Lots of Helpers

Our family's life in New Zealand

Christmas Day, 2022

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As we often do, we went to the beach for Christmas Day. Since Christmas was on Sunday this year, we went to church in the morning, and then left soon after the meeting. We headed north along the coast from Greymouth towards Punakaiki, and stopped at the Strongman Mine Memorial to eat our picnic lunch. Of course, Elijah being Elijah, he had to climb the memorial while we were reading it.

After lunch, we drove on north. Because the sea was so calm, we decided not to bother stopping at Pancake Rocks, so we went to the Truman Track, just north of Punakaiki, instead. I took this video of the walk down to the sea, and the fun we had there.

I wanted a new family photo, so we stopped along the trail, before everyone got spread out, to take one. I got this picture while we were trying to figure out where the best lighting would be.

I took this one on the way down, too, since I wanted individual photos. This one didn’t make the cut; we ended up getting all the good ones with Esther’s camera.

It’s kind of a tradition to bury someone at the beach. James had great fun building a dike around himself, but was disgusted when the sea came around the ends!

After we played at the sea here for awhile, we got back into the vehicles and went farther north yet, to Charleston. There, the boys all went swimming and kayaking in Constant Bay, while the rest of us explored the sandy beach.

Use your imagination here! The beach was full of sparkles, as if someone had dumped glitter all over. I tried to get a picture of it, and almost succeeded. There is a drift of glitter through the center of this picture. The water was full of it, too. I think it’s mica.

This bluebottle jellyfish (actually, not a jellyfish but a siphonophore, but often called a jelly) washed up while we were there. The boys had seen it floating in the water just before we found it. We wanted to see the tentacles hanging down, and knew it would die anyway, so we brought it home in a container of seawater. That’s Esther’s hand for scale.

We stayed at that beach for an hour or more, and then went a little farther north, past the mouth of the Nile River, and explored a section of beach with lots of life in the cracks between rocks. There were a lot of these crabs, watching us and trying to get farther back in their safe hiding spots.

There were bluebottles everywhere. Most were washed up and drying out on the sand, but this one was still floating.

When we got home, we put the bluebottle in a preserving jar, and sure enough, the tentacles stretched out. It started feeding, moving its tentacles up and down–see the video at the bottom. It also turned its float up and down, and pulled itself into a horseshoe shape, and then stretched out again. Fascinating! By morning, the tentacles had died and by Monday evening they had completely disintegrated, turning the water blue.

Critters

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Somehow, I ended up with a lot of pictures of animals this month.

One of the boys borrowed my camera to take pictures of the cattle to share with his cousin. This is the two milk cows. Bluebell is on the left, and her mother Poppy on the right.

The young stock were on top of the hill that day. The two biggest ones are steers, and the two smaller ones are heifers. The Jersey heifer is Poppy’s calf from this year, Rosie. The other is a beefy that Simon brought us from the farm on which he worked. We assumed it was a bull, and gave it a masculine name…until Gayle and Elijah went across the road to castrate it two months later. That’s when we realized that no one had ever looked to see what gender it was! We changed her name.

The calves. Rosie and Ramona are best friends.

These cats are not best friends, but they do end up sleeping in close proximity sometimes, when conditions are right! This is my miniature greenhouse. It was getting too hot to start plants in it, so I left it propped up. Now, I have a frame covered in shade cloth, in the same place, to start the summer’s crops.

This cheeky weka lives in our garden. It scratches the mulch away from the plants and eats the tomatoes.

The flax in front of the house are in bloom, and we often see a tui drinking from them.

I was hanging laundry one morning, and one of the tuis serenaded me from a nearby tree. It went on long enough that I was able to get a video of it!

One day, the boys took Mom on an adventure. At one farm, they saw this family of pigs.

At another farm, they saw these deer.

Someone was moving an old wool underlay one day, and discovered a bumblebee nest inside. We had never seen such a thing! Thankfully, no one got stung.

