Lots of Helpers

Trip to Dunedin, Part 3—Outside the Dunedin Train Station

October 3, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The Dunedin Train Station is the most photographed building in New Zealand, the second most photographed building in the Southern Hemisphere (after the Sydney Opera House). I can understand why. We took so many pictures of it that I’m dividing them into two posts. It is an incredible piece of architecture. This station was completed in 1906. One hundred ten years ago, people built beautiful buildings!

The gardens in front of it are absolutely amazing, too, even this early in the spring, or late in the winter—whichever you choose!

This is the steps going down from the porch in front of the door.

I let Mr. Intellectual give us a sense of scale for one of the pillars.

This excursion train is still in use.

An end view of the building.

The other side of the building, the platform side.

Standing on the platform.

Coming up next…the incredible artwork built into the inside of the building.

First Mowing of the Spring!

October 1, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I think Esther actually took these pictures nearly a month ago. I only just looked at her memory card a week or so ago, though. I loved them, so decided to let you get a glimpse of my boys (and girl!). Mr. Imagination, wearing Mr. Inventor’s warm shirt, and Little Miss were watching the mowing.

Mr. Sweetie was trimming around the tires of herbs, with scissors.

Mr. Inventor

Mr. Handyman

Mr. Diligence—it goes faster with three mowers going simultaneously! That’s Mr. Imagination in the background with a toy mower.

I think they’ve mowed once since then. It’s so wonderful to have green grass!

Trip to Dunedin Part 2—Climbing Mount Cargill

September 29, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

While we were in Dunedin (pronounced Doo-NEE-din, in case you wondered), we stayed with a family who live on Pine Hill, on the road to the Mount Cargill Lookout. Saturday afternoon they took us up to the top, and we hiked around for an hour or two. It was quite a strenuous walk for those of us who are terribly out of shape, but the scenery was worth it. The boys took the opportunity to practice rock climbing. This is Mr. Inventor.

We went to a rock outcropping that overlooks the city of Dunedin and the Otago Peninsula. I hustled Mr. Inventor away from the edge with his little sister. It went straight down a long way there.

Mr. Imagination

Mr. Diligence

Everyone posed for a picture on top of the rock.

Looking north along the coast. It was an incredibly clear day, and we were all thankful for very little wind—they said that was quite unusual.

That rocky point in the middle is where we took the picture of everyone.

Climbing up the rocks.

Entrance to the Otago Harbour

Book Review—Front Window and Hartfield Mysteries series

September 27, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I am loving the fact that my favorite author is a prolific writer. Her fourth book for the year is publishing this week! Because this is the fourth book in a series, I “had” to read the first three, of course, so I’ve had a fairly steady diet of Chautona Havig lately. I’m not tired of them yet!

I really enjoyed Front Window. It was really hard to put it down—sometimes it’s pretty frustrating to only be able to read for a couple of minutes at a time, although it’s good discipline. Read the rest of my review here.

I received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.

WARNING: A couple of the characters say a mildly bad word when under great stress.

I also wrote a review of the entire series, for those who are interested:

Murder mysteries? Not my cup of tea—usually. I prefer books that have sage advice woven throughout, books that make me really think about things. The Hartfield Mysteries, however, do that. Read my review of the series here.

Links may be Esther’s affiliate links. By clicking on them to buy the books from Amazon, you’ll help support her website, with no extra cost to you.

Trip to Dunedin, Part 1—The Trip South

September 24, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We took a trip to Dunedin, a large city near the south end of this island, a week ago. We left here fairly early Friday morning, and drove till it was nearly dark that evening, with just a few stops. This first picture shows the typical landscape in the Canterbury Plains, south of Christchurch. Mr. Diligence, who sits in the front of the van between his daddy and I, was getting bored, so he borrowed my camera. What this doesn’t show, which is very hard to pick up with the camera but very spectacular in real life, is the snow-capped mountains off to the west. The covering of snow this time of year makes them look a lot taller than they look in the summer, somehow. They look like they just rise suddenly out of the flat plains.

Esther was able, with her good camera, to get a picture that gives an idea of what we saw. This is taken from the bridge over the Rakaia River, which is 1.6 kilometers (1 mile) long. The structure you see is the railroad bridge.

Late in the afternoon, we stopped for half an hour to take a break and enjoy the sea, at Shag Point. This first picture was taken as we drove along the sea; the rest were taken when we stopped. The cliff went nearly straight down, probably 50 feet! Esther and I, and Mr. Diligence who had a headache, stayed at the top; the rest went down a steep path to the sea.

Mr. Inventor and Mr. Intellectual walking along the beach.

Mr. Diligence wishing he felt better, and getting as close to the edge as Mom will let him.

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Handyman, with Little Miss. Thankfully, he didn’t slip like Mr. Inventor did as he came around that point!

