Lots of Helpers

Kaikoura Before the Quake

December 2, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

It’s almost unreal to think that we were in Kaikoura the day before the 7.8 earthquake of November 14, but it’s true. Everything was normal; we spent most of the day at church, then went across the street and over the bridge over Lyell Creek, then sat on the rocky beach for awhile. The boys had fun stacking rocks; Mr. Intellectual built several of these structures and then demolished them. Apparently, the seafloor rose about 2 meters here. They say that rocks are visible now that had never been seen before, and high tide now looks like low tide before! It will sure be interesting to see it when we can get back up there, but that will be a long time. The most optimistic estimate I’ve seen for opening the highway is six months from now.

We enjoyed watching birds—this gull and the shags who were hanging out in the creek.

Early November 2016 Pictures

November 30, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

In this picture, there are 38 baby turkeys, 3 chicks and 1 duckling. All were hatched by their mothers, but we took them away to raise by hand, for the babies’ own safety.

Grandma and Little Miss admiring the nine chicks hatched a few weeks ago, which are being raised by their mother.

The little ones caught 20 snails after church and were playing with them.

Drilling a new well in a better location than the first one.

An aunt gave Little Miss a couple of nightgowns. She loves her “pretty dress”.

Bees

November 29, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One day, about noon, I was sitting at the kitchen table helping a couple of the boys with school. I glanced out the window toward the paddock and saw a cloud of insects swirling around. I’ve seen something like that two or three times before, when we lived in Michigan; there was a colony of wild honeybees living in the wall of an old house just in front of our house, and they swarmed a few times. Mr. Intellectual ran outside to see what the insects were, and sure enough, they were honeybees! He followed the swarm across the neighbor’s paddock and onto another property yet, while I called a friend who wanted bees to tell him about the swarm. Pretty soon, the bees settled around a branch, and the boys hung around to keep an eye on it until our friend arrived to collect them. What a fascinating science class for that day!

Little Miss, October 2016

November 28, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

She found this hat and put it one, along with the sweater she got someone to put on for her.

Esther made her a dandelion crown.

Little Miss and Mr. Imagination are best friends. They spent one evening crawling around the house pushing their vehicles.

Blackberries!

When your brothers adore you, you can get them to do anything you like.

Another hat!

Day at the Park

November 27, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

After we took Gayle’s aunt and uncle to the airport, we met some new friends in a park in Christchurch. I had “met” the mother online; she blogs at Mommynificent. They were moving from Asia to America, and stopped off to visit a friend in New Zealand. We were happy to be able to meet up, and spent a couple of hours together at this lovely big park on a clear sunny day.

Little Miss loved getting swing rides.

My new friend and I, with our babies—only a month apart!

Mr. Intellectual gave us a scare. Shortly before we were ready to leave, he did a flip off his swing and landed on his face. Once he was over being dizzy he was fine except for the terribly-looking cuts and bruises on his face. By now, he’s looking good again.

Book Review—Christmas Embers

November 25, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Chautona Havig has written yet another wonderful book! I’m losing count of how many she’s launched this year, but it’s quite a few. Christmas Embers (renamed Shattering Secrets) is a powerful book. To read Esther’s great review, go here. If you want to buy the book, go here.

Adultery. What really happens to a family when a spouse commits adultery? Is it really a big deal? It’s so prevalent today; surely that makes the impact less? Emily, a mom blogger, thought it was a big deal. To read the rest of my review, go here.

I received an advanced reader copy of this book and chose to write a review of it.

Gore Bay and Kaikoura

November 25, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The Saturday that Gayle’s aunt and uncle were here, he took them and our children, and a couple of other visitors, out to Gore Bay. I stayed home to work on food for the weekend, so these are the pictures someone else took. Apparently, Little Miss has gotten past her fear of the sea!

They walked around to Port Robinson, and found some unusual things. This was a dead octopus they found washed up.

A live sea urchin!

Two elephant slugs.

Including our family, we had 25 people on Sunday and Monday morning! This was when we had the conference at which Gayle’s uncle spoke. I took this picture Sunday morning just before breakfast.

On our way to church, we stopped at a place from which you can see the Kaikoura Peninsula and the coast for a long ways around. We were treated to a closeup look at this bellbird, who was helping himself to nectar from this kowhai tree.

After church, some of the party walked over the Kaikoura Peninsula. I went home to cook tea, but my photographer stayed to walk!

That was a really good weekend. It was a lot of work to feed so many people, but so worth while.

Sheep and Trees

November 24, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The week after the funeral, Gayle’s aunt and uncle arrived from America. Our sisters were still here for a couple of days, so we took all of them to Hawarden, to the farm on which our nephew is working for a few months. The farmer, a friend of ours, moved some sheep into another paddock so we could see the dogs working, and then he cut down some trees. He was taking out a stand of pine trees so he could reroute a farm road, and milling them into timber to build a new set of cattle yards.

The scenery as we drove out the long road to Mount Virginia was breathtaking!

Our friend gave Mr. Imagination and Mr. Sweetie rides in the skidder. He was moving logs around and putting them on the portable sawmill, which I apparently failed to get a picture of.

When we headed out to see the sheep moved, our friend led us with his truck. We followed as far as we could in the van, but when we got to where the terrain was too rough, the boys took off on foot. The rest of us crowded into the truck—four women and three little people in the cab with the farmer and four people in the back with the dogs! He took us farther up the hill.

He caught this lamb so our visitors could pet it, and Mr. Imagination enjoyed holding it, too.

When the sheep saw us coming, they took off for the way into the next paddock.

We all followed the farmer along the fenceline to where he needed to open the fence to let the sheep through. The sheep went back and forth several times, but eventually he got them all through. Apparently, one of the dogs wasn’t behaving the best. The boys climbed to the top of the hill and looked for stragglers. They were tired that night!

After moving the sheep, we watched our friend cut down a few more trees. His children had gotten home from school and wanted to see some trees come down.

Dobson Nature Walk

November 23, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Our last stop before heading home was at the very top of Arthur’s Pass. The Dobson Nature Walk goes up a hillside over the highway. We didn’t see a lot of wildflowers, as it’s still early spring, but the scenery was dramatic. These flowers are the largest buttercup in the world. They were gorgeous!

Little Miss was being independent again. We let her walk one way, but her daddy carried her most of the way back.

This is the highest point of the highway going over the pass.

That bump on her forehead is a sandfly bite.

Bealey Valley Trail

November 22, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

After leaving the cottage on our last day, we drove back up to Arthur’s Pass. We still wanted to go on a couple of walks we’d heard about, and look for mountain wildflowers. We found the Bealey Valley track first.

The trail led to a bridge over this rapids; it was a lot more impressive in real life than the picture can show! I ended up spending a lot of time on the bridge with Little Miss, while the rest of the family (except Grandma) went up a pretty rugged track. Little Miss looked at the water on both sides, over and over, and then looked through the cracks in the floor to see the water go under. I think she was trying to figure out what the water was doing.

This was a tiny mushroom; the cap was about the size of my thumbnail!

It’s almost a rainforest up there at the top of the pass. So much moss!