Book Review–There’s No Plan Like No Plan

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About the Book:

Book: There’s No Plan Like No Plan

Author: Steve Searfoss

Genre: Middle Grade Fiction

Release date: February 23, 2022

Chance & Addie are back for a new adventure. Riding high off of the success of their first business, they decide to launch a new venture, this time shoveling snowy driveways in the winter. They are full of confidence: they have a team of kids, a shed full of shovels, repeat customers, and, best of all, a great plan. But sometimes the perfect plan can get in the way of adapting to something as fickle as the weather. Will they learn to be flexible and figure how to make this new venture work? They’re losing money fast as new challenges pile up faster than the falling snow. Perhaps a curious new partner can show them the way.

KidVenture stories are business adventures where kids figure out how to market their company, understand risk, and negotiate. Each chapter ends with a challenge, including business decisions, ethical dilemmas and interpersonal conflict for young readers to wrestle with. As the story progresses, the characters track revenue, costs, profit margin, and other key metrics which are explained in simple, fun ways that tie into the story.

My Thoughts:

A couple of years ago I got the book Twelve Weeks to Midnight Blue for review. That book had to do with some children coming up with a plan to make money, and executing their plan, learning along the way all about how to run a business, both profitably and ethically. Now, in There’s No Plan Like No Plan, Chance and Addie are back. How will they do this time?

There are many things I love about There’s No Plan Like No Plan. Obviously, it’s a clever way of teaching children the basics of business management, with spreadsheets and charts sprinkled naturally throughout the book to show what was happening and what needs to happen. Also, it portrays a healthy, loving family. Mom and Dad are both in tune with their children, allowing them to experiment with things  on their own but being there to offer advice and help when needed. Children learn how to run a business honestly and respectfully, and how to get along with difficult people. There was only one thing that made this book a little difficult to read, and that was the formatting. I didn’t notice it with the first book, because I read a digital copy, but I was able to read the physical copy this time. That paragraphs are not indented. This just makes it a little harder for me, personally, to read.

Note: My mom read both of these books, and commented that they are excellent books. She recommends them to anyone whose child wants to start a business – or even if they don’t but just want a good story.

I received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it. Links may be affiliate links, which will benefit Esther’s website if purchases are made through them.

About the Author:

I wrote my first KidVenture book after years of making up stories to teach my kids about business and economics. Whenever they’d ask how something works or why things were a certain way, I would say, “Let’s pretend you have a business that sells…” and off we’d go. What would start as a simple hypothetical to explain a concept would become an adventure spanning several days as my kids would come back with new questions which would spawn more plot twists. Rather than give them quick answers, I tried to create cliffhangers to get them to really think through an idea and make the experience as interactive as possible.

I try to bring that same spirit of fun, curiosity and challenge to each KidVenture book. That’s why every chapter ends with a dilemma and a set of questions. KidVenture books are fun for kids to read alone, and even more fun to read together and discuss. There are plenty of books where kids learn about being doctors and astronauts and firefighters. There are hardly any where they learn what it’s like to run small business. KidVenture is different. The companies the kids start are modest and simple, but the themes are serious and important.

I’m an entrepreneur who has started a half dozen or so businesses and have had my share of failures. My dad was an entrepreneur and as a kid I used to love asking him about his business and learning the ins and outs of what to do and not do. Mistakes make the best stories — and the best lessons. I wanted to write a business book that was realistic, where you get to see the characters stumble and wander and reset, the way entrepreneurs do in real life. Unlike most books and movies where business is portrayed as easy, where all you need is one good idea and the desire to be successful, the characters in KidVenture find that every day brings new problems to solve.

More from Steve:

My kids are very curious and are always asking how things work. Whenever they’d ask about something related to business or economics, I’d create imaginary scenarios where they were the business owner so they could understand better what was going on. For example: why one business would partner with another; why they would choose to sell a product at a loss; why the price of something changes; and so on.

