Our family's life in New Zealand
“I like my tongue!”
Can I get up now?
This is blurred because he was running towards me at top speed! He goes all over the kitchen in that walker.
A friend sent him this kiwi and he was investigating it tonight.
The second-youngest often falls asleep during Worship!
We have another cow on the place today. Our landlord is wintering over several hundred dairy cows from farms near Culverden (122 cows are here). Ninety percent of New Zealand dairy farms are seasonal, meaning all the cattle calve in about August and are dried off in May, and most are trucked away from their home farm and grazed elsewhere over the winter to give the home farm a rest. Our landlord planted oats after the wheat was harvested, and the cows are given a small strip every day. This one cow had her calf at least a month earlier than she should have, and of course it died. She bagged up, though, so they offered that we could milk her till the herd goes home. That will keep her in milk for the farmer and give us more milk! Our own cow is still in milk, but not producing a lot, so this is good timing. The cow arrived here at 11:00 this morning, and I milked her immediately. We got 10 liters of colostrum! Now I’m trying to figure out how to use it. I found a couple of intriguing recipes here and here and here. We’ll see how many I actually get around to trying. Looks like, if we want to try the Indian recipes I’ll have to find some cardomom; wonder if the little local supermarket has it?
I think I’m a farmer at heart, and that cows are my favorite animal. Also, I look at things around me with the thought of whether we can get food from them!
She stood very still while I milked, although she has likely never been hand-milked before. She has lovely big teats!
This cat showed up while we were milking–looks as though it wants to move in.
Our baby is really trying to communicate now. He turned three months old last week, and is getting more fun every day. His coos are more of a growl right now. The other morning I got a video of him, and tonight I actually found time to share it here! So glad for the occasional Sunday that we come home from church before 5:00!
Two of my friends asked me this week about making sourkraut, so when I made my last batch of the year yesterday I decided to take pictures of the process for them. So, if you’re not interested in how to make sourkraut (thank you, Mom, for teaching me how!) then skip this one–although Grandma and aunts might want to look at the last picture!
Start by weighing out 5 pounds of cabbage and cutting the head into wedges.
Shred the cabbage. I use this hand-cranked gadget, but I’ve seen kraut-cutters occasionally. They must have been more common a hundred years ago–just a series of blades in a frame that you would push the cabbage back and forth over.
After all five pounds of cabbage are fairly finely shredded, sprinkle on 3 1/2 Tablespoons (2.5 ounces) of non-iodized salt.
Mix the salt through the cabbage.
If you don’t have a shredder of some sort, a large knife works, too–just takes a little longer. Cut your wedge of cabbage into several thin slices, then chop this way.
Five pounds of cabbage equals five pints of kraut. (A pint a pound the world around, you know!) I was making fifteen pounds yesterday, so the first two batches went into these five quart (liter) jars.
This first five pounds only half filled the jars, so at first it was pretty loose. It’s a good idea to put the jars in the mixing bowl to fill them, to save mess.
The second five pounds is going in the jars–now I have to pack it in. Press it down as tightly as possible. Yes, it will all fit in.
As you continue to pack the kraut in, the salt pulls water out of the cabbage, and you end up with a lot of liquid–good reason to do this in the bowl! I failed to do that with this batch, and ended up with a wet table.
For my last five pounds yesterday, I used odd-sized jars, so to find the right combination I got 10 cups of water and poured it into the jars till it exactly fit. Then I knew I had enough room for five pints of kraut.
Yes, all that cabbage fit in those five jars!
Sorry, no picture of the end of the process–this is why! He woke up five minutes before I finished and thought the world was coming to an end because he had to wait for Mommy! 
I cut squares of plastic from bags I bought frozen vegetables or sugar in, and put those right on top of the kraut, to help keep out the air and protect the lids, then put on the lids. The five biggest jars, of course, take preserving jar lids and rings, and the smaller jars have their own lids. Grease the inside of the preserving jar rings so they’ll be easier to take off. The juices ooze out as the cabbage ferments, and salt water is corrosive. Mom always uses the rustiest rings she has, so as not to ruin her good ones. Mine are all pretty nice, so I just use what comes to hand. Be sure to set them on a surface that will not be hurt by the salt water, and it’s a good idea to have a way to catch it! You’ll have a fair amount coming out of the jars. Keep them in a cool, dark place. DO NOT OPEN FOR SIX WEEKS! It takes that long for the kraut to totally ferment. Refrigerate after opening. Air makes it spoil.
It’s not real easy to write when most computer time involves multi-tasking (which being interpreted means feeding the baby!). I’ll just put in a few pictures from this past week.
Baby thinks life is rough! He even frowns in his sleep!
For Dead Boring last week, we met in a gym and the children played while the moms talked. The group is so large now that we’ve had to split in two, but still want to all see each other occasionally. Four times a year we plan to meet this way, and just have a social day without sharing writings like we normally do. The children played hockey.
These are two of my boys, James and Simon.
The child farthest left and the one third from right are mine.
Baby studies things–mostly to figure out how they’ll taste!
Haircuts last night! This was the pile after I cut six heads of hair!
Bedtime story! We’re reading Horse of a Different Color, by Ralph Moody, right now. Baby was asleep with his mouth clamped tightly shut.
On our way home from church today, we stopped for half an hour at the beach, where the Kowhai River empties into the sea just south of Kaikoura. The waves were very high today. I love those cliffs in the distance, just south of Oaro.
Brotherly love–the bank at the edge of the parking area, going down to the river’s edge, was steep, with these large rocks. I like this one so well I put it on my desktop screen!
This is the boy who reads the best, enjoying Naya Nuki by Ken Thomasma for the fourth time.
