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.”
Cherry Soup
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
Napenape
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.
Broccoli
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.
Why I Haven’t Been Writing!
I know, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything. That’s because, when I’m not doing this–
I’m trying to catch up with all this–
Tomatillos, peppers, basil, eggplant
Tomatoes
And now, the blackcurrants are ripening, too!
Pole beans, salad greens, and strawberries
Pumpkins and carrots
The potato patch!
This is supposed to be beans and cucumbers!
Turnips and onions
Cabbages and carrots
Tomatoes and corn
Baby Pictures
Just a couple of pictures of our cutie pie.
I made a chocolate cake for Big Brother’s birthday today, and gave Baby his first-ever beater.
Think he approved?
He’s very popular with his brothers.
Another Musical Baby!
Every one of our children has loved singing and music, and it looks as though this baby is no exception! One of the children found a CD they hadn’t listened to in awhile, yesterday, and put it in the CD player. It was Eduard Klassen, playing hymns on the Paraguayan folk harp, which is very beautiful music. Baby loved it–see his reaction below!
Fossils and Port Robinson
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
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!
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.