Away From Home

Winter Harvest, and random pictures

June 6, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One thing I really enjoy about our climate here is being able to grow things year-round. Right now, it is the equivalent of early December in the Northern Hemisphere. I harvested our salad and some vegetables for soup today, and spent some time weeding. After spending six hours teaching the children, weeding is a great way to relax and reset.

Today’s harvest–lettuce, radishes, green onions, parsley, and celery.

He was waiting for me to fill containers with weeds, so he could dump them into a larger container for me.

There was snow on the hills around us early last week. We went to Dead Boring that day, and enjoyed the beautiful snowfall on the way there.

The Hurunui River, looking towards the sea.

Farmed deer near Greta Valley.

Coming over the Omihi Saddle into the Waipara Valley. You can see the Southern Alps in the distance.

A hill to the west of us.

And, some pictures of the children. Elijah was doing school, and baby wanted to do the same.

Jealousy–I was holding Mr. Sweetie, and baby had to get in between!

Tired baby–he fell asleep being pushed in a stroller outside, and couldn’t wake up for supper.

One of baby’s many funny poses!

Baby thinking about the hat someone put on him!

James dumping a container of weeds.

Our Week

May 26, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

This has been a pretty normal week–lots of school and other real life, too.

Baby wants more kombucha!

Baby loves his daddy! These Usborne puzzle books have been very popular this week.

Part of school every day–the most popular part–is practicing math facts with a game on the computer. I forgot to include these two pictures last week! Our hedge was trimmed.

The children have been bringing in heaps of these field mushrooms. They are delicious!

The hills to the north-west of us.

We see a lot of these cows in the paddock next to the house.

Baby fell against the wood stove Sunday night. Ouch!

After trying in vain to get into this laundry basket, and squealing in frustration, he picked it up and brought it to me. I put him in–and he was delighted!We enjoyed the sight of snow blowing off the tops of the mountains north of Kaikoura as we drove to church this morning. Finally, here are some of the pictures Esther took when we stopped at the beach on the way home this afternoon. One boy was moving so fast all the pictures of him turned out blurry!

This Month

March 20, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I am not getting anything put on here, so I’ll share what Esther wrote about the past three weeks. She has lots of pictures to share, and this will bring you up-to-date! Maybe in a month or two I’ll have more time to write!

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Dear Friends,

We’ve been very busy lately, but I thought you all would probably appreciate a quick update! ☺ So here goes…

Grandpa’s (Dad’s parents) arrived on Saturday, the 23rd of February. They brought along with them my cousin, David (David’s father is Dad’s brother). I had found out ahead of time (like at least three weeks before) that he was coming, and in the last week Seth and Simon (the next two children after me) had found out he was coming, but all the younger ones were totally in the dark—they had NO idea that David was coming! So it was a really nice surprise for all of them.

On Sunday, we all went to church together, then in the afternoon went up to a church friend’s farm. He owns about a thousand acres of very hilly land (they’re the foothills to the K——- mountains; the farm is so rugged that he hasn’t even set foot on some of the land!), where he raises sheep and cattle. He gave us a demonstration of sheep dogs working sheep, and also sheared a sheep so we could see how that process works. It was all very interesting! I’ve seen sheep dogs working sheep before, but only two (out of our 12-person group!) of us had ever seen a sheep sheared before. So that was a very special afternoon…

To read the rest, go here and enjoy her pictures!

Sheep Shearing

March 18, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We’ve just enjoyed a three-week visit with my in-laws and a nephew from America. I’ll try to share some of the highlights of our activities while they were here.

Their first Sunday, we took them to the aquarium in Kaikoura, then up to the overlook on the water tank on top of the Peninsula. After that, we all went up the Blue Duck Valley to visit friends there. The highlight was when we were given a demonstration of sheep dogs working, and sheep shearing. Of our group, only our nephew and I had ever seen a sheep sheared.

Sorting sheep in the the wool shed.

Our friend with his dogs.

The view from the top of the water tank–Kaikoura on the right.

Napenape

December 25, 2012 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Today was Christmas Day. We didn’t have anyone to spend the day with, so we decided to go to a beach we hadn’t been to before. Napenape (pronounced nappy-nap) is just south of the Hurunui River. It is a beautiful beach! It always amazes us how different each beach is from all others. We thoroughly enjoyed spending time there and relaxing this afternoon.

