Lots of Helpers

Our family's life in New Zealand

Holiday Trip Day 2

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Monday morning we were all up at the crack of dawn.

We pitched our tents between this road and some bushes; right on the other side of the bushes was the sea!

There were gorgeous flowers along the shore.

There was also a lot of Silverbeet (Swiss Chard) growing wild.  We harvested some for our supper the first night (it tasted quite salty!), and also for lunch and supper the second night.

While we were eating breakfast around the trailer, we got to watch sheep walking along the very edge of the cliff above us!

Baby doesn’t mind his surroundings too much, so long as he has his mama!

This was the view to the east of our campsite.  While the trailer was being tarped, some of us walked down the road to the fence in the distance.

After we left our campsite, we drove around the Lake Grasmere Saltworks.  Those are huge piles of sea salt, produced by evaporation from huge ponds.

The salt evaporation ponds.

See the salt along the edge?

Vineyards near Blenheim.

This is the kind of route we were driving a lot of the day.

We stopped just north of Blenheim to cook hamburgers for lunch at a rest area beside the highway.  The boys enjoyed playing in the bushes.

Our first family picture with the baby!

We stopped in Picton in the late afternoon.  After spending an hour or two in an aquarium, we went to the marina for awhile.  The boys and their dad walked around looking at the boats, while the rest of us waited at the van.  We got to see this car ferry coming in!

The ship had to turn around and back into the dock.

Late in the afternoon, we left Picton and headed up the hill on the Queen Charlotte Drive, intending to go halfway to Havelock to a campground for the night.  As we climbed the hill over the town, we saw an overlook–and of course, had to stop.  There was the other car ferry coming in, the Interislander.

We stayed to watch the Interislander back into her slip (quite a feat, in my opinion!) and unload.  See both ferries, side by side?

Cars and trucks were coming off the top deck of the Interislander, and trains were being unloaded from the lower deck.  That is a locomotive pushing two flat cars in; they hooked up to a string of eight freight cars and pulled them out, then went back in for more.

 

Holiday Trip Day 1

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We took a week’s holiday, touring the top of the South Island.  We left early Sunday morning, after loading the van and a borrowed trailer with everything we thought we might need for a week’s camping.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the Waiau River was especially pretty.

After church, we set out to go north.  The first stop was to pick up oil for the van.  The oil has to be put in under the passenger seat!

Next, we stopped at Ohau Falls, because the baby seals are spending their days there again.

The sea is always beautiful across the highway from the falls, too.

This little guy found a hollow under a rock into which he could stick his feet to watch the sea in comfort!

After we left the falls, we were going through places we had never seen before.  This long railroad bridge was impressive!

Hills a little ways south of Blenheim.

We turned off on the south side of Lake Grasmere to find the campground we had selected for the night.

Setting up camp for the first time!  This was a DOC (Department of Conservation) campground.  They provided flush toilets and water (boil before drinking), but that was all. We had a propane camp stove to cook on, so Mom and I worked on that while the rest set up tents and figured out how to blow up air mattresses.  We were maybe 200 feet from the sea, which was quite loud here.  Lovely sound to go to sleep to!

Baby’s First Outing

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Today was Baby’s first time to leave home.  We took a picnic lunch to Gore Bay, and the older children played in the sand for a couple of hours.  Esther and Grandma enjoyed taking pictures!

Baby slept happily on the way to Gore Bay and for an hour or more while we were there.

Lots of waves and lots of foam today!

When the waves went out, there was still enough water in the sand to make reflections. Daddy, Grandma, and the boys.

Baby was not happy about being in his seat when we left, and cried until he fell asleep (in a couple of minutes!) with this aggrieved expression on his face.

 

He’s Here!

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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

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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

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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

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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!

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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.

Meatball doesn’t want to move, either.

Daddy’s home! Reinforcements for our side. Poor Charley had no options left.

Meanwhile, the little boys were playing by themselves.

Calves are stuck in tiny enclosures of electric wire to learn what to respect.

Mom is excitedly waiting for her son to arrive!

Investigating each other!

Now they have lots of room to roam.

Sourkraut

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I had a request for my sourkraut recipe, so here goes.

I weigh out 5 pounds of cabbage, then shred them.  If the head is decently tight, this gadget works great–otherwise, chop finely with a knife.  Then, mix in 2 1/2 ounces of non-iodized salt.  Pack this all into 5 pint jars–yes, it will fit!  Fill the jars, then pack it down with your fingers and fill the jars again, then pack it down again, and fill again–the cabbage keeps wilting down and you can pack an incredible amount in.  You want to end up with the cabbage/juice mixture all the way to the top of the jar.  I cover with a piece of plastic wrap, or a plastic bag cut open, then put the lid on.  Warning–don’t use a good ring for it if you use Mason jars–it will rust!  Put in a darkish, coolish but not cold, place for six weeks.  Be sure to have something under the jars to absorb the juices that ooze out, because they will for the first week or so.  After six weeks (mark your calendar), open a jar and taste–should be good!  As long as you don’t open the jars, they will keep on the shelf, but as soon as you open a jar it must be kept in the fridge.  The children and I like to eat this for our salads in the winter at lunchtime.  Gayle doesn’t like it, so we eat it when he isn’t home.  It’s also delicious cooked with porkchops, of course, and Gayle likes it that way with mashed potatoes.  I like to eat it raw because of all the good-for-you enzymes and bacteria.

I should mention–I end up using odd-sized jars for my kraut here, so I just measure out five pints of water and pour it into jars till I have the right combination.

Mom says, “School Holiday Today!”

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I was getting behind on my work, so I declared today to be a school holiday.  Would you believe, no one objected!  I was able to get a lot of things off my list:  The beans Esther picked Monday got snapped (while I read to the boys, so we did do some school). The cabbage the boys picked for me Monday got turned into sourkraut. We had a freezer go out this week, so I cooked up a pile of bags of plums from last year.  One big pot turned into jam (didn’t follow the recipe, so I’m not sure yet if it set or not–it will be syrup if not!). Another big pot has had the pits picked out and has been pureed, but I’m bringing it to a boil tonight so it will be safe to leave till morning.  The last big pot (yes, I have a lot of big pots–love them!) is also coming to a boil and I’ll decide tomorrow what to do with it.

And, we got in a field trip of sorts this afternoon and evening.  Our landlord started combining wheat around 4:30, and the children have been watching intently!  He’s running his own combine and having someone else run their Klaas combine to get the job done quicker.  The combines are harvesting faster than the trucks and tractors can haul it away! They are getting about 180 bushels to the acre.  One truck that’s being used must be from the ’50s or early ’60s, and frequently backfires–“Mom, what makes a truck backfire?”  “I don’t know, ask your dad.  I just know that’s what that noise is!”

Our landlord’s combine.