Lots of Helpers

August 2021 Photos

September 26, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Here are the last photos from August!

This cow took us by surprise on her due date. She had bagged up a little, but not much, and sure didn’t look like she was ready to calve, as far as I was concerned, when I looked at her the night before. In the morning, there was evidence that she had calved—but no calf! We searched around the area, and down the cliff which she was at the top of, and couldn’t find anything. Several hours later, Mr. Diligence went back out and searched more. The calf was at the bottom of the cliff, way back in a blackberry patch! He pulled it out, and he and Mr. Sweetie carried it up the steep cliff to reunite it with its mother. That calf is fine, but we know now—this cow doesn’t bag up much, and we can’t go by the way she looks!

During lockdown, Esther and Elijah got the tiny house painted. We were sure thankful we had bought the paint a month before that!

Gayle spent one afternoon helping get the chicks outside. One of our cats is a hunter extraordinaire, and had pulled one chick out of the coop through a crack under the door (I discovered the crime when I went outside and found her eating it on the step of the house). Therefore, we decided we had better electrify the top of the fence around the run, since that cat likes to perch on top of it. Here, Gayle is stringing up the wires.

The tulip magnolia bloomed—so gorgeous! See Little Miss swinging in it?

This is what is left of my winter garden—broccoli, cabbage that didn’t head, and leeks.

Inside the greenhouse. This is a patch of peppers we wintered over; I think two of them have made it through two winters now. Gayle transplanted the aloe plants into that area, as well, and there are two or three Cape Gooseberries.

Because lockdown caught us unprepared (I planned to buy enough potting soil for the year, but couldn’t because we were locked down so fast), I started my tomato seeds in the ground in the greenhouse, and then put them in punnets after I was able to get some potting soil. Here are the tiny baby tomatoes, starting to come up.

Most of the greenhouse is full of lettuce and spinach.

See how wet it is? This is a common sight. Any time it rains, we have surface flooding in the yard.

The garden on a rainy winter day.

The chicks are cosy and warm! This was a month ago, when they still needed heat from the lights.

About the end of August, they were big enough to go out into the run.

Simon replaced the head gasket on this car. It was Esther’s car, till the head gasket blew, and now he uses it for hunting.

A lockdown Sunday afternoon. We played an entire game of Chicken Foot dominoes—from Double 15 down to Double 0!

Gayle played games with the younger ones.

Esther saw this funny sight one day! They sure do enjoy the sun.

Simon’s birthday presents. We each gave him a bag of salt and vinegar chips, his favorite kind, wrapped in all sorts of wild and wonderful packages. By the third one, he had figured out the joke. The last one included monetary gifts from several of us.

We saw this out the window one morning. Our cows were at the top of the hill as the sun came up.

Children’s Fun in August

September 19, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One Sunday afternoon, our little girls decided to play the piano in the home in which we had church that morning. Gayle grabbed a couple of pictures with his phone.

Our younger children had fun digging holes in the sand down by the river with some other children. This is an area that frequently floods; the sand is deposited during the floods. There are several acres of it!

Tug-of-war another Sunday after church.

The first day of lockdown, Gayle took the younger children down to the creek in the paddock in which we keep our cows, and they tested out a boat they had just built.

They tried going through the culvert with it, but that didn’t work so well!

Little Miss was thrilled to be allowed to paddle the boat by herself!

Mr. Imagination made cookies one day, and made one of them very big! He didn’t eat it all at one go, though.

Birthday girl! Esther made her a cheesecake for her special dessert. She loved it!

She loves sitting in the dishpan! She says she’s taking a bath.

A quiet Sunday afternoon.

Birds!

September 16, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Mr. Imagination, who is my nature-loving, scientific sort of child, spent a couple of weeks recently taking photos of all the birds he could see around here. This wood pigeon posed for him on top of the electric pole.

One morning he was very excited to see a baby plover in front of the house! I could hardly believe it, since it was a month earlier than they hatched last year, but he was right!

A couple of thrushes of some sort.

A blackbird on the neighbor’s rooftop.

One of the adult plovers.

The thrush again.

There’s the baby plover again!

And a picture of it with one of the parents. That baby was the star of the show that day! It was a bit difficult to keep attention focused on school books.

