on sawhorses in the carport while he was prepping it for painting, she found that someone had put a newspaper (another favorite bed) in one of the inset panels on the door. So, she had not only a box with tiny sides, but also a newspaper! Perfect!
She generally wakes up when we come to take a picture, but this time Esther found her sound asleep, laying on her back in the box!
I took this picture one day when it was drizzling. Gayle had driven the ute somewhere, so of course the engine was warm. Apparently, the heat trumped the wet. Grizzly was curled up tightly, with her paw over her nose. I said something to her as I walked past. She uncurled enough to half open one eye and sleepily say hello (she’s a very talkative cat), and immediately curled up again, fast asleep.
Goofball likes boxes, too. She’s much more dignified than her sister, though.
Four Wheel Drive Trip–Napoleon Hill
A few weeks ago, a group of local friends decided to go on a four wheel drive trip over Napoleon Hill, close to our home. James decided to do something he has been thinking about for a long time–take his tractor on the trip! It added some excitement; I’ll let Joe tell about it in a story he wrote. (The solar panel mounted on the back is to keep the battery charged, since the alternator doesn’t work anymore.)
One young lady gave my two little girls and another little girl a ride on the quad bike.
This is the Safari that Simon spent a couple of years restoring, and then sold to a friend. It’s getting quite a workout; after this particular episode, water poured out of all the doors!
Things went well, until….
They drained the water out of the engine, and it started right up again! Yay for 1960s vehicles with no electronics. James did take it to the garage for a complete oil change after they got out of this track.
And, here is the story:
THE FOUR WHEEL DRIVE TRIP
A couple of weeks ago, we went over Napoleon Hill, with a few of the V’s, the B’s, and some of our family. James, after a lot of thinking, decided to take his Pajero and his tractor. His tractor is a 1960s Fordson Super Dexta, two wheel drive, six speed manual. It’s about medium size and can attain speeds up to about 50 km an hour downhill. Since it is as old as it is, the alternator doesn’t work, so to charge it James has mounted a solar panel that keeps the battery charged, so now it is updated to the 21st century.
We headed off from our house to Napoleon Hill about 9:30 and started along the four wheel drive track. The tractor is very slow, so the vehicle I was riding in, the troop carrier, got ahead of everybody else and so we ended up doing a small side track, which was fun. Going through the first mud hole, the tractor’s bell housing filled up with water, so when he came out water was spraying out of both sides of the tractor, which was fun to see. Napoleon Hill is a very fun four wheel drive track, which if you nail it only takes about an hour, but at the rate we went it took us over half the day.
As always, we stopped at the cemetery and had a look around there, and then headed down the mountain. When we got down into the river gorge we stopped and waited for everyone else to catch up. A few minutes after everybody got there and we headed off again we got to the caves. There are three of them. The first one is just big enough that a quad can squeeze through. You can drive through the other two. It is really fun, because the last one is really long and more than twice as high as the vehicles.
After we got through the caves and got out to the bigger creek we stopped for lunch. During lunch, L wanted to have a turn on the tractor, so James took him for a drive. They were going up the creek and James wasn’t really paying attention to where they were going till the tractor started bogging down in the soft sand. He told L to hop off and then started going backwards and forwards to try to get out. He thought maybe he should get someone to pull him out because he didn’t know how deep the creek was to his left, but shrugged the thought away. Then, he tried pulling forward again and slid off an underwater shelf into an over-chest-deep part of the creek. The tractor nearly disappeared and almost instantly died.
S pulled him out. They took the injectors out and turned the engine over several times, so the pistons pushed the water out of the cylinders where the injectors usually go. It was fun to see the water spraying everywhere, and nice to hear the tractor start up again as good as new—maybe even better because of the engine wash it had just received.
As we went out, P, in the Safari, took on a heap more of the side tracks and several of them that he took in four wheel drive he went back through in two wheel drive. We had a lot of fun that day and I was glad I got to go along.
January/February 2025 Photos
I got started writing this post last week. I had the first paragraph halfway written when the notice popped up that I was offline and the post could not be saved. I waited five minutes, because our internet randomly flicks off, and then comes back a little later. Then, we realized that there were only two websites that were not coming up–my blog and Internet Archive, from which Esther was trying to read a book. I restarted both modems, and got the same results. I gave up. Three hours later, both websites were loading again! So, I didn’t give you a post last week. Today, I actually have some time to think!
