Lots of Helpers

Book Review—Exploring Creation With Astronomy

December 6, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We just finished science for the 2017 school year. This is the fourth year in a row that we have used Apologia’s Elementary science, and we’re still loving it. This year, we used Exploring Creation With Astronomy. I thought Jeanne Fulbright wrote great books before—but in this 2^nd Edition she outdid herself! This was a very fascinating course. I’m glad I decided to buy the new book instead of borrowing the old one from a friend.

Since our school year began in February, we have traveled through the solar system and beyond. Read the rest of my review here.

You can see pictures of a couple of our projects from this course here and here.

Fishing Expeditions

December 2, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Gayle took the boys fishing one Sunday evening about a month ago. They were very excited to come home with 14 large kowai! Mr. Diligence had a birthday the next day, so we had fish for supper.

Today, we tried again. We all went out this time, hoping for a repeat—but not even one fish was caught this time. Oh, well. You never know when a school of fish will be coming in the river. It was a beautiful day out there anyway! This is what the Hurunui Mouth looked like today; quite different from the last time I was out there. We walked all the way around the lagoon to get to the mouth this time.

These gulls were flying around making quite a fuss. We found out why when someone discovered a nest!

I saw these ducks swimming in the lagoon.

A lupine bush. What a wonderful smell!

It was interesting to notice the variety in terrain just on that short walk along the lagoon. Here was a rock cliff; soon there was a patch of white limestone; and a lot of the time the hillside was covered with grass and bushes!

I wish I could share more of the experience with you. All I can do is give you a little glimpse of the scenery. There is so much more to it than that, however. There are the sounds—gulls screaming, waves crashing on the shore, and ripples lapping on the rocks and shores around the lagoon. There are the smells—the sea smell and the wonderful aroma of the lupines. There are the sensations—the hot sun, the cool sea breeze, the hot rocks and sand under foot. There is even taste—salt on your lips from the spray blown off the tops of the waves! And of course, the scenery is so much bigger and more beautiful than my camera can capture.

Back Route From Culverden

November 29, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One recent Sunday, when we went to church at Waikari, we joined our friends for a picnic lunch in Culverden in honor of a 40th birthday. Although it was a cloudy, windy day, we enjoyed our time with them. When we left, we decided to take the back way from Culverden back to Cheviot. We had seen that route on the map years ago, and always wanted to know what it was like. In fact, our children had been talking for quite awhile about riding across it on bikes. This is what the road was like for about the first 30-40 minutes we were on it: a farm track! We kept going because there had been a sign at the beginning, indicating that it connected to a road.

Looking back toward Culverden. The views were incredible!

Finally, the track turned into a real road again, and we got back home, only spending an extra 45 minutes or so traveling. We may never do that again, but it was fun for once!

Book Review—Beauty From Ashes

November 27, 2017 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

About the Book

Name of book: Beauty from Ashes
Author: Alana Terry
Genre: Christian Women’s Lit
Release Date: July, 2017

My Thoughts:
I read a book by Alana Terry a year or two ago and found it excellent. I’ve been seeing her name lately, so when I was offered the opportunity to review her new book, Beauty From Ashes, I decided it sounded like a good story. I was not wrong—this is an excellent book.

Tiff tells her story in this book, starting with being in church for the first time in years. Her husband, Jake, took her there, and she went because she didn’t have the energy to argue about it. She gets the surprise of her life when an old woman stands up to pray—and suddenly, Tiff is given hope for her tiny baby, Natalie, who spent her first month in NICU because of a brain bleed.

To read the rest of my review, please go here.

I received a copy of this book as a gift from the author, but was under no obligation to write a positive review.

WARNING: Many times, Tiff mentions having had boyfriends in her bedroom as a teenager, or being in a vehicle with them. These scenes are never described explicitly, but you know what was going on. Also, Jake admits once to cheating on her.

The Author’s Synopsis:
A baby was never part of Tiff’s plans. Especially not a sick baby in a NICU, struggling for life on a ventilator.

As days in the hospital turn to weeks, Tiff grows more and more convinced that God is punishing her for turning her back on him so many years ago. Or is it possible he’s working in the midst of her daughter’s bleak prognosis to draw Tiff back to himself once more?