Looking down the hill, across the Hurunui River towards Cheviot (on the other side of the hills)

Hills on the way to the sea

The beach road at Napenape

Napenape beach

We had a picnic for lunch

The boys found this baby shag

On the way to the end of the beach, the boys climbed this little hill. The day was quite misty at first.

This cliff marked the end of the beach we could walk today! The tide was near high.

Baby loved the rocky beach!

About to grab the camera (and taste it!)

Gayle and some of the boys climbed the cliff

We played tic-tac-toe

The mist cleared shortly before we left

On the way out, we stopped so the boys could investigate a spring

They said the spring water tasted good.

Fossils and Port Robinson

November 12, 2012 by NZ Filbruns 3 Comments

Last night, we took a picnic supper to Gore Bay. It was a warm, breezy evening, unusual for this time of year. Last week, when I took the children there for lunch one day, we had found a couple of rocks with fossilized bones sticking out of the top, and wanted to go back to take pictures of them. They are in a place you can only go at low tide, which is why we had to wait till evening yesterday. We got there about two hours before low tide.

The boys took off down the trail to the beach as soon as they were done eating, taking a cloth shopping bag with them to hold all the mussels they were planning to collect! The rest of us followed a little more leisurely. We were able to find the fossils we had seen the last time without too much trouble–and then found more and more and more!
A lovely paua shell.Baby appreciates rocks, too–salty ones, especially!
Finally we made our way to the south end of Gore Bay, where the boys were diligently hunting. After walking around a little on the rocks there, we decided to go around into Port Robinson. This was the only access to the Cheviot area in the early days, 100-130 years ago. Apparently, they would unload the ships and send the goods up some sort of track to the top of the cliffs. They say there is no trace of the port left at sea level.

Port Robinson

I’m not sure what this tunnel was all about, but it opens out of the cliff just above the high tide line. As you can imagine, the boys were pretty excited when their Daddy found it–that is the sort of thing you generally only find in mystery stories!

The tunnel that Daddy discovered in the cliff.

The boys, of course, had to practice their mountain-climbing skills, in addition to gathering a shopping-bag nearly full of mussels (now I have to figure out how to cook them!).On our way back to the van, we stopped for a few minutes to chat with some tourists from Australia, and then got caught in the rain when it started suddenly. No one minded getting a little wet, though. Everyone agreed that this was a perfect way to spend an evening.

The largest chiton I have ever seen! They are normally 1/2-1 1/2 inches long; this one was 4-5.

Sea squirt

Dead Boring Concert

November 10, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The annual Dead Boring (homeschool writing group) concert was on October 13th this year. I’ve finally managed to get the videos I took of our children’s contribution uploaded to YouTube so I can put them on here. Enjoy!

Long Hike!

November 7, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Sunday after church, we decided to take a hike before going home. We drove south from Kaikoura, along the coast, on our normal route home, but stopped where the highway goes away from the coast into the hills, at Oaro. After parking the van beside the beach, we took off walking. Someone had told us about a cliff where there are a lot of fossils, and the boys wanted to find some. We walked along a trail through lupines in full bloom, first, then crossed the Oaro River. We never got our feet wet! The river goes through gravel, under a bank several feet high. Then, we walked along the access road between the railroad and the beach.

This boy likes to do what everyone else is not doing–in this case, everyone else was on the road–but not him! The most surprising discovery we made appeared to be a train wreck, from 75-100 years ago. There was a string of railway carriages pushed over the bank to just above the high-tide line of the beach, and even a steam engine! We found out a couple of days later that old railway cars used to be pushed over the edge to help stabilize the bank.
The next excitement came when we got to a section of beach where there is a retaining wall for a good ways, and the water comes right up to the base of it. Most of us walked along the roadway on top, but two adventuresome boys decided to walk along the ledge at the bottom of the retaining wall. Well and good–except it went a lot farther than we ever imagined, and got narrower and narrower! They had to keep moving to different levels to keep going. There was no way to get them up over the top–they had to go on or go back! They made it eventually–but I think this mom probably has a few more gray hairs!
Another boy got down on the ledge after he got to the end of it, and went back to help keep the 3-year-old going, and safe. Brotherly love! While he waited for the boys to come to the end of the ledges, Daddy found a place to sit out of the wind and let baby play with rocks.
The next section was lovely sand that reminded me of Lake Michigan beaches, except that it was dark instead of bright yellow. So warm to the feet! After that section, the shore turned rocky again, so we walked on the road again, between tall stands of fennel.