Book Review—Twelve Weeks to Midnight Blue

September 8, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 3 Comments

About the Book

Book: Twelve Weeks to Midnight Blue
Author: Steve Searfoss
Genre: Fiction
Release date: January 26, 2020

Chance Sterling launches a pool cleaning business over the summer. Join Chance as he looks for new customers, discovers how much to charge them, recruits an employee, deals with difficult clients, and figures out how to make a profit. Oh, and his sister Addie wants in on the action too. Will they learn how to be business partners? He has twelve weeks to reach his goal. Will he make it? Only if he takes some chances.

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.

I am a Christian and a parent. My wife and I pay close attention to the books and media our four children consume, and try to make sure the content is edifying, just as Paul exhorts us in Philippians 4:8. I wanted to write a book that met that standard, and was also fun and engaging. KidVenture teaches kids the importance of hard work, of keeping your word and being trustworthy, and telling the truth, even when it means delivering bad news. As the story progresses, the protagonist understands that business is about more than making money as he appreciates the responsibility he has to his customers, his employee and his partner. How you treat people matters in tangible ways.

At the center of the story is a strong family. The two main characters are a brother and sister, who engage in their share of sibling rivalry, but also learn how to work together and forgive each other. At key junctures when they face big dilemmas, they turn to their parents for advice. The kids learn a healthy mix of independence, risk taking and learning through trial and error — balanced with knowing when to ask for help. All of this is presented in a way that is not preachy or hokey, but wrapped inside a story full of unexpected plot twists, witty banter and memorable characters.

My Thoughts:

Sometimes when I request a book for review I’m taking a chance because I’ve never read anything by the author, and can’t even preview the book on Amazon. If the book is a children’s book, and looks like it might be good, I often request it anyway. Some of those turn out to be really good—and some don’t. My mom had the chance to read my most recent gamble before I did. What she had to say was quite reassuring—and made me want to read the book myself! She said, “I really liked Twelve Weeks to Midnight Blue. It introduces basic business principles in story form—using a 10-year-old entrepreneur—in a sufficiently interesting way to keep me reading! I especially appreciated the involvement of the Dad, and the son’s respect for what he had to say.” Whew! I was relieved to hear this.

I really liked Twelve Weeks to Midnight Blue, too. I like the way it clearly explains how businesses work. The importance of treating people nicely and fairly is stressed all the way through. Chance learns the value of honesty. He learns how valuable it is to get along with his sister and listen to his parents. He learns the importance of knowing his math and how math works in real life. He even learns how good it feels to go beyond the call of duty and help someone out! There are a lot of life lessons in this book, beyond just running a business.

All the way through this book, there are pictures of Chance’s calculations and how he worked out what his profits were, and what percentage of his earnings needed to go toward expenses, or what his pay was per hour. Each chapter ends with a dilemma that Chance faced, and a few questions to help children think through what was happening and what Chance should do next. This book is very well-written; I would like my children to read it for themselves! If I have the opportunity to read more books by Steve Searfoss, I will certainly do so!

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

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:

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.

Jim’s Flat Area

September 5, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, our older boys announced they wanted to take us to see the area in which they have been hunting possums occasionally this winter. We got home from church about halfway through the afternoon, and quickly took off up the road to the east out of town. When we got to the track that leads to Jim’s Flat, we turned off the main road. The boys wanted us to see the hut and the cage that goes across the river at Jim’s Flat. However, when we got about halfway there, Simon, who was driving, suddenly pulled off and stopped. He had found a walking track, which they had been looking for for some time. (It doesn’t work very well to find a poorly-marked track in the dark!) We decided to walk along this track and see if we could find a hut someone had told them about. The track turned out to be easy to follow. It looked like it was probably a bush railway line at one point, likely when the area was logged a hundred years ago or more. It is straight and fairly level, and built up a little from the surrounding terrain in most places. There are a few very muddy places, but we discovered that if we walked right in the middle of them, the ground was firmer than at the edges! The biggest problem we had was that a few years ago, a lot of trees had fallen down across the track. It was likely the cyclone we had in February 2018, right after we moved here. Someone had gone through with a chain saw and cleared enough of the track that we could get through. A couple of those spots the trees were so thick that we pretty much went through a tunnel! We never did find the hut. We think we got close to it, but we were in danger of losing daylight and being stuck out in the bush for the night, so turned around. It was a great walk, though! We all thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s wonderful to have older sons who love to take the family on an adventure.