And then one day it occurred to me to write one of these scenarios down as a story. And that’s how KidVenture started. When I was working on the first draft, whenever I told someone I was writing a book for kids to teach them about business, they would frequetnlty tell me it was something that is needed.

There aren’t a lot of books out there for kids about being an entrepreneur and running your own business; and yet, it’s something that kids like learning about because they have a sense it’s important. Not everyone is going to grow up to be a farmer or doctor or airline pilot, but knowing how to manage money and negotiate is something most kids understand they should know more about because they see it every day.

I hope kids who read KidVenture books feel inspired to be more entrepreneurial. It doesn’t necessarily mean they start their own little business. It could mean they feel empowered to negotiate, to not reflexively take the first offer they’re given. I noticed that after reading the book with them, my kids started negotiating a whole lot more. Sometimes that would drive me crazy, but even as it did, I was proud of them for advocating for themselves.

KidVenture hopefully teaches kids to be problem solvers and inspires them to learn from experience. The characters in the story have a lot of learning to do, but it’s not book learning. It’s more…adventurous than that. They learn from trial and error. By making offers and counter-offers. By making a decision and then observing what happens. And they learn by talking to customers and picking their brains. It’s the way you learn as an entrepreneur: by doing. And failing. And trying again.

One thing I really love about the story is the relationship the main character, Chance, has with his parents. Now that I’m a parent, I wanted to write a story that, first of all, my kids could relate to, and second, that was edifying. There are plenty of books and movies about dysfunctional families. KidVenture is different.

I love that at key junctures in the story, Chance turns to his parents for advice. And their style is very different. The dad in the story is playful and sarcastic and doesn’t just give Chance the answers right away. It’s more like he gives him clues to follow. There is a dynamic where the son at times wants to impress, and even best, his father; and at other times, he turns to his dad for advice when he hits a dead end.

But while there’s a competitiveness to his interactions with his dad, there is a sweetness to Chance’s relationship with his mom. He’s able to be vulnerable with her, so when he faces an ethical dilemma in the story, he turns to her. And she’s very savvy and gentle in how she asks questions that get Chance talking and reasoning through the solution himself.

To purchase your copy, click here.

To visit more of the blog stops on this tour, click here.

To enter a fun giveaway, click here.

Cross Country

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One day last week, a friend of ours organized a cross-country race for the local homeschool children. It was very low-key; no prizes for the winners. It was just a time to have fun together! We held it at the Nelson Creek campground. The littlest children ran a 250-meter course, the older ones could choose to go 2 or 3 km, and the middle-age ones ran 1 km.

This is Mr. Sweetie about 2/3 of the way through his 3 km run. Mr. Imagination was right behind him.

Both my school boys nearing the finish line!

After the races and our picnic lunch, we took Grandma on a walk around the loop through the bush. A friend’s three children wanted to stay and spend more time, so we took them home with us later; their 4-year-old is leading Esther and Miss Joy in this picture.

Book Review–Under the Hibiscus

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About the Book:

Book: Under the Hibiscus

Author: Chautona Havig

Genre: Christian Christmas Contemporary Romance

Release date: November 25, 2022

Do you have to give God two-weeks’ notice when you quit the ministry?

After a lifetime of being her father’s right-hand girl, Ezra gets a small taste of freedom during her friend’s honeymoon visit to the Suamalie islands and decides enough is enough. All she needs is to find a replacement secretary, teacher, project manager, accountant… et cetera.

In fact, what he needs is a wife.

Scott Keil intended to serve the Lord on St. Alyn Island for life. He just never intended to do it without his wife. So, when his daughter begins balking at being saddled with a ministry she never signed up for, he knows he needs to find a replacement for her. And well, she’s right. A wife who loves organization and serving the Lord would be the perfect solution.

But only one woman interests him and loves his ministry nearly as much as he does. Natalie Dershem—the event planner at St. Alyn’s newest resort. Why did she have to be nearly as young as his daughter… and so intriguing?