This summer has been even more jam-packed than usual. Not only do we have the normal garden work and preserving of the harvest to work on, but add in three renovation projects as well, and you can imagine what life has been like here! One project is finished, one is close enough to put it on hold for a little while. Elijah’s house is still a main focus. I have spent most of my Saturdays for the past six or seven weeks there, helping to paint. We can see the end in sight now, though! I should be able to share pictures of a finished project soon.
Meanwhile, here are the pictures I have left from the first two months of the year.
Over the Christmas break, the boys built a garage at Simon’s house. I only went over there once, but a friend sent me a couple of pictures he took of the boys working, and I grabbed a picture near the end of the project. I just realized I don’t have a picture of the finished building!
Mr. Imagination built several live traps. He tested them with the cats, and they worked for that–but no possums have been caught. He gave up on that project. (The cats were quite happy to be trapped, as long as it meant they got extra cat food!)
I was in the garden one day, and Miss Joy wanted me to take a picture of her with her hollyhock dolls.
I’m not sure what this was about–but it’s a shot of Elijah, taken by a friend who sent it to me.
Miss Joy is quite a writer! She frequently dictates stories, and one day she dictated this original poem, and the explanation for it.
Little Miss took a picture of Miss Joy inside these tubs. See her eyes peeking out?
After I harvested the first lot of onions in mid-January, I asked the children to braid them for me. They were happy to do that job, as long as they could listen to an audiobook while they did it!
This was the onions before braiding, when we laid them out to cure for a day or two in the sun.
James got his sleepout finished in early January. He used recycled rimu boards for the walls, and oiled them with linseed oil he was given. The ceiling is white-painted plywood, and Elijah laid secondhand carpet for him. This room is quite a comfortable place for James, Joe, and Simon when he’s here.
Elijah’s room has had a complete face-lift in the past six months. I don’t have any recent pictures, but this was Simon oiling the lower part of the wall in January. Those boards were originally on the walls, in that position. They were painted with a thick coat of yellow paint. Elijah was able to remove them carefully enough that he could line the lower part of the walls with them again after running them through a thicknesser to remove the paint and sand them down, and then they put a couple of coats of linseed oil from James’s drum on it. The upper part of the walls is plywood, and has now been whitewashed. The effect is beautiful!
Some of the random pictures I find on my phone!
A sunset over the mountains.
Mr. Imagination brought this bug in to show me one day. It was tiny!
Our first homeschool group meeting of the year was a picnic at Nelson Creek. It rained right after we got there, but then the sky cleared and it was perfect for swimming. See the boys up the bank, just above the midpoint of the picture? They jumped from there into the water.
We really enjoy these birds. The blue one, Reepicheap, is very active and curious, which makes him very fun.
Simon spray-painting the lounge ceiling in Elijah’s house. He has done a lot of painting there. This was immediately after he started; within minutes he had gotten hold of a respirator to wear for the rest of the job.
Little Miss sometimes helps Miss Joy with her flashcards. They like to make a game of it!
Esther made a pretty cake one day. I think it was a yellow cake; it had strawberries and raspberries on it.
Budgie vs Chicken
Yesterday morning, our chicken coop caught fire because the chicks inside knocked down the top of the brooder, and the light burned the sawdust inside. We lost 35 of the 65 chicks, some two weeks old, some six. Amazingly, 5 of the 25 youngest ones, who were inside the brooder box, survived. They are now living inside the house for a few days until they can handle outside temperatures. I decided to see what would happen this evening if I put their box beside the cage in which our two budgies, Reepicheep and Jewel, live. It was pretty funny!
Jewel hardly paid any attention, but Reep, who is extremely curious and energetic, studied the chicks thoroughly, then started trying to get closer. I opened the cage and held it over the box–watch what happened! Especially watch closely during the last five seconds or so.
Garden–February 2025
Just over a week ago I took a video of a walk through the garden. We hadn’t had rain, at that point, for about a month and a half, but a few days later, we got 2 1/2 inches over the course of 2-3 days, and everything is a lot happier! We’re bringing in bushels of food; yesterday Esther picked 46 kg (2 banana boxes) of tomatoes. Yum!
December 2024 Photos
Here are the rest of our pictures from December! One Sunday afternoon, Gayle took the girls on a walk down to the river. They found a field of wildflowers.
Elijah found this interesting moth somewhere.
James has been working diligently on his sleepout. Here was the first of three coats of paint to go on. His little sisters were delighted to help!
