Our family's life in New Zealand
We had to go to Christchurch last week for Mr. Inventor’s orthodontist appointment. While he and I were in there, the rest of the family walked to a playground down the street. That was quite a treat for these country children! Here are Mr. Handyman and Little Miss.
Mr. Intellectual
Mr. Inventor watching Mr. Intellectual, Mr. Imagination, Mr. Diligence, and Mr. Sweetie.
Esther gave Little Miss a swing ride. Apparently, Little Miss loved it so much she was quite upset when they quit swinging.
My computer is still acting up; we reset to factory setting two weeks ago because it had automatically updated to Windows 8.1 and this computer won’t work right on that operating system. Now, it’s demanding that we put in the product key for Windows 8! I’ve been talking to the technical support at Acer, and getting very frustrated. Most of them are difficult to understand, and don’t really want to listen to me. When they told me what to do, it didn’t work, so I called back and they said to reset to factory settings again! So, I’m going to write and schedule a bunch of blog posts with all the pictures I have ready, so I can delete those folders, and then back up my computer, and then reset it. Then, we get to set it up again for the third time in three weeks, and copy everything from the backup into the computer again, and spend a day installing updates again, because there are so many that they overload the system, and search for the particular update that enables the upgrade to Windows 8.1 and block it, and reinstall all the programs I use! What a bother. Esther is getting really good at setting up a computer. I tried, I really did, but messed things up so she had to fix them. I told Gayle today that Esther isn’t allowed to leave home—I can’t figure out my computer without her! I have a feeling I’m allowing myself to be lazy about it, though and could do it if I spent a lot more time with it.
Anyway, here are the random pictures from May.
Little Miss loves to drape clothing around her neck as a scarf.
Socks and shoes are her favorite items of clothing. Socks over pajamas? Why not!
One afternoon on the way home from church the sea was so still we could see reflections. Barney’s Rock was so beautiful this way!
An apple in a cup—the perfect way to eat it!
Mr. Handyman holding our biggest pumpkin of the year. I can’t remember how much it weighed, though.
A new dress! This came from either her grandmother or an aunt, on Gayle’s side.
I thought this was funny—three boys using three computers.
We had quite the harvest of peppers. I planted four types, Bell Peppers, Anaheim Chilies, Jalapenos, and Cayenne. Such a pretty assortment. Today I need to be washing the last of them; I picked a bushel basket full (40 liter tub) a few days ago when the plant were mostly killed by frost.
Mr. Intellectual was given a margarine tub full of stamps from around the world. He had great fun sorting them and discovering what countries they were from. There were a lot of double-ups, so his brothers got some, too.
We acquired two kittens toward the end of April, Leif and Linda. They were awfully cute, playing together. When we let them in the house in the morning, they would spend the next hour or so playing with each other, then settle down for a nap on their favorite chair. We thoroughly enjoyed playing with them and holding them for a nap. Unfortunately, Linda was accidentally killed only a month after we got them. We’re still enjoying Leif, though. He’s growing fast, and full of life. He searched for his sister for a day or two after she died, but seems to have forgotten her now. Mr. Inventor allowed Leif into his room so he wouldn’t be so lonesome at night, and now the kitten sleeps with him.
The fire-worshippers!
The only time we saw Leif up this tree was when he was searching for Linda—she used to climb it.
Guarding a schoolbook?
We also have some very cute chicks. This hen has hatched chicks for us quite a number of times; she’s getting pretty old—Esther found a picture of her from 2013, when she was young. We think someone gave her to us. This time, she hatched 16, out of 16 eggs—quite an impressive record.
It’s pretty funny to see all 16 chicks under their mother at the same time. She can’t relax! All you can see of the chicks is a few feet sticking out. I’m really impressed by how a mother hen takes care of her chicks. It’s really cold in the mornings here right now, with heavy frosts. The chicks run around and forage for awhile, then duck under their mother’s feathers to warm up. Then they run around for awhile again. When we put feed on the ground for them, she races over and starts virtually ordering the chicks to eat.