Under the Hibiscus is the introductory Christmas “noella” in the brand-new, Suamalie Islands Series from Celebrate Lit Publishing. Grab this May/December Christmas romance today.

My Thoughts:

I loved Chautona Havig’s books in the Independence Islands series, and was delighted to know that there would be more stories coming about Mallory and her friend Ezra. Last week, I got to read Under the Hibiscus, the first book in the new Suamalie Islands series. What a great book!

I really liked Under the Hibiscus. I loved that the romance did not start until over a third of the way through the book, which up to that point had been about finding balance in your life. Ezra was overwhelmed with everything she felt like she had to do, and though she wanted to do God’s work, she knew she was not suited for the place she found yourself. I really appreciated all the truths presented here. I’m already looking forward to the next book in the series! I want to know how Ezra’s new mobile business goes. (Oh, and what the title refers to? Clever!)

I received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it. Links may be affiliate links, which will benefit Esther’s website if purchases are made through them.

About the Author:

USA Today Bestselling author of Aggie and Past Forward series, Chautona Havig lives in an oxymoron, escapes into imaginary worlds that look startlingly similar to ours and writes the stories that emerge. An irrepressible optimist, Chautona sees everything through a kaleidoscope of It’s a Wonderful Life sprinkled with fairy tales. Find her at chautona.com and say howdy—if you can remember how to spell her name.

More from Chautona:

“I always wanted a son. But I wanted one a little younger than myself!” When Tevya said that to Lazar Wolf back when I was a teenager, little did I know that twenty years later, I’d say the same thing to my newly-minted son-in-law at my daughter’s reception.

It was a joke on me. I’d always said that I didn’t understand why people got worked up about age differences under twenty years. God called my bluff on that by sending me a son-in-law a year and a couple of months older than me and… nearly nineteen years (just shy by weeks) older than my daughter. People ask if I still think that it’s not a big deal.  And I do. As I said back then, it all depends on the couple.

But May/December romances aren’t always popular. Some people don’t enjoy them. Maybe I do because my husband is seven years older than I am, my father is eight years older than my mother, and I have friends and family with eleven and fifteen years difference respectively. It’s just… normal in my experience. And as my dear friend said when she heard about people making snide comments about my daughter’s engagement, “Why would she want a boy her age when she can have a man?” And yeah. That is one of the lovely things about May/December romances.

Well, Under the Hibiscus definitely went that route—not because I specifically wanted an age difference for the couple but because two things jumped out at me.  First, I couldn’t see Scott Keil with a woman his age. He’s such a young-at-heart-guy, and every woman his age my mind conjured… wasn’t.  And I couldn’t see it!

But even more than that, I thought of Ezra and how it would feel to be a daughter whose father started dating someone nearly your own age.  Especially since this wouldn’t be some socialite looking for a rich husband. Any woman interested in Scott Keil would have to love him and the Lord a great deal to be willing to accept such a large age difference. How would that go over with Ezra, and… what would their relationship look like. I mean, her stepmother would be a not-very-older sister’s age!

How does it all work out? Well… unfortunately, you’ll have to read to find out because right now? I don’t even know!

To purchase your copy, click here.

To visit more of the blog stops on this tour, click here.

To enter a fun giveaway, click here.

Tramping!

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A few weeks ago, Simon and Elijah decided to take a three-day tramp in the mountains. Simon was between jobs, and Elijah had cut his hand and had a week off work, so they took off. Elijah took a lot of pictures with his phone, and shared them with me. Here is Simon, taking off up a river valley.

This picture needs a bit of explanation! The two of them had a thing going where they left their fingerprints on each trail marker. They figured that, if they got lost, someone could come along and dust all the trail markers to see where they had been!

That is the Top Trent Hut ahead. It was their goal for the first night; they had lunch at Elizabeth Hut.