Did you notice the moss and ferns? They are very typical of the bush around here. We get plenty of water!

Here are a couple of photos Gayle took at Jim’s Hut the first time they went there, in early July. This cage on a cable goes across the Ahaura River. The boys usually take it across the river to go hunting possums. Apparently it’s really exciting when the river is in flood! I’m not anxious for a ride on it myself.

July 2021 Photos

September 1, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Finally, the last few photos from July!

Two little girls reading. Miss Joy is sitting on a bag of little bits of firewood.

I’m not sure what Simon was doing here! It was bedtime.

Our backyard most of the winter. I was glad when the boys dug in and tidied up that pile of wood.

I went out “shopping” one evening and brought all this in. It made two meals.

The blocks got used for a few days, as the younger ones enjoyed building towers.

I was delighted one evening when Simon and Elijah, both in their upper teens, played a game with Little Miss, age 6, for an hour or more.

What is he holding? Spider webs! We read a science lessons about spiders and their webs, so he went around the house collecting silk to see how strong it is.

Entertaining a Toddler With a Broken Leg

August 29, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Some time in July, Miss Joy and her big sister collided on a trampoline, and Miss Joy ended up with a broken leg. It was just a greenstick fracture, so not very serious, but she had her leg in a cast for a little over three weeks. She was walking on it only about nine days after the accident, and getting around pretty much normally, but the first few days were a bit challenging. It’s a good thing she has a naturally sunny disposition! The other hard part was near the end; I think the cast must have been irritating her, because little things that normally wouldn’t bother her at all made her scream. Maybe her leg was itchy, and she couldn’t figure out how to tell us? Anyway, here are some of the things she did during the time she had her cast on.

This first picture was a few days before she broke her leg. I had a bowl of beans on the counter, soaking, and when she needed something to, I gave her a sieve and a bowl and let her scoop beans and water. You’ll see down a little ways why I included this!

The morning after the accident, Miss Joy couldn’t move below the waist at all. The only thing she could do was sit; she couldn’t even figure out how to roll over. She was sitting on the couch with her books, and asked me for a “Bible.” I figured out she wanted a songbook, so I gave it to her and she sang for us. You can hear her in this video clip.

The next day, she figured out how to crawl, and she was off! That evening, Esther gave her a permanent marker and showed her how to draw on her cast. You can see in this video how focused she was.

Right around that time, she caught sight of another bowl of beans I was soaking when I carried her through the kitchen. “Beans!” she exclaimed. She couldn’t stand up, so I put her on the floor with the beans, making sure there wasn’t too much water in them. I didn’t want the plaster cast to get wet! She happily played with the beans for a long time.

One evening, she wanted more beans, but I didn’t have any soaking. Instead, I put rice on a tray and gave it to her. She spent an hour or so playing with that! We had to sweep it up a couple of times, but it was sure worth it.

She spent a lot of time looking at her books.

It didn’t end up being too hard an experience, after all. I sure wouldn’t want this to happen again, but we made it through, and she is as good as new again.

Book Review—Flipping Hearts

August 25, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

About the Book

When a hurricane rips through Hooper Island, a tidal wave of TV crews follows and upsets the locals.

Brooks Crawforth agreed to volunteer crews helping to clean up and repair things on the island, not a whole home and garden series on the total renovation of several houses and a bit of cleanup on the side. He’s furious, and the show host is spitting nails at the person who blew it in the first place.

His and his father’s jobs are in jeopardy, the islanders are about to kill him, and that crazy show host blames him for her assistant’s last-minute, “you’ve-got-to-sign-this-now-or-we-can’t-come” contract.

One more thing. Did she have to be so cute?

He’s got even more trouble, though. Islanders are starting to blame Mallory Barrows for the invasion. Not only that, there are rumors of dismantling the association and allowing tourism on the islands. How’s he supposed to fix this mess?

They can’t stand each other, but if they can manage to flip off the enemy switch and flip on some cooperation, maybe their hearts’ll get flipped, too.