Big sis was playing with her new tripod, and caught this picture. Glad that leg was up to hide everything else!
Yesterday at our homeschool writing group meeting, a man showed us a powerpoint presentation about fossils. He has been collecting fossils for several years and has an impressive collection from the local area. My boys badly wanted to go to Gore Bay and search for fossils along the cliffs there, so, since it was sunny and warm today, we went right after lunch. When we arrived, the tide was high, with waves hitting the cliffs, so we sat on top and read some of our books for school before we went down. The tide was still so high that we couldn’t get to the best places, but the boys climbed up some of the less-vertical cliffs anyway. We never found anything that we were sure was a fossil today, but had fun exploring anyway. One unusual thing we saw was an oystercatcher (bird) with a missing foot! I could tell something was strange about it, and when I was able to see its tracks, it had one normal footprint and one that was just a round peg. Poor thing.
The tide when we arrived.
Reading stories.
This one quickly got bored with the stories and found something more interesting!
Climbing the cliff to hunt for fossils
After they gave up on fossils, they cut a few branches of lupine bushes.
Driftwood makes a great boat.
The tide when we left–quite a ways farther out, and notice the shadows. Short days right now.
And these two pictures are just because they’re cute! The first one was this morning when 2-year-old needed something to do during school and I assigned him to “read” to baby.
This one was after we got home this afternoon. I set baby on the couch while I went to do something else, and when I came back he was staring, fascinated, at his booties! They kept wiggling!
This morning, as we were getting around to leave for church, I set the baby down and told him (as if he can understand!), “I’ll be back with your clothes in a minute to get you dressed.”
Then, on the way, I picked up a couple of wet diapers to dispose of in the laundry room.
While I was in the laundry room, I remembered I wanted a jar of carrots to put in the soup for lunch, so grabbed that.
In the kitchen again, the carrots got put in the soup, and then the soup needed seasoned.
Then, I noticed that the stove still needed to be washed–it was terribly messy.
Down the hallway to get baby’s clothes–I changed my own while I was there, very fast because our unheated bedrooms are refrigerator-temperature.
Grabbed the diaper bag while I was there, and made a quick pit stop.
Then remembered the original reason for going down the hall, so backtracked to the bedroom to fetch baby’s church clothes!
Then, he finally got dressed!
I think it only took 5-10 minutes to do all that, but it was much longer than originally planned. Any of you other mothers able to relate to this? It’s so easy to be distracted from the original job that I was planning to do by all the other things that need to happen.
Six boys live in our house. Want proof? Today’s game: tackling (till too many got hurt and came in the house saying they were done!).
Gayle butchered a goat yesterday and a couple of the boys decided to tan the hide.
….And number six would dearly love to join the fun! He can’t wait till he’s big enough.
…is a rare commodity when there are seven children in the household! I find some every day, though! It helps to get up earlier than the children. They don’t usually get up before 7:30 when I call them, although #4 does wake up and come out to the kitchen around 7:00 a few mornings a week. This morning, #5 showed up at 7:00, but he had been asleep for 14 hours so no wonder! (He fell asleep in the van on the way home from the homeschool gathering we attended yesterday, and only woke up for a few minutes to eat a couple of bites of supper.)
The other place I find peace and quiet is while I milk the cow. I must admit, I’m rather possessive about “my” cow–I really value the time I spend milking her! In the summer, the little boys often come along with cups in hand, to get a drink of fresh warm milk, but this time of year I’m generally alone. Ahh–what bliss! It is cold and dark while I milk this time of year, with sunrise at 8:00 and sunset at 5:00, but the quiet is worth it. And, I get to study the stars, and enjoy the moon, and see the first streaks of dawn in the east.
I also get a few minutes alone while I hang laundry on the line; nobody wants to help with that job! It is a job that I delegate when I need to, but it’s one of my favorites (although on a frosty morning like today it’s not so pleasant!). There’s just something about being outside and hanging up clean clothes that I enjoy.
Those little oases of alone time are so valuable for resetting my frame of mind. I’m thankful for them!
My daughter just wrote a blog post about this morning; you might enjoy it! And, by the way, this was pretty mild–there was a lot more that she didn’t get recorded! I’m not sure if I’m worthy of such a tribute, although if I do have any patience she certainly helped develop it! God has His ways of teaching us patience, and I’m thankful He only sent one teacher to me at a time! Seven at once would have been about more than I could handle.
I made pumpkin soup for supper last evening, and thought maybe our American family and friends would be interested. This is a very “Kiwi” dish, and we’ve learned to love it. It’s the kind of soup that can be made in any number of different ways. Last night, I peeled and diced a largish pumpkin (all winter squash is called pumpkin here, and you can use any kind for soup), then nearly covered it with water. I put it on to cook on high, then went to take care of baby. When it started boiling, someone turned it down for me, and when I was able to get back to it, I chopped the good parts of several onions that were going bad. I probably ended up with about 2 cups of onion, if you want approximate proportions. By then, the pumpkin was soft, so I stirred the onion in, then put in 2 quarts of cooked, shredded, frozen potatoes (we had more stabbed potatoes when we dug them than we could use before they went bad, so cooked and shredded, then froze them). Once the potatoes were thawed and everything was soft, I added a couple of teaspoons of salt and several sprinkles of cayenne pepper, then pureed the whole pot with my stick blender and stirred in a can of coconut cream. The result? A delicious, thick soup that the entire family enjoyed! You can also add milk or cream, but since Gayle can’t have cow’s milk, I used the coconut cream. It adds a delicious flavor.
Grey pumpkin–the most common variety here.
My big pot of soup.
Can’t beat a good cupful of pumpkin soup!