This was the lunch stop on the second day.

Their second night out was spent at this hut, the Tutaekuri Hut. A French fly-fisherman joined them there for the night. They walked out from this point and arrived home early in the afternoon.

Here are some video clips Elijah took. They’ll give you a better idea of the terrain.

Fly-Out

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Simon has started a new job, since his time at the dairy farm came to an end. He is now picking moss. I don’t know where else in the world sphagnum moss is harvested, but the West Coast of New Zealand supplies a large share of the world’s supply. This moss grows wild in the swamps here, and harvesting it is a big business. Simon is going along with a man who has been doing it most of his life and loves the work, learning from him. He came home from work one day last week and told me they would be doing a “fly-out” the next day, and we should come to watch. I had planned to stay home and get some work done here, and do some school, but I decided we would have a field trip, instead. Sadly, we arrived just too late to see the bags flown out, but we learned a lot about the rest of the process! Another time maybe we’ll get to see that part.

This is a patch of moss in front of Simon’s boot. This is a thin spot, not worth harvesting, but because it was raining we didn’t want to go much farther. Anyway, he said that the mud gets pretty deep the farther you go into the swamp, and we didn’t want to get that dirty! They have to cut the gorse out, and then they use pitchforks to pick up the moss, cleaning mud and sticks out of each forkful before putting it into the bag.

These wool bags are filled with 200 kg of moss. Two are filled side by side, and when they have enough to fill a truck with 72 bags, they call in a helicopter to lift them out. The helicopter can lift two at once. Simon said that at first it was a 40-second turnaround between dropping off one set of bags and the next, and by the end it was 50 seconds, since the helicopter had to go a little farther.

Close-up of some of the moss.

The moss is trucked to the sheds. These are long, low buildings with clear roofs and lots of ventilation. The moss is spread out on these tables, made of bird netting fastened to frames, to dry.

After it has dried some, the moss is put through the kiln. This used to be a tobacco kiln, but is now used solely for moss. After the moss has dried enough here, it is sorted again to get out any more stuff you don’t want in your hanging baskets, and baled in an old wool press. The original 200 kg now weighs 11 kg.

Simon took a video with his phone of part of the fly-out. He told me that a lot of static electricity builds up in the cable. He unhooked the bags that were loaded onto a smaller truck, and said that he got shocked with every set of bags!

Orana Park, Again!

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We went to Orana Wildlife Park in Christchurch twice in the past, but it has been a long time. We needed to go to Christchurch to pick my mom up at the airport, so Gayle and I decided to take our younger family (we have four older children and four younger, separated by four years) to the zoo. We spent about five hours walking around enjoying the animals. What makes Orana Park really stand out, though there aren’t very many animals compared to most zoos, is that we got to watch many of the animals being fed. We followed the schedule and saw every feeding for that day.

The meerkats were given eggs for this feeding.

Though the African porcupines normally sleep during the day, they came out eagerly for their dog biscuits!

Baby emus are cute!

When we arrived at the otter enclosure, they were standing up, begging in high-pitched squeaks and whistles for their fish!

All four children watching the ducks on one pond.

I’m not sure what type of birds these were, but they had a nest in the moat around the rhino enclosure.

Everyone’s favorite part of the zoo visit was feeding the giraffe! We were given olive branches, which we held up so the giraffe could strip off the leaves.

This is the baby giraffe–he’s about a year old.

They had fun feeding the turkey and chickens!

The lion feeding is always fun, too. This was the first day since Covid started that the truck was used to feed them. Only staff were on the truck for the trial run, but they plan to start selling tickets to the public again soon. Two of the three lions in the enclosure remembered this, but one didn’t seem to.

Tasmanian devil

We were very close to the rhinos while they ate their special treat: lucerne (alfalfa) hay.

I was talking to one of the zoo volunteers at the rhino enclosure, and happened to notice this nest right above his head. Not sure that was a good place to stand!