These white chickens were raised by the light brown hen you can see just in front of the red tub. She and another hen, between them, hatched 23 chicks within a few days of each other in April, and have successfully raised all 23. We locked them up just a few days ago, because there were too many chickens on the loose.
“Eat up! You don’t know when you’ll find more food!” says Mother Hen.
One of these days I’ll get caught up on my regular posts about our life. Having a lot of computer trouble has put a damper on that project. I think my computer is working right again, and most of the programs I use are back in it. For tonight, though, I thought I’d just share a few of the books I’ve read recently and really enjoyed.
Mr. Intellectual was given the book Returning Home, by Loreen Plett, for Christmas. I finally read it a few weeks ago and loved it! 
I wrote a long review of it for IgniteLit, so I won’t write a lot here, but it is a great book. It’s not quite a biography, but based on family history. It almost reads like an epic novel, though! It follows the life of Johann Plett, born into a Mennonite family in Prussia in the late 1700s. His life was one long series of tragedies and disappointments. He became more and more bitter against God, who never gave up on him. I definitely recommend this book, as well as its sequel, Crossing the Distance. 
This book, which I finished reading a few weeks ago, tells the story of Johann’s son Knals (Cornelius). He was born in Prussia, but grew up in Russia only a short distance from the Crimea. After watching his father’s life, he became a Christian at a fairly young age, and was baptized into the Kleine Gemeinde church—an offshoot of the Old Colony Mennonnites. His strong, forceful personality caused some major problems and heartache in his life, but was also used greatly by God to strengthen the church and aid in the migration of the Mennonites to Canada. His actions were not always right, but his heart was in the right place and eventually he made right what he had done wrong. Both of these books are very inspiring.
I’ve also been enjoying a lovely series of fiction books. I read the three Aggie’s Inheritance books a year or more ago, and loved them! 
In fact, Ready or Not was the first modern Christian novel I have found that I was interested in rereading. For Keeps and Here We Come are just as good. They tell the story of Aggie Milliken, who at age 22, fresh out of college, inherited her sister’s eight children when Allana and her husband suddenly died. Through reading this series of books, I discovered a new favorite author, Chautona Havig. She has let me be on her launch team now when she publishes new books, and since the fourth Aggie book is publishing this month, I reread the first three. They are just as good as I remembered, and every bit as engrossing the second or third time through! This week, I got to read the advance reader copy of the fourth book, Ante Up! It is great, too. It’s not necessarily a fun read; Aggie has some major struggles. There is a lot of food for thought in it, though, which is something I really love about Chautona’s books. There is some humor, too—I love the scene in which Kenzie is aghast at the thought of using stitch witchery (Maybe we should pray over it), and Ellie’s attempt to bake rolls is quite funny, too.
If you’re looking for a good read, check out one of these books. They are all well worth your time.
Otherwise known as random pictures! One Sunday in April, our nephew went to church with us, and we took him north of Kaikoura to see the baby seals. Little Miss loved them, too!
Everyone has been enjoying our new kittens. They love to sleep on people! Unfortunately, the black-and-white one was accidentally killed this week when she got in someone’s way. We miss her, but are glad to still have the other.
I liked this sight, as Mr. Inventor took a turkey to a neighbor who wanted to buy him to live with her turkey hens.
A favorite activity has been building towers with the base 10 blocks.
Just a funny picture of Mr. Imagination!
Mr. Imagination loves his “robot pajamas”, which were in a bag of clothes that was given to us.
Impromptu math lesson one evening! I can’t remember any more what we were discussing, but that white board sure comes in handy!
Mr. Inventor and Mr. Diligence got the idea to bob for apples one evening. They soon caught on to pushing the apples to the bottom of the dishpan to get hold of them!
Mr. Intellectual is my kitchen helper. He learned how to make tortillas recently.
The two little boys built this. We brought very few toys with us when we moved here from America, but this was a set we didn’t want to be without.
