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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!

—————–

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!

Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: Canterbury, Fishing, gore bay, Hooker Valley, Kaikoura, Mount Cook, Tasman Glacier, Visitors

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.

Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: Farming, Kaikoura

Why I’ve Been Absent

March 13, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I know I haven’t been doing anything here for a long time.  I have taken a few pictures, and yesterday I finally had time to look at pictures!  Maybe soon I can put up a few posts to update this.

We’ve had visitors from America for the past two and a half weeks.  Gayle’s parents and nephew arrived February 23, and they leave in two days from now, so we’ve been very busy with them.  Also, I am flying to America for a wedding in a week and a half from now, so that has added a lot of busyness.  And, the garden is pumping out food that has to be taken care of!  So, I haven’t forgotten this, just haven’t had opportunity to share any of the great pictures Esther has been taking during our time with family.

Saturday I had these 26 heads of cabbage (60 pounds) to do something with. Forty pounds of sourkraut and twenty pounds in the freezer later, we were finished.

Friday we did this.

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: Food, Homemaking

Tired Boys!

February 4, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

It looks like we’ve been hard on our boys today–at the moment, this is what the living room looks like.  The older boys (and their noise) are all outside, so these three have a chance to sleep.

These two (Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination) have been playing hard!

This one (Mr. Diligence) got up at the same time I did this morning, two hours earlier than usual, because he had a bad dream and couldn’t go back to sleep. He had most of his school done before breakfast!

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: Boys

Peek-a-boo!

January 30, 2013 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

For about half an hour, I had only one child in the house!  Two of them were working in a local vineyard with our good friends, who manage it, and I let the rest take sandwiches and have a picnic lunch.  I stayed in the house by myself (with baby!) to keep the green bean-bottling-process going.  While I was eating my lunch and reading something online, baby crawled behind the computer desk and played peek-a-boo from behind the screen.

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: Baby, Nathan

Peas

January 14, 2013 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

Saturday turned out to be a very long day.  It was a good one, though, although we have no plans of repeating it.  Gayle got permission from a local farmer to pick some peas out of his large field which he is growing for seed (a lot of people have been picking peas there).  We went over and decided to just pick for an hour and see what we would end up with.  We got five bushels!  Our pickers are fast.  Then–we had to shell them!  We all sat around on the front porch all afternoon and evening.  I am able to shell peas almost as fast while I read as when I don’t, so I propped a book in my bowl and read aloud.  We read an entire 150-page book about a girl in Pompeii that afternoon!  The baby played on the porch around us, and 3-year-old brought drinks of water around regularly.  The afternoon was a great family time–but we didn’t finish the job till late at night, which was the not-nice part.  We ended up with 38 kilograms (57 quarts) of peas in the freezer, but I decided that is not worth repeating (unless they would be organic; these are not).

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: Family Time, Homemaking

Dat is Pun!

December 28, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

It’s been a long time since my oldest child at home was three years old! Right now, however, our oldest five are working for our landlord, pulling wild turnips out of a paddock he has planted in Bok Choy for seed.  The turnips are blooming right now, but the Bok Choy hasn’t started bolting yet, so it’s very easy to see what to take out.  He doesn’t have time to do the job himself, so he stopped by last evening and asked if we could do it.  The children were glad to have a paying job, so I took them over just after lunch.  That leaves me with only two here–it is quiet in this house!  We worked on the bananas I got on special at the supermarket a couple of days ago–the three-year-old cut them and filled a dehydrator tray for me.  He was quite excited about that, exclaiming over and over, “Dat is pun!  Dis is pun!” (fun).  Baby played outside for awhile, and came in with a dirty face, laughing at me as he tugged at my dress.  After I tried to get a picture of him (he wouldn’t laugh for the camera), the older one wanted me to take a picture of his face “to see if it was clean” after he washed the chocolate off!  And now, I got a message that the children are done for the day and I need to go get them! Just after I finished writing, as we were heading out to get the older children, three-year-old asked one of his famous questions:  “Mom, when is Dad going to have a baby?”  “Uh, Daddies don’t have babies.”  “But you and Dad are married!”  “Sorry, only Mommies have babies.”  “Will you have two more babies?”  “We’ll see.”

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: Baby, Joseph, Nathan

Cherry Soup

December 26, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We’ve picked wild sweet cherries twice this year, already, and I thought I’d share one of our family’s favorite ways to eat them:  Cherry Soup.  This is a recipe that my Mom got from a Hungarian cookbook back when I was a girl.  We always enjoyed it growing up, and my family loves it today.  I don’t think I make it exactly like the recipe, and I happen to be holding a sleeping baby right now so I’m not going to go look it up, but here’s how I make it:

Put in pot:
1 quart pitted cherries
1 quart water or fruit juice (I concentrate plum juice and often use that)
3/4 cup sugar (not sure of this one–might want less)
1/2-1 teaspoon cinnamon
Bring to a boil.  Whisk together:
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup flour
Add to boiling mixture, stir till boiling again and thick.
Beat 2 eggs. Stir some of the boiling mixture into the eggs to warm them, then stir them into the pot. Turn off the heat as soon as you think the eggs are cooked enough.
Stir in 2 cups cream or milk.

We enjoy this with crusty bread.  Sometimes this soup will be the main course; other times I make it to go along with something else.  Leftovers are great for breakfast, or dessert at lunch the next day.

The finished soup

Baby loves cherries already

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: Fruit, Homemaking, Recipes

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.

 

Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: Canterbury, Napenape, Ocean, Video

Broccoli

December 21, 2012 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

When I was in the garden this morning, I noticed (again) that the broccoli needed picked, so assigned a boy to cut it for me.  We got a nice bowl-full of beautiful, worm-free organic broccoli!  Next question–what to do with it?  I can’t eat it raw, and we don’t especially like it cooked.  When Gayle got home from work I asked him if he had an idea; he suggested cooking it with mushroom soup.  I got online, and found this recipe.  Well, I have to work around Gayle’s allergy to cow’s milk, and I don’t keep those ingredients on hand anyway, but it sounded good.  So, I cooked the broccoli. While that was cooking, I put homemade goat feta cheese in the food processor, with some goat yogurt, and a couple of tablespoons of basil pesto from the freezer, and whizzed it.  Then, I made croutons from a flopped batch of sourdough bread by frying cubes in a skillet with fat, seasoned with salt, pepper and paprika.  As soon as the broccoli was cooked, I drained it and in the same pot it had been in, made a white sauce with goat’s milk, flour, salt, pepper and paprika, and added cooked frozen mushrooms and the cheese mixture.  I put the broccoli in a baking dish, poured the sauce mixture over it, and topped it with croutons.  Then, I baked it for half an hour or so.  It turned out quite good!There!  Now, I can look back here when I want to remember how I did this.

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: Homemaking, Recipes

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The Family:


Dad and Mom (Gayle and Emma)

Girl #1, Esther, my right hand

Boy #1, Seth (Mr. Handyman)

Boy #2, Simon (Mr. Inventor)

Boy #3, Mr. Intellectual

Boy #4, Mr. Diligence

Boy #5, Mr. Sweetie

Boy #6, Mr. Imagination

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