The children loved feeding the trout–and the ducks love the trout food! I tried to get a picture of the trout, but my battery ran out right there.

October 2022 Photos

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As usual, I have a number of photos from October that didn’t fit into their own posts!

Gayle often walks somewhere with the little girls on Sunday afternoons. They like to go down to the bridge, and one time he took a picture of them on the sign for our little town.

One evening, Miss Joy requested that someone take a picture of her holding Princess!

One day, we saw helicopters flying over the river. The next day, they were flying over it again. We watched closely, and saw them following the riverbed exactly. We couldn’t figure out what was happening, but then we started hearing jet boats, as well. I searched online for awhile, and finally found information about a jet boat marathon that was happening. One leg of it was up the Grey River, and into the Ahaura! We went down to the riverbed to watch the boats go back downstream. They move fast!

Our heifer Bluebell had her calf in October. It was a little bull, so we decided not to keep him. We were glad that the farm Simon was working on wanted him for breeding!

Someone gave a battery-powered car to the family in whose home we meet for church. The little children love it! It can be operated with pedals and a steering wheel on it, or by a remote control. Here, Miss Joy and another baby were riding while one of the older children operated the remote.

I think these pictures are actually from September. The greenhouse was looking pretty lush! Since then, I have ripped out the old lettuce and planted peppers along the right-hand side.

I did an experiment with onions this year. The ones to the left were planted from seed directly in the ground in May. To the right, the top tray is ones of the same kind that I planted in that try in June, and the others were a different variety, planted in the tray in July or early August. We set them all out in the main garden at the same time, in September. I am hoping for larger onions than usual! So far, the ones I started earliest are doing best. The ones started in June mostly died, and the red ones, started last, are doing fairly well.

This is how I plant onions. I dig a shallow trench and lay the roots in it, then cover them with soil. After a few days the plants stand upright, and, theoretically, start growing!

Book Review–Tricked on the Tracks

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Finally! I was delighted to receive a copy of the fourth book in the Brady Street Boys series. Tricked on the Tracks is every bit as absorbing as any of the previous books in this series. Once again, the three boys find themselves in a predicament – but this time they have an adult along, which makes a huge difference.

At the end of Noise in the Night, the boys had just figured out that the doctor they were trying to find had caught a train, and become a hobo. Now, the boys were more than ever determined to find Dr. Jefferson. They began by checking out the hobo jungle near the train station in Elkhart. There was no sign of the doctor, but eventually they got some information from two other hobos.

Dean, the boy who tormented them and then gave them a clue in Noise in the Night, promised to help locate Dr Jefferson. Now, Dean is missing too. Suddenly, Terry Gary and Larry, and their uncle, find themselves in quite a predicament. Well they end up accused of kidnapping – or will they die of thirst first? I’ll have to admit that this part of the story is a bit far-fetched. It sure is exciting, though!

I know my boys will enjoy reading Tricked on the Tracks as soon as we get a physical copy of it. They have enjoyed the other three books very much, and they are looking forward to reading this one, too. I like the way the boys’ parents teach them about God and how to live. The theme that runs through this book is long-suffering. While that topic is not mentioned as much as the fruits of the spirit they studied in the other three books, it is illustrated very well. The family had a good discussion about longsuffering near the end of the story, and the boys understood what it meant. If you want good, clean books for your, especially, 8 to 12-year-olds, be sure to try out the Brady Street Boys series. These are high interest stories with good morals but not in a preachy way. These books are also fun. All the way through this one, there is a refrain pointing back to a statement near the beginning that “Larry reads too much for his own good.” You will have to read the book to find out what exactly this is referring to.

I received a review copy of this book from the author, and these are my honest thoughts about it.

To buy your own copy, go here or here. Be sure to read the first three books first, though, or this one won’t make as much sense. Oh, and if you place an order from the author’s website soon, she’s having an early Black Friday sale, with all her books except the two newest ones on sale with a deep discount!