This boy was pretending to hide from the train (long before it showed up!)

Baby rode most of the time on Daddy’s shoulders.We knew the passenger train should be coming through soon, so we were watching out for it.

Here comes the train!The children stood on a small hill to wave at the passengers, and when it had passed we started back for the van. By now, the sun had gone behind the hills and it was getting cold. The children all armed themselves (against ??) with dried-out fennel stalks and we marched. Daddy got to the van first, with baby, and I straggled in last with the 3-year-old. We all agreed it had been a wonderful experience, even though we never did figure out which cliff had the fossils.

Exciting Birthday!

October 11, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Today is my birthday, and I had a wonderful birthday present–my cow calved this morning! She was nearly a week late, so we’ve been keeping a close eye on her. Last night she looked like she was very close, so we moved her into a paddock (we had her beside the road) so the calf wouldn’t end up on the road. When I went out at 6:30 this morning to check on her, it was apparent that she was in labor, but she also had milk fever and couldn’t get up. Of course, Gayle was at work, so I called our landlord, who knows a lot about cows, and asked him if he would be able to come over and give her some calcium. He very kindly came over soon, and instead of giving her the oral calcium that I had, he gave her two bags under her skin. He tried to hit a vein, but missed both times. It still works, just not quite as fast. We continued to watch her closely, and around 9:00 I felt inside to see if the calf was in the right position. It was, and half an hour later the feet started showing. Around 10:00 she finally stood up! The feet and nose disappeared back inside, and she took a break for awhile, eating some grass and hay. By 11:00, though, the calf was born–a healthy little bull. The children all got to watch. They had been hoping for that. They’ve had quite the education–they witnessed the breeding and now the birth.

And here’s a funny: This is Chestnut’s third calf, and all three have been born on a Thursday. We’ve had four different goats kid here, and three have kidded on a Thursday. What are the odds of that happening?

Just born!

Everyone wants to meet the new baby!

Worn out.

This afternoon, the two oldest boys went to help a local man “tail” lambs. Of course, lambs are born with long tails, but if you leave the tails on, poo builds up on them and then flies lay eggs…. I’ll spare you the details, but it’s kinder to cut off the tails. At the same time, they notch the ears for identification, and “ring” the males. This farm has around 2,000 ewes, so there are 3-4,000 lambs. The farm is in the hills directly east of Cheviot. We were able to drive the van to the back of the farm where they were working, since we have 4-wheel drive in it. We were going up and down some mighty steep hills! I have been looking at those particular hills, and the farm road we went up, since we moved here, wishing I could go up them! What a day for my wish to come true–my birthday! The views from the top were awesome. Snow-capped peaks in one direction; the sea in the other.

Ever since we moved to Cheviot I’ve wanted to go to the top of this hill. The tailing operation.

On the way back down, we stopped on the hill at the base of the cell tower (we were higher than the tower when we were back where they were tailing!). We live at the edge of the worked ground in the middle of the picture–just beyond Cheviot.

View to the north from the cell tower. You can vaguely see the Kaikoura mountains here; in reality they were quite clear.

Look how steep this hill is!

See the cows along the top of the ridge across the valley?

The road we drove on to get to the back of the farm, viewed from the other side of Cheviot. That’s the road I’ve been eyeing for nearly three years!

Baptism

October 9, 2012 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

Our second son (third child) was baptized this past Sunday! What a joyous occasion. We went to a creek several miles north of Kaikoura for it, where there was a pool nearly under the railway bridge.

We arrived before several of the other car-loads of people, so enjoyed the sunny day beside the creek. The boy who was to be baptized acted true to his nature, and played in the cold water while we waited.Meanwhile, our oldest boy discovered a “cave” up under the train bridge, and his daddy helped him climb up into it.