One morning in early April, it was already getting frosty when I went out to check on the garden at 12:30. No, I don’t normally go outside at that hour, but it was so cold that I was checking for frost to try to protect the tomatoes. I turned the pump on to try to keep the frost off them. When I went out at 6:30 to look, the entire garden was encased in ice! By 8:00, when I turned the water off as the sun came up, the ice was about 1/8 inch (2-3 mm) thick on all the tomato and pumpkin leaves! The little boys had fun going out and carefully taking the ice off a big leaf and bringing it in to show me. They put several of those crystal leaves in the freezer to show Daddy when he got home. I figured that was the end of the tomatoes, zucchini, and pumpkins.
That afternoon, I went out to the garden again. I was very surprised at what I saw! The next two pictures are the garden that I watered, which was encased in ice. The plants had not been hurt at all!
This picture shows the pumpkins in the next garden, across a narrow walkway. They were not protected with water, and were killed! I knew there was some sort of science behind that, so I looked it up. Apparently, as the water freezes into ice, it releases a tiny amount of heat, which keeps the plant above freezing temperature as long as the ice stays wet. If it gets dry, for example if a breeze springs up, the plant will be damaged badly. You have to keep the water running till the sun comes up, to prevent damage. It was very interesting to see this in action!
I harvested about half our pumpkins that afternoon. My three littlest had fun helping me haul them around and wash them. Then, they ran across them!
We sure are enjoying this little girl! She is pure fun most of the time.
Just for fun, I’m going to write a quick post about what we’re reading aloud right now. As usual, there are a lot of books on the go in our house!
We start the day by reading a lesson from a CLE Bible Lightunit. We’re currently using their Elementary Elective Bible course, and are in Lightunit 5, which is the last of this series of an overview of the New Testament. It took us through the book of Acts, and now we’re studying the epistles. I forgot about that one when I took the picture!
For the past year and a half, we’ve been reading about world history. We’ve made it as far as the beginning of the Rennaisance/Reformation era! We’re reading The World of Columbus and Sons; Esther and I think it’s fascinating but the boys are bored. Following that, which is our main history for the day, we’re reading If All the Swords in England, about Henry II (I think) and Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury who was murdered in his church because he supported the Church above the king. This is a very well-written, factually based story, told from the point of view of a pair of twins, boys who worked for the king and the archbishop. This book actually takes place 300 years before Columbus, but we’ve only recently acquired it, so I stuck it in here. And that takes care of the morning round of reading!
After lunch, we start in reading again, while the dishes are being washed. I focus more on the younger boys here, and the older ones are free to leave if they don’t have a job. They all love Wedding Bells Ahead, though! Even Esther wants to hear this one, the 7th in the Grandma’s Attic series. We can’t wait to find out what happens next in this true story of life in Michigan in the 1880s. I just started reading All on a Mountain Day to Mr. Sweetie a few days ago. It is a series of stories about the animals who live on a mountain side in the Rocky Mountains, and what each was doing one afternoon as they interacted with each other. I’m also reading him a few pages each day from Egermeier’s Bible Story Book, which is great, and a chapter of I Heard Good News Today, missionary stories from around the world.
Several evenings a week, we have time for a family story time after supper while the dishes are being washed again. I look for a book that everyone, including Daddy, will enjoy. Sometimes that’s not easy, but they are all loving Ten P’s in a Pod, and we are finding it quite challenging. It is the story, told by one of the 8 Pent children, of a family who traveled the United States and Canada sharing the Gospel and encouraging people to read the Bible. And here’s a little funny about this book. One evening I started reading, and Mr. Imagination came over and raised his hand for permission to ask a question. His observation? “That was a big pod!”
Besides all these, I have three–no, four–books going for myself at the moment! I try to write several book reviews for Esther each week, so have to read to be able to do that!
Would anyone be interested in a post like this occasionally? I know I like to read about what other people are reading, sometimes.
Disclaimer: The links in this post are affiliate links. They aren’t actually mine; I asked Esther to supply them, so if you buy a book through these links you’re helping to support her website.
Time to share the rest of the pictures from March. I think they’ve aged long enough now. More to the point, life is starting to slow down just a bit for the winter. Not that it ever slows down much, but anyway…. I think all I have left to process is apples for apple butter, and tomatoes. I need to pick tomatoes tomorrow, and see what the chickens who won’t stay out of the garden have left for us.