This “enemies to romance” novel introduces the next island in the Independence Islands Series featuring five islands, six authors, and a boatload of happily-ever-afters.

The Independence Islands Series: beach reads aren’t just for summer anymore.

My Thoughts:

I first read Flipping Hearts as it was being written, a scene at a time, and actually never even read the ending. I was not very impressed with this book; it felt like one of Chautona Havig’s more “fluffy” books. When it was finally finished, I never got around to reading the whole thing again until this week. What do you suppose I thought of it when I was able to read the entire book in one go?

I really liked some of the conversations between Brooks and Bailey. Bailey had only become a Christian recently, while Brooks was raised in a Christian home—but she said some things that challenged him, like the conversation about good versus bad in people. And then there is the line, “But I hate the way we all act like we’re all superior about being in some ‘exclusive club’ while people out there are just doing their best, not knowing it isn’t enough.” As Brooks felt, “Double ouch, Lord.” Then there was the discussion about being “grace blind.” I could relate! Ouch again. All this to say, I was wrong with my first impression of Flipping Hearts. This is a much deeper book than I thought at first glance. I ended up really liking this book. The mystery (who was sabotaging the job?) kept my interest focused on this story, and the interactions between characters seemed very natural. I really liked that the romance was only a small part of the story, near the end.

About the Author:

Author of the bestselling 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:

How I Almost Missed This Important Life Lesson

He annoyed her. The guy was bossy, demanding, rude, and unwilling to admit fault—mostly. Truth be told, she was pretty much the same. Two people with similar faults. The relationship would never happen.

Now what was I supposed to do?

Without any idea how I’d take two near enemies and turn them into a couple, I kept writing the primary story—the one that was supposed to bring them together. The one that would have driven me far, far away from a guy like Brooks.

Right about the time I thought about that is when Bailey had her revelation. “He likes me.”

I nearly did a spit take. I mean, where did that come from? Why would he like someone who hadn’t bothered to be likeable?

And still the story unfolded. “Life or death” moment? Check. Unintentional sharing of attraction and heart. Check. Still confused author as these characters draw closer and closer… check, check!

It took until after the story’s climax for me to realize that Brooks really did like Bailey for who she was—and vice versa. Only after all that tension diffused and their distrust had been smashed to smithereens were Bailey and Brooks able to examine everything. Only after that was I able to realize a truth I hadn’t expected to learn.

People fall in love with people they argue with.

People in love argue. See, my husband and I don’t do that. We don’t argue. Ever. Do we agree on every little thing? No. We just don’t argue about it.

Look, it’s not like I’ve never written people who argue. I do. But Never have I looked at a fictional relationship, seen that it would produce the kind fireworks that Bailey and Brooks will, and thought, “Oh, they’re perfect for each other.”

Because see… if I were Bailey, I’d run. Fast. Conflict is a natural part of life and relationships, and I’m not so naïve as to think it’ll never occur. But entering a relationship knowing it’ll be a regular occurrence? Unthinkable!

So as I pondered all this during those last pages of the book, something hit me.

Jesus enters a rocky relationship with us. Willingly.

Don’t believe me? Think about it. Jesus knew, before He ever spoke light into existence, that His bride would blame Him for… pretty much everything. He knew she’d get him brutally murdered. He knew she’d rail at Him, spit at Him, abandon Him, cheat on Him, and even after forgiveness… she’d do it all over again the next day.

Even knowing all that… He still whispers to our hearts, “Be Mine. I love you.”

If that’s not the most beautiful, unbelievable, amazing thing, I don’t know what is.

It’s probably one of the most important life lessons I’ll ever learn. People choose to be in relationships with people they know they’ll argue with—people who will hurt them, annoy them, demand things of them. And the greatest example of One who does it so beautifully is Jesus. Because see… Jesus entered that relationship with me, knowing I’d be that person. Humbling, yeah. Important life lesson? Most definitely.

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.

Soap!

August 23, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I like to make soap once a year, and make enough for at least a year. It’s a very satisfying thing to do; I can make enough for our family for a year or more and only spend about $15 and a little time.