Daddy and Little Miss.

Mr. Inventor and Mr. Intellectual discovered a structure of some sort!

Mr. Imagination and Mr. Sweetie

Daddy with Little Miss

Daffodils—and a Winter Storm!

September 16, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Last Sunday afternoon on our way home from church we took a few minutes to drive through the Domain, the public land, to see the daffodils. They were sure gorgeous!

Then, Wednesday, a storm arrived from the south. As the weather forecast I saw put it, the wind was coming “straight off the Antarctic ice shelf”. It sure felt like it! All day Thursday, we had alternating rain, hail, and sunshine. I took these pictures less than a minute after one squall started—the hail turned the ground white that fast!

After dark, when another hail storm went through, Mr. Diligence went out and scraped ice off Mr. Inventor’s trailer. He brought it in the house and built this sculpture. Mr. Sweetie called it the Tower of Babel.

I wanted to clarify something from the post about hitting water in the well. Mr. Inventor did not find the design he used for a “drill” anywhere; he thought it up himself. He did watch YouTube and got several other ideas, but hasn’t tried any of them yet.

Water!

September 14, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Back in March, I wrote about our boys’ project of digging a well by hand. They got down 2.9 meters, and then lost momentum. It rained, and we were concerned about the ground softening up and caving in. They didn’t do any more with the well until today. Mr. Inventor has been agitating for us buying a posthole driller to finish the well, rather than digging farther by hand. It sounded like a good idea, but we never got around to it. He started working on building his own. He cut a circle out of a flat piece of iron, and cut a slit in it and bent the metal to make a sort of screw, but that didn’t work. He watched a few YouTube videos for ideas, then cut up a small old propane tank and attached that to a handle. It worked well to drill through the clay at the bottom of the well, and they hadn’t gone far when water started seeping in! They are drilling through gravel and sand now, and it’s looking really promising.

Does it look a bit safer now, than when they were digging by hand at the bottom?

A Few Random Photos

September 14, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We haven’t been taking very many pictures lately, apparently. I have time today to write a blog post, though, so I’ll share the few we have. We’re on our way to Dunedin for the weekend, so while we’re traveling on a straight, flat road between Ashburton and Timaru I’m taking advantage of a good battery in my laptop and writing. I do apologize for the fuzzy pictures; after noticing that several were that way, Esther noticed that someone had touched the lens of my camera and it was very smeary. She sweetly cleaned it for me.

Here she is, rocking her little sister right after we arrived home from church.

This is Mr. Inventor’s flock of turkeys. Too many toms! Five of them went into the freezer a few days later. Aren’t they gorgeous though? We’re planning to pick up a new tom for our flock on this trip, to avoid inbreeding.

A week or so ago, Mr. Intellectual helped me dig the rest of last year’s carrots. It was such a warm, sunny day that we cleaned them outside, and a few days later the boys helped me chop all of them and get them in jars. That will make quick soups even easier for the next year.

Little Miss was playing with this hat. She was delightedly waving “Bye-bye” to Esther in this picture. She is so much fun! She’s talking more all the time. Yesterday, she was chasing Mr. Imagination around and around the living room, and finally, in exasperation she exclaimed, “He has it!” It turned out that he had been given a small piece of candy, and she wanted it.

August 2016 Family Pictures

September 3, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Mr. Sweetie was being silly one day, twirling around and around on my desk chair in this position! Little boys can be pretty amusing.

Little girls can be amusing, too. Little Miss has obviously been watching people lay down to read, so she did the same thing one morning while I was doing oral reading with some boys.

Little Miss helped Mr. Intellectual make breakfast one morning.

I was getting her ready for bed, and she ran away, jumped up on Daddy, and giggled.

This is why I record a lot of the books I read aloud to the boys. Mr. Sweetie spent an afternoon this week listening to Mountain Born, by Elizabeth Yates—a lovely story about a little boy and his lamb.

Boys’ Projects

September 1, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

As usual, Mr. Inventor and Mr. Diligence have been very busy building. I don’t have pictures of all their projects, but they borrowed my camera to get pictures of a few recent ones. Mr. Inventor started this trailer in April, and got it finished a couple of weeks ago. It passed inspection, so is now legal to use on the road. He is very excited—and has already started the next one!

Mr. Diligence was hired to build the box on top of this cage for a neighbor boy’s guinea pigs. He took several pictures so he could write the dimensions on them in case he is asked to build another cage.

Mr. Inventor was given this shed when it fell over in a high wind a month or two ago. He brought it home on his bike trailer! Mr. Diligence took a picture of that, but his camera is lost, unfortunately, so all I have are these “after” pictures. Originally, the shed was just snapped together with tabs, but he put wooden bracing in, and built a floor in it. He’s hoping to sell it soon.