The Orchard Grove Christian Women’s Fiction books are standalone literary novels about real-life believers facing real-life struggles. You won’t meet perfect saints whose lives are faultless models of the Christian faith. Instead, you’ll meet a perfect God whose plans of redemption are far more glorious than what the mortal mind could ever imagine.

About the Author:
Alana is a pastor’s wife, homeschooling mom, self-diagnosed chicken lady, and Christian suspense author. Her novels have won awards from Women of Faith, Book Club Network, Grace Awards, Readers’ Favorite, and more. Alana’s passion for social justice, human rights, and religious freedom shines through her writing, and her books are known for raising tough questions without preaching. She and her family live in rural Alaska where the northern lights in the winter and midnight sun in the summer make hauling water, surviving the annual mosquito apocalypse, and cleaning goat stalls in negative forty degrees worth every second.

Guest Post from Alana Terry:

Click here to see the special video message from Alana.

“You better come in,” I told my husband. “The doctors don’t think he’s going to make it.”

Not the kind of conversation you want to have with anyone at one o’clock in the morning. I was spending the night at the hospital with our nine-month-old baby Silas and hadn’t left the hospital complex in days. Scott was home with our toddler trying to get some sleep.

And our son Silas was dying.

Raising a medically-fragile baby changed me like nothing else ever has. Thankfully, Silas pulled through that horrific evening, but that didn’t mean life was sugar and cream from then on.

As anyone with experience knows, it’s hard work being a special-needs mom.

And it can devastate a marriage.

Thankfully, God brought my husband and me through those nearly impossible first few years while Silas was in and out of the hospital with no guarantee of his survival.

And he continued to sustain us through even more years of therapy, hospital visits, and medical tests.

And now we have a happy marriage, a healthy boy, and hearts full of gratitude for all God’s done for us.

But I never want to forget where we were.

The depths God delivered us out of.

The despair that would have overwhelmed us if God hadn’t been our strength and our support.

Writing Beauty from Ashes was one way to remind myself of those difficulties God brought us through. It’s not strictly autobiographical, but the baby in this novel went through a very similar traumatic birth experience as Silas did, and all the health issues — including that night in the hospital when I truly thought we were going to lose our baby — are based on the trials we went through when Silas was young.

I wrote Beauty from Ashes because we all need to be reminded every now and then that even though life can be impossibly hard, even though there’s no guarantee our children will grow up and love Christ and make good choices with their lives or even survive until adulthood at all, God is good, and he will sustain us through all the trials we have to endure.

I think that’s why Beauty from Ashes resonates so much with Christian readers hungry for more than a simple story with a happily-ever-after ending, like these readers:

“…by far some of the best Christian fiction I’ve read.” Amy L, author

” … a story that is both heart-wrenching and heartwarming.” ~ Jaime Hampton, award-winning author of Malnourished

“I didn’t think it was possible that the author could write any better than she already does … This is a book I will never forget … She writes with realism and doesn’t pull any punches … Every time I read a book from this author, my faith grows.” Deana at Texas Bookaholic

I hope you’ll take a chance to grab your own copy of Beauty from Ashes today, and don’t forget to watch the video and enter to win the $100 gift card to christianbooks.com.

Because Christian fiction should encourage, edify, and inspire.

And because God is big enough to carry all our burdens.

Click here to purchase your copy.

Climb Up Hurunui Bluffs

November 25, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, when we went to Waikari for church, we had a picnic lunch with a family we’ve grown to love, and then climbed a track to the top of the bluffs over the Hurunui River. The day was clear and beautiful, with the bluest sky you ever saw! The wind was blowing fiercely, but most of the time we were walking, the track was sheltered somewhat. The views were incredible all the way up, and especially at the top.

We started out by walking up the road a short ways, and then climbed over a stile beside the gate in the second picture. Then, the track went up, and up and up! For a long ways, a trickle of water ran through a rut at the side of the track. As we came to a place where the track leveled out and it looked like we were going downhill, I checked that trickle and, to my surprise, the water was still running the same direction! Apparently, the leveling out and downhill was an illusion.

Looking back toward the Hurunui River. The gap in the hills in the distance, if I understood right, is the Hurunui Gorge. If you’ve ever read the excellent book The Runaway Settlers, that is where they drove cattle through to sell them to gold miners on the West Coast.