Mr. Imagination wants to dictate a story for Grandma.
“One time, me and J goed up in a tree. Then we goed up in another tree. Then I got stuck. Then I climbed up some more. Then I got stuck again. And then I climbed up some more and then I got up to the top. I climbed down. There were these strange marching sounds and here came Ja, marching, and here came S, and E, and M, walking. And everyone came and didn’t see N. And then, J came down and then all the people was gone. And then I climbed down the rest. And then I heard some more marching sounds. And then I climbed up to the top and then there was these bad marching sounds and here came a blackbird, marching. I came forward and caught it and I ate it for my supper. The end.” (I’ve changed the names to just initials.)
And, he has another story:”One time, J and Ja goed up the tall tree, which I could touch the top of. And then, I goed up the top of the tree and then I fell down and I broke my neckbone and I climbed up again and I tried not to break my neckbone and then I broke it again. And then I goed down to the creek and then I saw a frog jump up. It was big and I ate it for my supper. The end.”
And another: “One time, me and J goed up to the top of the big tree, which I could touch the top of. I climbed up and I hit my climber bone and then I fell down and I broke my knucklebone and then J came down and then I just went and touched the top of the tree. And then a snake came and then I killed it. And a squirrel came after the snake and the squirrel ate the snake all up. Then another snake came as I was going to the house and I killed it by stepping on it. I speared it. Then I chopped its head off and it wiggled and I chopped another piece of it off and then it wiggled again and I picked it up and I chopped it again and I set it down and ran off to the house. The end.”
By the way, all three stories are purely imaginary. This four-year-old has never broken a bone, or seen a snake or a squirrel, and he rarely climbs a tree. He’s awfully cute, though!
I started this post over a week ago. All I had to do was add a little more text with the pictures. I didn’t have time to finish that night, so saved it in the program I like to write blog posts in. The next evening, my computer…crashed. Esther spent most of the next day trying to fix it and finally gave up. Thankfully, I paid for an extended warranty when I bought the computer, so it was picked up here at home and taken to Auckland, where, hopefully, it will be repaired and sent back! And I’m also thankful that I had done a complete backup in February. Hopefully, I remembered all the things I had added since then that I needed! Esther was able to start the computer in safe mode long enough to save some essential folders that I use every week. However, the draft I started for this post got lost.
You may be wondering how I’m able to still be online? Well, God provided long ago already. Back in October, Mr. Inventor, whose favorite place to go is the dump at the end of the road, brought an old laptop home from there. It wouldn’t start up, but Esther figured out how to reset it to factory settings and it worked! He mostly uses it for listening to audiobooks, but when my computer crashed I asked if I can borrow it for a little while. He was willing to loan it to me, so I’m still able to write. It took me a couple of days to install the programs I really needed (most were built for Windows 7, 8, or 10 and not for Vista!), but I’m back in business for now.
So, here are pictures from our trip to Timaru about five weeks ago. We thoroughly enjoyed the Easter conference again. I didn’t get a lot out of the messages, because I was constantly dealing with a wiggly little girl who does not like church AT ALL, but came away feeling very refreshed from being with God’s people for an entire weekend. Thank you to those who made the weekend possible, if you read this!
On Saturday, there was only one meeting, at 3:30 in the afternoon, so in the morning we went to a nearby beach and walked to a lighthouse. What a beautiful walk!
On our way home on Easter Monday after the conference, we stopped to visit a friend in Geraldine. He raises carnivorous plants in two greenhouses in his backyard. I was not prepared for the sight that met us when we stepped inside! I had never imagined such a variety in pitcher plants–these photos don’t do justice to his collection.
We spent an hour looking at and learning about the plants–absolutely fascinating!
And now, I’ve spent over half an hour writing this post, including figuring out how to set up Picassa to resize pictures. I had it set up on my computer, but of course had to reset it on this one! And, when mine comes back I get to start all over again. The joys of technology.
Oh, and in between, I’ve rescued two kittens multiple times when a little girl brought them over to me, dangling them by a leg, or a bit of their back, or…. She adores them, but they haven’t yet learned to run from her.