Away From Home

More Birds!

October 22, 2023 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Every so often, when I look at the camera, I find evidence that someone has been using it besides me. Some of the pictures are nice, some get deleted. Here are a few of the ones I found this time. Apparently, Jo-Jo wasn’t interested in the mirror, but Kea was!

Miss Joy loves the birds! We can’t touch Kea, but Jo-Jo will sometimes be persuaded to sit on a shoulder.

I took this one. One of the children was sure that the yellow-headed bird he saw in the empty section beside our house was a budgie–I took the picture, then zoomed in to show him what it really was.

I also took these two pictures when I was at Arthur’s Pass on the way home from HEART South. First one kea was considering eating Esther’s car, and then another joined it. They didn’t get any bites, though!

Gayle took this picture one day when he was down in the paddock with the children. These are the chicks I hatched in the incubator in May.

Lyttleton

October 15, 2023 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Near the beginning of September, I had the privilege of going to the HEART South retreat for homeschooling mothers. It was a very special experience to be with around a hundred other mothers who all share similar goals. This year, it was held at the Living Springs camp near Lyttleton, just outside of Christchurch. During the free time on the Saturday afternoon, I went for a walk with some friends. That “walk” turned out to be quite an adventure, as we tried to blaze a trail to a particular destination! The trail we thought we were on turned out to be a dead end, and trying to get back to where we needed to be was a bit challenging. It was a lot of fun, though, and I loved the time reconnecting with old friends.

This is the view up the hill from the camp.

Looking down over the camp buildings toward Lyttleton Harbor. Banks Peninsula is on the other side of the water, to the right.

We walked out past the camp to their outdoor camping area, and enjoyed this view of the harbor.

That evening after dark, I walked outside by myself for a little while to enjoy the warm night. This was the harbor in the dark–except it was much more beautiful in reality.

And, the harbor again in morning light! It was so beautiful!

This was a nettle we saw on the walk on Saturday afternoon. I still haven’t gotten around to looking it up to see what kind it is, but I don’t think I want to touch it!

Then, a few weeks later, I saw Lyttleton from the other side. Simon and I went to Christchurch to buy a car, and the dealer told us to go through the Lyttleton Tunnel on our test drive.

Helicopter Flight

October 1, 2023 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Last year, Elijah signed on to Land Search and Rescue. Since then, he has been doing training for searching for people, mostly in the wilderness but occasionally in urban settings. He has only had the opportunity to go on two searches so far, both in the last two months. The second of them turned out to be a false alarm, but he got a helicopter ride over beautiful terrain on a bright, sunny day, and got to spend time in the bush on that same bright, sunny day. I can’t identify the location or give any details about the incident, but I am allowed to share these scenery photos. Suffice it to say, the location is not too far from us, and the helicopter he rode in is one operated by a company based near us, which we see flying over frequently.

This is Elijah all decked out in his searching gear. He had just walked home after the helicopter ride back from the search and hadn’t taken it off yet. He was explaining here how they measure footprints and stride lengths with that stick to make sure they are still following the trail they think they are.

Here is a quick video of a little of what he saw from the helicopter. Wow!

Scenery

September 17, 2023 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Elijah has taken several work trips down south to the glacier area lately. He took these two pictures on one of the trips. What amazing views he gets to savor while he drives for work!

But then, I sometimes have amazing views while I work, too! This is the view from the top of the hill across the road, where we pasture our cows at times. They have spent the winter there, and I’ve been milking by hand up there for the past month. I didn’t have my camera along the morning that there was snow on top of that range of mountains, but talk about a spectacular view! Wow. These pictures were taken the morning we had a full moon–that’s a supermoon you can see there. The layer of fog lies over the Grey River; you can often easily see where a river is by looking at the fog in the mornings. Our house, by the way, is just to the left of the picture.

I took this one about 15 minutes later, after the sun was up higher, from a slightly different place on the hilltop. It is looking down to the right of the previous picture, down the hill to the north of our village. We use the paddock across the highway from the road that comes up from the bottom of the picture for our cattle, chickens and turkeys.

Boating Down the Creek

September 17, 2023 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

About a month ago, Gayle and most of the boys and the little girls went down the hill to Orwell Creek, which loops around the hill on which our village sits before emptying into the river. They took an assortment of watercraft, and floated down the creek to the mouth. Gayle drove along to pick them up at the end, and took several photos and a few video clips when he was close to the water. These aren’t very good photos or videos, but they’re fun! The first photo is near the beginning of the excursion; the second is near the end.

Simon’s Life

August 6, 2023 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

One day last week, I had an errand to run which took me about halfway to the farm on which Simon is working, so I decided to take the four younger children to visit him at work. He has been living and working on a dairy farm about 45 minutes’ drive from us since he got clearance to go back to work in March, and he seems to really be enjoying it! Several other members of the family had been up there to see where he lives, but I hadn’t been there yet, so I was glad to finally see his house.