Little Miss took this picture to illustrate a story she wrote about her chores, which include feeding a bottle to the calf.
After our budgie died in July or August, the cockatiel got very depressed. We finally got him a friend, hoping to cheer him up, but it was too late and he died a few days later. So, we got another budgie to keep the new one company, and we have two birds again! The blue one is a very young male. Some friends had a pair and hatched this one; we got it when it was old enough to leave them. The green one is a female. They get along very well. We named the blue one Reepicheep and the green one Jewel, since Esther had just finished reading the Chronicles of Narnia aloud.
The hollyhocks are blooming, so many dolls get made!
One afternoon I walked down the hill to have a look at the chickens, and took this picture up the valley from there.
Daddy was taking a nap, and when Miss Joy noticed the cat sleeping with him, she joined them.
It rained on Christmas Day. A lot of the day was spent playing games, but for awhile some of the fellows worked on denailing some timber that James had salvaged.
As always, we enjoyed seeing the tuis and bellbirds drinking nectar from the flax blossoms.
The big project during the Christmas holidays was building a new garage at Simon’s house to replace the one they tore down over a year ago when it threatened to fall down.
November 2024 Photos
One afternoon, Esther and Elijah walked around the block and took their little sisters, who rode their bicycles.
Esther watched this starling building a nest in the garage roof. She was amused by the size of its load! Apparently, it didn’t get much of that load to its destination.
Esther also took this picture of a sunset. We got some smoke from Australian bushfires, so that’s probably part of why the colors were so vivid.
Miss Joy is learning to read! That’s slightly bittersweet, because it means my baby is no longer a baby. I love watching her learn, though. I took this video sometime in November, when she had just started to read stories. She was delighted with her new skill and wanted Grandma to hear her.
I found the girls having a picnic in the garden one day.
Miss Joy wanted me to take a picture of her with foxgloves on her fingers and her crinkle-cutter in her hand!
The Garden in December
We finally finished planting the garden–although, to be honest, that is a job that never really finishes, since I keep planting little bits throughout the year. The most of it is done, though, and to celebrate, and as a way of keeping a record, I took a video as I walked through. So, if you want to see what we’re doing right now, have a look!
October 2024 Photos
Here are the rest of my pictures from October! I took this first picture one rainy day near the beginning of the month when we were in Greymouth. The annual Bookarama opened that day, and we were waiting in line when the doors opened. An hour and a half later we walked out with around 80 books between six of us, and went out to the breakwall to eat our lunch. The waves were quite impressive as they rolled in in front of us!
A picture of Miss Joy taking a picture!
This was our third lot of chicks for the year. For this hatch, I bought two dozen Barred Rock eggs, and then filled the incubator with about a dozen Black Orpington eggs from our pair of those chickens and a couple of dozen of our mongrels. During the night about three days before hatching, Gayle found the incubator unplugged! He quickly plugged it in again and within minutes it was back up to only about 5*C below what it should have been. We wondered if we would get any babies. The next day, we left for the weekend, and arrived home that Sunday afternoon to find no chicks yet, on the day they were due to hatch. We wondered…. and an hour or so later the first chick emerged! We ended up with 32 babies out of 39 or 40 that had candled fertile, and only lost 1 or 2 that died just before hatching–one of our best hatches yet! (Only one of the 13 Black Orpington eggs was fertile.)
I came into the kitchen one morning to find my monthly meal plan in tatters. It looked like a mouse had gotten it, but no mouse could have clung to the glass backsplash to nibble on that! Then, I saw a bit of snail poo behind it. A few days later, I found an enormous snail in the vicinity. The chickens enjoyed eating our culprit!
We spent several evenings in October observing the sky. We tried to find the comet that should have been visible, but couldn’t find it. There is a mountain range only a few miles to the west of us, behind which the sun sets early but the sky stays light for a long time. I took this picture of the moon one of those nights. We did get to see the International Space Station go over one night!
We did a couple of interesting demonstrations for science in October. One day, we made a scale model of the distances between the planets by marking them out on a roll of toilet paper. To see the whole distance, we took it outside so we could see the whole length at once.
Another day, we made a model of the relative sizes of the planets. Elijah was home that week, unable to work because he had bursitis in his knee, so I assigned him to help the girls make the clay balls and blow up the balloons to the proper sizes.
Sunday afternoon naps! Simon asleep on one couch, Elijah reading something…
…and James asleep on the couch on the other side of the room! This boy has two speeds: either full-steam ahead, or crashed.