Our goal was that hut at the top of the hill. It was a fire spotter’s hut at one time.

Mr. Sweetie

More New Babies!

November 17, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We have been watching our cat Princess getting larger and larger over the past few weeks, and yesterday the long-awaited event happened! She settled down on Mr. Diligence’s lap yesterday morning, and after awhile we noticed she was very restless, so we fixed her a box in the living room. Sure enough, after a couple of hours she produced a kitten, and a couple of hours later, one more. We’re rather glad there were only two! Both are tortoiseshells; one is mostly black and the other tabby. They’ll be beautiful cats!

Mr. Imagination has been desperately wanting a pet. He has tried to save a number of baby birds from the cats, but all have died. He tried to save a skink one day, but we didn’t know what to feed it. A few days ago, he rescued a duckling from the cat. We told him to give it back to its family, but a few minutes later the cat had it again. I told him he could put it in the brooder with the baby turkeys, but within a couple of hours it had died. He was heartbroken. I realized, then, how badly he wanted a pet, so I told him he could choose one of the kittens when Princess has them. He was thrilled, and spent a lot of time spoiling her after that! He was very excited yesterday, as you can imagine, and he has chosen the tabby kitten for his own. He can’t wait till she’s big enough to play with.

Nelson Creek

November 12, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

After we visited the gold dredge, we drove to Nelson Creek to explore a bit in an old goldfield. Simon was very happy to drive some of us in his car. He was careful, and never scared his mom!

To get to the swing bridge, we first went through this tunnel.

If you don’t like walking on bridges that bounce, this one is not for you! Even with noone trying to bounce it, it still did a lot. I crossed it, but I really didn’t like it.

Looking upstream from the bridge—yes, it was drizzly.

I thought it was appropriate that the water was somewhat gold-colored!

After we crossed that little side creek, we started up this trail. I couldn’t possibly capture the scenery here; there were steep banks going up both sides of the trail. We were walking at the bottom of a deep ravine. It was amazing to walk through this area!

When we reached this cave, of course everyone had to explore it. It was a mining tunnel dug by the Chinese gold miners in the late 1800s. A creek runs through the bottom of it, into Nelson Creek. We enjoyed seeing glowworms in the ceiling—but our feet got cold! The water was frigid.

This is Simon, in a part of the tunnel some 20 feet above where Esther and Little Miss were standing in the picture above! He was pointing out the marks left by the mining picks in the ceiling around him. It was very dark, and my flash wouldn’t reach to where he was, so that’s why it’s blurry.

Going back through the ravine. The boys explored another tunnel they found, but some of us stayed on the path.

It lightened up a little as we crossed the bridge again going back to the car!

Product Review—Innovators Tribe

November 8, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I had never heard of Innovators Tribe before, but when the opportunity arose to use and review the course Thinking Like an Engineer, I knew Mr. Intellectual would be interested. Sure enough, when I showed it to him and we watched the introductory video together, he was immediately excited about the possibility of getting to do it. He was absolutely thrilled when we got the word that we had been assigned this review, and he has been working very fast with his regular school work so he will get to work on this course. It’s what he looks forward to most, each school day.

This course alternates between video lessons and hands-on projects. After watching the introduction, What is Engineering, the assignment is given to build a tower out of only paper and tape—and strictly limited amounts of both. It took awhile, but Mr. Intellectual figured out how to do it, and had great fun in the process.

Lesson 2 talked about different types of engineers, and then the students were given another challenge assignment, to stack books one inch off the floor, using only one sheet of paper and some tape. I thought this was impossible; I couldn’t figure out how to do it at all. No hints or tips of any kind were given, just the assignment. My boy was stumped for awhile, but he eventually figured out what to do and made this impressive tower of books! (And no, I’m not going to tell you how he did it, because if your child does the course he or she needs to figure it out, too! However, if Grandma wants to know, we’ll tell her.)

The second unit focuses on 3D design, using special software you can download to your computer. That’s what Mr. Intellectual has been using for a few weeks now. He loves the excuse to play around with designs on the computer. I asked what he was working on a couple of days ago, and the assignment was to take a piece of household furniture and improve the design. He was working on a kitchen table. I’ll be quite interested to see what he ends up with!

