Our four oldest boys worked in the local vineyard for a couple of days this week. The first day, when I went to pick them up, Mr. Inventor came out of the barn where they were waiting for me, carrying a little black kitten! The mother, a wild cat, had been shot the day before, and the man they were working with said he would kill the kitten, too, if we didn’t take it. Of course, we brought the little fellow home. He has become tame remarkably fast. We’re loving having a kitten around for the first time since we came to New Zealand over six years ago. We have a cat, but he was full-grown when we got him. This little kitten, named Shadow, is going to be fun for everyone to watch.
January 2016 Pictures
One morning when Mr. Intellectual was making his breakfast, he cracked an egg into a cup and found three yolks! He was tickled at his good fortune, and took a picture of it. Then, he cracked two more eggs and they were both double yolkers! So, from three eggs, he had seven yolks, as shown in the second picture, which he took to document his good morning.
Mr. Inventor brought one of his goslings in to show me how big it is now. Compare that to when it was newly-hatched, in October!
The boys spent a rainy day playing with Lincoln logs. Mr. Sweetie was impressed with this house-inside-a-house that he built.
The big boys made towers!
We watched a movie one week, Sheffey, the story of a circuit-riding preacher in, I believe, Tennessee in the 1800s. Gayle was holding the two little boys, and Little Miss got jealous, so announced that she wanted to be on his lap, too—right in the middle! I say we watched it one week, because it took four or five evenings to get through it.
On our way home from church one Sunday afternoon, we stopped for a few minutes at Saint Anne’s Lagoon to look around just a bit.
Mr. Inventor’s ducks enjoyed the pool they had for a week or two after a recent rain!
When we went to Christchurch for a day recently, we ate lunch in a small park, and then used the playground for awhile. Little Miss loved the swing ride she got with her big brother!
Summer Afternoon
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post one afternoon while I was outside watching my three little ones play. Here are a few more pictures I took that afternoon.
Little Miss took a long nap on my lap. That got rather uncomfortable, but she liked it! I got five books reviewed.
After playing in the water in the old bathtub for awhile, the little boys warmed up in the sun with the inner tubes.
Mr. Inventor’s geese checked us out.
After she woke up, Little Miss went exploring again.
That was such a lovely afternoon!
The Two Littlest
Mr. Imagination woke up early one morning, but by 7:00 he was asleep again on my chair!
She did it! Little Miss figured out how to get a cloth over her head. She worked on that trick for a long time.
One morning after a rain, Little Miss found a puddle just her size and had fun stepping in it.
She also thought it was fun washing her hands and feet in the milk in the cat dish. Mom was not impressed (and neither was the cat!).
Little Miss is a Daddy’s girl! She wants to be with Daddy whenever she can be. Just before I took this picture, I saw her standing there with her hand on his back, watching intently.
Mr. Sweetie took this one.
Everyone likes to play with Little Miss. One evening, she was “throwing” a ball and chasing it, to the great delight of everyone. Another time, Mr. Handyman brought her into the house in a bucket. She frequently gets bucket rides. This picture with a ball was taken on her birthday.
Mr. Imagination didn’t finish his breakfast, a pancake with applesauce, cut up into bite-sized pieces. Little Miss found it and ate about half, then scattered the rest across the floor.
Mr. Imagination found this dress in the closet one day and badly wanted Little Miss to wear it. The boys love seeing her dressed in really girly clothes.
While I was shelling peas one day, Mr. Sweetie got the camera and took some pictures of the two little ones. This is what I was enjoying watching while I shelled the peas.
That turkey is as big as she is! Mr. Inventor thought it was pretty cute to see her investigating the turkeys. He said she walked right up to them.
While we were eating outside where it was cooler one evening, she stuck her foot in Daddy’s plate. That wasn’t what she wanted to do!
One day, she spent half an hour or more sitting on this box, playing with her empty pill bottle and one or two other things.
After I emptied a jar of yogurt, she took it and the spoon and cleaned out more!
January Garden
The garden is doing splendidly! My boys have been a great help again this year. We’ve picked cabbage twice; this is the first harvest—30 heads! We made 110 pounds of sourkraut that day, more than we need for the year. It took only about 4 hours from picking the cabbage to finishing the cleanup.
Another day I picked a bushel and a half of peas. It was a lovely day to sit under a tree to shell them.
Little Miss loves to eat peas!
Mr. Intellectual has his own beautiful garden at the edge of the big garden. Here is Mr. Imagination showing the size of his brother’s sunflowers and corn.
This is our corn and pumpkins, with cabbage just beyond, and potatoes on the other side of that.
Little Miss likes zucchini, too!
Mr. Intellectual has been harvesting dandelion roots as well, and making them into “coffee”. He looked up directions and figured out how to roast them. Yum!
Breakfast on the Go, and links
We went to town a couple of days ago. Going to town, meaning the nearest city to us, is an all-day affair. We have nearly an hour and a half drive to get there, so we try to leave early in order to get everything done that we have to do and get home before too late in the evening. We usually eat breakfast on the road on those days, and the current favorite breakfast-on-the-go is egg sandwiches.