He took this Safari up there a few weeks after he moved, so that he would have something to do in the evenings after work. He bought the vehicle a couple of years ago, and he’s been working on restoring it ever since. It had a lot of rust that had to be cut out and new metal welded in, and the whole thing needed to be painted. He’s getting close to ready to put it on the road again and try to sell it; at the moment he is building a new bumper for it.

The view from Simon’s back door. The white roofs are the two barns that farm uses for housing the cows when the weather is nasty. The milking shed is close to them, but not visible behind the other worker’s house beside Simon’s house.

Simon hard at work. He was milking around 2-300 cows that day. There are 800 on the farm, but they haven’t all calved yet. It was interesting to see how a rotary shed works. The boys were quite fascinated, and wanted to go back after we visited the calf shed.

Lots of calves! Two ladies work full time to care for them right now. And look at the view those calves (and the people who care for them) have!

The scenery on the way to Simon’s place was amazing, too. I thoroughly enjoyed the snow on the mountains.

Baptism

June 11, 2023 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Another of our sons has chosen to follow Jesus, and last week he showed that to the world through baptism. What a special occasion! It was a cold, rainy day, but a number of people joined us at the creek to witness this major step in his life with us.

Power Line Track

May 14, 2023 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A couple of weeks ago, Elijah organized a four wheel drive trip. He bought a souped-up Surf last year, and badly wants to use it, and has been wanting to go on a particular track for several years. It is called the Power Line Track, and goes from the Buller Gorge, over the mountains to Denniston, north of Westport. Five vehicles went on the drive, including Elijah’s Surf and another young man’s Surf, Simon’s L300 Mitsubishi ute, one friend’s Land Cruiser troop carrier, and another friend’s 4WD Mitsubishi van. They took off from here reasonably early one morning and got back late in the afternoon.

They took off from this bridge, the Iron Bridge, over the Buller river between the Upper and Lower Buller Gorges.

Ready to go! Elijah’s Surf is in the lead, and Simon brought up the rear.

Simon driving his ute, with Mr. Imagination in the coveted front middle seat.

They hadn’t gone very far when Elijah’s Surf stalled and smoke came out from under the bonnet. The ground wire had burned through and they had to jerry-rig something. No problem–there were five mechanics on the trip!

They came across a DOC camp, where people were checking on the local kiwi population.

The Surf made it through the deep river crossing!

As they approached the river crossing, the spare tire fell off the van.

This crossing was rather exciting–several people took videos of it! Everyone was worried that the van wouldn’t make it across, or that water would get through the air intake, since the van didn’t have a snorkel. If you watch the video, you’ll see our James leaning out of a window behind the driver’s seat, watching the intake to make sure water didn’t get in, and even putting his hand over it at one point. They had hooked a strap from the Troopie to the van to pull it through, in case the water got too deep and the van had to be shut off suddenly to protect the engine. No problem; it made it through–but as they came out the other side, the strap wound around the front axle and it was a challenge to get off.

Partway through the trip, the group came across this coal bank. There was an old chimney beside it; apparently, the people who lived in the house mined coal from here to heat their house.

At the end of the trip, the group drove up to Denniston, a former coal mine. This was the newest building up there, a bath house, which was vandalized after the mine closed.

Everyone who went on the trip enjoyed it! Esther and I enjoyed staying at home and getting some things done here without being jounced around for hours on a rough track.

Mountain Climb

May 7, 2023 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, when Simon was home for his two days off, he took Mr. Imagination on an excursion. They took along Simon’s deer rifle in case they would see a game animal, but ended up climbing a mountain and not doing any hunting. The only animals they saw were a couple of goat kids. They came home tired, but very happy with the climb they had done. It was a mountain up the road from us maybe a half hour’s drive, overlooking the Ahaura River.

That’s the Ahaura River visible through the trees.

Looking to the northeast from the mountain. Simon was able to make out one of the farms he works on, and Gloriavale is visible, as well.

Mr. Imagination found this katydid.

It was after dark by the time they got home, and both boys were hungry and tired, but they had the time of their lives, and Simon felt rejuvenated and ready to go back to another week of work.

Lake Hanlon and Home

April 9, 2023 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Our week at Karamea was soon over and we needed to pack up and go home. The lady who, with her husband, runs the campground, stopped by as we were preparing to leave and we asked her about a good place to stop and have one more short walk on our way south. She recommended Lake Hanlon, about a half hour drive from Karamea, so we stopped there and walked the track over and around a hill, and down to a small lake. Such a beautiful spot! Here are a few photos and a video I took.