This course isn’t quite what I was envisioning; it’s actually much better. I thought the students would be walked through designing specific items, but actually they are taught how to figure out problems themselves. An engineer takes a need and figures out how to meet that need using the materials available. This course teaches students how to do that, which is why the tower and the stack of books were assigned with no hints.

Each unit has a printable journal to fill in as you go, which helps to cement the concepts you’ve learned, and keep a record of your accomplishments—how tall was your tower, how many pounds of books did you stack on top of your piece of paper, etc. If you run into difficulty, you can contact the author of the course and he’ll give you personal help. We haven’t needed any help, but some of the other people who did this course reported that they asked for some input and got quick, thorough answers. For children who can read at least some, Thinking Like an Engineer can be done totally by the student, without any help from Mom. In fact, I’ve had a little trouble writing this review because I was involved so little! I had to keep reminding myself to look over Mr. Intellectual’s shoulder and ask questions about what he was doing, so I’d have at least something to say! That makes it even more valuable to me, because I don’t have time for extras most days, so doing something that requires teacher input would have been difficult. I believe this would even work for people with dyslexia who have a lot of trouble reading, because most of it is in video format.

Mr. Intellectual says he would highly recommend this course for other people who are interested in building things and figuring out how they can be made to work better. We’re thankful to have had the chance to use Thinking Like an Engineer, and looking forward to the rest of the course! (It will be very interesting to see what he gets to do in the units about designing rollercoasters and bridges! Maybe that’s when we’ll use the packs of card stock we were told to buy?)

Gold Dredge

November 6, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Simon has been telling us about a gold dredge that he likes to ride a motorbike to in the evenings after work, so we wanted to see it while we were there. It’s across the road and through some paddocks from where he lives, near the banks of the Grey River.

We drove as far as we could, then parked the vehicles and walked the rest of the way. It was drizzling, as it did the entire time we were over there—when it wasn’t pouring! There were a few five-minute times that the sun shone, but then the clouds would close in again.

This is the gold dredge, from a distance.

We crossed this bridge to get to it.

The water weeds were quite interesting under the bridge.

A close-up of the dredge. It is enormous!

Look closely; you can see buckets inside here that are used to dig 10 meters deep. They haven’t run this dredge for several years, but they would dig out gravel and sand, then separate the rocks from the small stuff. The rocks were pushed out the back; you can see a huge pile of them behind the machine. Then, they ran water through the sand and ran it over a series of riffles. The sand ran off, and the heavier gold dust stayed behind. This dredge would move back and forth to dig up all the ground, and it took the water with it—it’s always floating. They would level out the tailings behind it, and then gorse and broom would grow on the rocks. After several years, someone would spray the gorse and broom and the ground would grow grass for animals. We were told that this is the best way to make productive land in the area. Before the dredge went through, the land was swamp, good for nothing except growing sandflies; after, we saw herds of cattle grazing on it.

October 2017 Pictures

November 4, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Here are the rest of the pictures from October!

It’s hard to see in this picture, but one thing they’ve done to stabilize this cliff face is to put black netting over the loose rocks. You can see it on the left side of the top.

These are five-ton blocks of concrete—and a slip pushed them over!

Mr. Intellectual is doing a course called “Thinking Like an Engineer.” He’s loving it, especially the experiments. In this one, he had to pile books an inch above the floor, using one sheet of printer paper. You’ll have to wait till I write the review of the course to see how tall a stack he achieved!

Mr. Sweetie built this stack of animals, and then took 16 pictures of it!

This was the latest dump find. Mr. Intellectual is loving his “new” roll-top desk!

We got out the microscope one day to look at some algae. It was still out several days later when I was cutting up meat, so we looked at that, too.

The first picture is skeletal muscle; the second is cardiac muscle. Mr. Intellectual had just been studying about these muscles a few days before, so this was a timely opportunity.

Mr. Imagination and Little Miss spend most of the morning playing together while the bigger boys do school. They got out the rocking horse one day and had great fun on it for a long time.

Little Miss can spend hours playing with these tiny animals. She loves sorting them.

One day, Little Miss wanted to paint, so I gave her a brush and a bucket of water and told her to paint the house.

Mr. Imagination was delivering quite a fiery sermon to his brother and sister! I enjoyed listening, while I picked lettuce nearby and pretended not to pay attention.