We start by scrambling eggs; we ask each person how many eggs he wants and scramble the total, with salt and pepper. Then, take a piece of bread for each egg and spread it with mayonnaise (we make our own). Put about one scrambled egg on the bread, and top with a thin slice of cheese. Put it under the broiler or in a hot oven for a few minutes, just long enough to melt the cheese.
We usually do all that the night before, and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, we pull them out and put them on baking trays again, then reheat just a little while. For my share, because I feel better if I eat Trim Healthy Mama-style, I make my own bread substitute. I grind 2 Tablespoons dried coconut and 1 Tablespoon flax seeds in the coffee grinder, add 1/2 teaspoon baking powder and a pinch of salt, and stir in one egg. I put a piece of baking paper on a small tray and bake in the toaster oven for 6-7 minutes. You can also cook in a microwave for 1-2 minutes, but I like it better baked. 
Esther has posted on her blog several days this week, and I love the pictures she has posted. For some really great pictures of our boys, please go here and here and here and here and here and here.
Book Review–Jack
I discovered Chautona Havig’s books about a year ago, when I read Ready or Not for the second time. After reading the next two books in that series a few months later, I was hooked. When she asked for people to help her launch new books, last September, I immediately volunteered. Jack is the second one I’ve been able to read before publication. Today is the release date! Buy it here.
And, without further ado, here is my review, which, as with other reviews I post her will be taken down when it publishes on Esther’s website.
For the past year, I’ve been enjoying Chautona Havig’s books. When I had the chance a few months ago to sign up to help her launch new books, I took it—it means I get to read them for free before they are published! I probably would never have read Jack otherwise; I’m really not into cowboy stories. However, I found myself enjoying this one, as I have her other books that I’ve read.
Read my full review here.
Videos of Little Miss
Little Miss has some brothers that love her. She is also becoming quite a chatterbox. It’s really hard to record her talking, because when she sees the camera she quits. I did manage to get this clip from behind. Looks like Mr. Imagination wanted in on the video, as well! In the second one, we had leftover whipped cream from a special treat one evening (waffles served with cherry pie filling and whipped cream), so Mr. Diligence fed some of it to her while he cleaned out the cup.
Memories
For a number of years, from 1986 when I was 11, until 1990, when I was 16, I wrote and printed a small family newspaper, called The Starr-Hill Gazette. Actually, I wrote the news items, and begged family and friends for other stories. I got the folder of those papers out one evening last week so I could find one I especially remembered, and we had fun reading bits from them. Here is the one I was looking for, written by my mother:
OOPS!
Neighbor Mike makes his living moving and setting up mobile homes. Apparently he had a rough day recently….
Mike’s brother-in-law Dan was moving, home and all, and Mike was helping with the move. The mobile home had an addition which needed to be removed, so Mike used Dan’s saw to cut it away. The saw burnt out. “Cheap saw,” said Dan. “Oh, well.”
There was a gas line to disconnect. Mike gave the fitting a turn. Easy! He pulled off the wrench and went for another turn. The jaws of the wrench fell off in his hand. A brand new wrench. “Cheap wrench,” said Dan. “Oh, well.”
Time to jack up the mobile home. “I’ll go close the door so it doesn’t get caught on the way up,” said Dan.
“Ready?” asked Mike.
“No,” came the reply. Sounded like “Go.” Mike started to jack.
Once. Twice. Moving nicely! Three, four…crunch. Five, creak, crunch, “Whoa!!” Sounded like, “Go!” Six, crunch. “Whoa, whoa! STOP!”
“What happened?” inquired Mike.
“You’ve got to come and see this!” was the reply.
Mike went. The door had been open. It had caught under the roof of the addition. It was, to put it mildly, warped. Oops. Mike let the jack down again. The door straightened out! “Cheap door,” said Dan.
Apparently the rest of the move went without mishap, but we were roaring too loudly to actually hear the conclusion. After awhile, everyone subsided. Mike picked up his cup of coffee. He leaped up from his chair. The handle of the cup was all that he had in his hand. The coffee was all over him.
“Cheap cup,” someone said.
(Names have been changed to protect privacy, but this is a true story. The picture shows how the cup broke.)
One of my sisters drew comics for several issues. This is the funniest one I came across the other evening:
This Afternoon and Last Night
It’s pretty hot today, so I’m letting my little people cool off with water. They would love to go to a swimming pool, but the big boys are all at work so I’m giving them the next best: cold water in a bathtub, with a plastic tub for Little Miss. This is when I really like having a laptop, so I can watch them while still getting something done! This is what I see as I write this:
When I went outside last evening to take a few pictures for the post I did featuring the garden, I got to enjoy a brilliant double rainbow. It was much more beautiful than these pictures show.
This is one of this year’s experiments. Right after we planted the tomatoes, I had broccoli and cauliflower that also needed planted, but didn’t have any space for them. I put some between rows of tomatoes. A chicken ate most of them while they were tiny, but some of the broccoli survived. It’s getting taken over by tomatoes by now, but I noticed that some are starting to form heads!
The sunset was gorgeous, and I always enjoy seeing the Indian Runner ducks running in single file across the paddock. The geese were pretty active, too, but the turkeys were going to bed. It was dark enough that my camera flashed, and in this picture, the second one I took, they were getting nervous.