I start by rendering fat from either sheep or cattle, whichever I can easily source. I put it in a roaster in the oven and bake it at about 150°C for several hours. As the tallow melts out of the fat, I ladle it out of a corner, then put it back in the oven. Eventually, I take a pancake turner and cut through the fat to help melt more of it out. When it’s still very hot, it needs to be in a metal bowl, and then when it cools down a bit I put it in a plastic carton and, after it’s cool, put it in the freezer until I’m ready to use it.

To make the soap, I melt 13 cups of fat in a large pot. Then, I measure out 12 ounces of lye (caustic soda) into a dry bowl. Put 4 cups of cold water in a large glass dish. I always take it outside for the next step. Carefully pour the lye into the cold water, and stir with a plastic or stainless spoon (not wooden or aluminum) until the lye is dissolved. Now, check the temperature of the melted fat and the lye. They need to be within 10-20 degrees Fahrenheit (I can’t remember the exact number, but it isn’t too crucial) of each other. Once they are a similar temperature, carefully pour the lye water into the fat and stir. If you use a stick blender or hand mixer for this, you’ll reach the next step more quickly.

What you watch for now is called “tracing.” Tracing is simply being able to see a dribble of soap on top when you lift your spoon or the blender out and let it fall back in. Basically, as far as I can tell, it means the soap is thickening enough that it takes an instant to disappear inside again, if that makes sense. When you see tracing, it’s time to pour the soap into the molds—and with cow or sheep fat, you have to work fast, since it hardens quickly at this point! I use plastic Tupperware containers for molds. I made a double batch this year, and filled three 9”x13” containers.

Now, keep the soap as warm as possible for a couple of days, so the chemical reaction between the lye and the fat will keep going. I wrap the containers up in blankets and put them close to the fire.

Two days later, I cut the soap. At this point, it’s still pretty soft. I used a butter knife to cut it into the size blocks we like, and then lifted them out of the containers. If I had left the soap in them for a week or two, the soap would have likely hardened enough that I could pop the whole slab out, and then cut on a cutting board.

I stack the bars of soap in a cardboard box, with newspaper between the layers. This will hopefully keep it drier in our damp house. We keep it in the warmest, driest place we have. We leave it sit to cure for two months to completely finish the saponification process (the chemical reaction).

This is the way I make soap; there are other methods. Do some research for yourself if you are interested in making soap—you’ll probably come up with a lot of tips I don’t know! If you want to make goat’s milk soap, which I do when I have goat’s milk, use it in place of the water. Just be sure to freeze it first, and then let it thaw just till slushy before adding the lye.

June 2021 Photos

August 21, 2021 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I never got a post up last weekend. I always plan to do that on Sunday after we come home from church. This week, though, we came home for about 10 minutes and then took off to a hut the boys have been going to every so often the last couple of months, hunting possums. We stopped before we got there, though, and took off through the bush on a walking track the boys have been unsuccessfully searching for for about six weeks. I had been telling them they might find it more easily in the daylight (they hunt at night)…. This track, they were told, goes to a hut beside the river. We spent almost an hour walking along it before we decided we’d better turn around so we wouldn’t get caught in the dark. What a tramp! It obviously used to be a fairly easy walking track; it looks like it may have been the grade for a bush railway back in the logging days. Now, it’s getting overgrown, and there are trees laid down across it in many places from a cyclone 3 1/2 years ago. Someone had gone through with a chainsaw and cut out enough that we could get through, over and under the trunks, but it was a fun adventure! I may post about it sometime; Esther had her camera and took pictures. Anyway, that’s why you never saw a post last week, in case you noticed it was missing!

Here are the rest of our June pictures. Esther happened to be with Elijah at his job one day, and got a couple of pictures of him working. He was spreading glue on the floor, and when it dried, he laid down carpet tiles.

Two brothers conferring about the tiny house.

We went to Canterbury one weekend for a midwinter dinner, and then visited a couple of other friends. One person gave us a large stack of puzzles she was clearing out, and as soon as we got home, they were all being used!

We had to replace our stovetop. The boys enjoyed working on that!

This truck stopped across the road one day.

We grew a mixture of colors of carrots last year. Look at the white, yellow, orange and purple! It’s been pretty fun to have so much variety.