Activities at Home

Peace and Quiet…

May 30, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

…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.

Pumpkin Soup

May 27, 2012 by NZ Filbruns 3 Comments

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!

Sorting

May 21, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The boys needed something to do tonight, besides playing with legos and looking at lego creations online, so I assigned them to sort the container cupboard. It had gotten to the point where it was frustrating to try to match a lid with a container, and I knew there were lid-less containers and vice versa. They started out grumbling about having to do the job, but when I told them they could have the mismatched containers they were suddenly enthusiastic and the job got finished quickly! Now the cupboard has lots of room and is tidy (for a short time, anyway).

Baby was entertained for awhile, listening and watching.

Working When Baby is Fussy

May 6, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Cooking a meal can be quite a challenge when baby wants to be held–and according to him, Mom is the only one qualified to hold him! He tends to be fussy in the evening, of course. Tonight, I cooked supper this way:

Isn’t he sweet? I love having him snuggled up to me that way, although it does get a little tiring after awhile.

This is like a Moby Wrap. After my last baby was born, a friend showed me the one she had made. It’s very simple. I just bought a 3-yard length of 60″ wide knit fabric from Joanne Fabrics, and cut it in half lengthwise along the fold. Then, I took one end of each of these strips and sewed them together securely with several rows of stitching:

That’s all! Then, to use, I wrap the cloth around the back of my waist and cross it over my front, then over my back, bring the ends around front and tie at one side of my waist. Put the baby in with a leg on each side of the X on your front and spread out the cloth to support and cover him. Then, jiggle and sing till baby goes to sleep!

Leftovers

May 5, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I read a few blog posts about using leftovers this morning and thought I’d share how I deal with them.

I love leftovers–they make quick meals so easy. Leftovers have been a life-saver to me more school days when it comes to lunchtime than I can count. So often, it gets to be 12:30 or even 1:00 and I realize we need something to eat–quickly, sort through the fridge and see what’s there. We do occasionally have to throw things out (maybe my husband would say more than occasionally), but it gets recycled into eggs.

Some days, depending on what I find, I’ll put the leftovers in a casserole dish and heat in the oven at about 300°F. If there were several casserole leftovers, they can all go in the same dish and won’t run together too much; or I’ll use a couple of smaller dishes. Usually, 20 minutes is long enough to heat. Then, everyone gets to choose from the offerings.

Other days, again depending on what I find, I’ll put it all together into soup. Most of the time, it turns out delicious! Adding cheese on top in each bowl always helps, too.

Today was a clean-out-the-refrigerator day. Since I was thinking about this, I kept track of what went in the pot. We had approximately 1/2 cup of goat stew, 1/4 cup of pork headcheese (brawn), 1 cup peas, 2 cups hash browns, 1 cup cooked rice, 1 or 2 cups stuffing and about 1/2 cup cooked hamburger (I had baked them together in a casserole last night). I added a small can of pork and beans (a secret ingredient in a lot of my soups/stews) and some water and heated it on low. It wasn’t one of my more successful leftover stews, but fairly good. Cheese would have made it really good, but Daddy was home and he can’t have cow cheese so we didn’t have it.

Sometimes I’ll add tomatoes or tomato juice, or broth, to make it easier to heat without scorching and add flavor. I just try to have some meat and some vegetables, as well as something starchy (rice or potatoes).

One thing the children really like is leftover mashed potatoes, put in a casserole dish and topped with bits of sausage, then served with cheese and ketchup. Baked potatoes, diced, work really well in a quick soup.

I’m thankful that my crew doesn’t mind eating leftovers! Oh, I should also say–my husband likes leftovers every day for his lunch; I try to plan meals so we have extra. I put them in a microwavable plastic dish that fits nicely in his lunch box and he heats it at lunchtime. Much easier than coming up with sandwiches!

He’s Here!

March 30, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Yes, it’s been a long silence on this end. Baby decided to wait 11 days after his due date, and my mind was not functioning quite normally, then he suddenly got in a hurry Sunday evening and arrived after only 2 1/2 hours warning! Recovery has been slow, but he’s quite worth it all. Everyone is thoroughly enjoying having a baby in the house once again. They fight over holding him at times. Next oldest adores him; anytime he has the privilege of holding baby he laughs and laughs! He’s only tried carrying him once so far…all the way down the hallway from our bedroom to the kitchen! He got told off pretty sternly; hope he learns his lesson without doing it again.

All the children were thrilled to get to hold him just an hour and a half after he was born!Why I love homebirth: immediately after he came I was able to clean up and crawl into my own bed with all the family around!

Finally this morning, at 5 days old, he had his eyes open for awhile in the daytime. So far, he had just been awake and alert at night.

Camping

March 17, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Last night, the children all decided to camp out! They pitched our two 3-man tents beside the pear orchard, and three slept in each tent. Esther came in a little after 6:00 this morning, because she hadn’t slept well, but it seems as if the boys all slept fine. They built a fire this morning and cooked sausages for their breakfast–then came in and most of them are eating cold cereal to finish off now! The only thing that would have made the night even better is if baby would have come. Oh, well.

End of Wheat Harvest

March 13, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

After the wheat was harvested, the straw was baled–they got 251 BIG bales off the three paddocks (50 acres) here.

Then, they lined the bales up along the road and at the edge of one of the paddocks,mowed down the stubble for about 10 feet around the inside of each paddock, and raked that stubble into the standing stubble. The next step was to plow a firebreak all around where they had mowed stubble,and then burn off the paddocks. To burn them, they used a drag to pull a pile of stubble together, lit it, and drove around the paddock through the raked stubble. As they drove, the stubble caught on fire and soon the entire paddock was ablaze.
Within a very short time, it was all over and all that was left was black.

Hedge Trimming

March 13, 2012 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

I know this is common-place to natives of Canterbury, but it was something totally new for us. There are hedges around many paddocks and houses, to break the wind and give privacy, and every couple of years they are trimmed. The one in front of our house was trimmed two years ago, right after we moved into this house, and now it’s been done again. This time, we were home to see it done!

Today’s Family Fun!

February 24, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Our family fun activity today was electric- and halter-breaking our two calves! It was quite the rodeo, with one calf collapsing and rolling over into the mud, then deciding he would never willingly stand up again. The other was scared nearly out of his skin. We did accomplish our purpose (we hope), at least as far as electric-breaking, and got both calves out in the big paddock with the cows.

Charley decides he will not be moving anywhere, ever.