Ahaura

Around Our Yard

December 27, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

The flax bush just outside our windows is blooming this year, and we’re enjoying the tuis that come to drink the nectar! Sometimes, there are as many as three at once, and then there are fights over the blooms.

See the fluffed-up feathers? These tuis did not like the competition.

One afternoon, the little girls spent at least an hour, maybe two, playing together in the sandbox.

Another day, Mr. Imagination and Little Miss created hammocks for themselves from old feed bags and baling twine, after hearing about some children who did it in a story I was reading aloud.They enjoyed their hammocks for a couple of days, till the stitching at the bottom of the bag came apart.This happened on still another day—Mr. Imagination gave Miss Joy a ride on a boogie board!

A Milking Machine!

December 13, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

I have been milking cows by hand for about 12 years, and loving it. I was never even tempted to use a machine. It’s so much simpler to milk by hand. You can tie the cow up anywhere and milk her, and cleanup is so easy—just wash the bucket. However, our heifer Pansy changed my mind. When she calved in September, her teats were so small that milking became quite a chore. Try getting 8-10 liters (over 2 gallons) of milk out of a set of teats that are each the size of my thumb. That’s hard work! I managed, though, until Poppy calved in October. She’s easy to milk, with lovely, large teats, but the two cows together were giving 35-40 liters (9-10 gallons) of milk a day. My arms gave out! After just a few weeks of that, we decided it was not going to work. We solved the problem temporarily by letting Pansy feed the two heifer calves, and just milking Poppy. We also started getting set up so that we can milk with a machine! The first step was to level the floor in the shed. This is a carport that Simon built for his vintage Austin, but that has been moved to his house. He got a start on the floor before he got hurt, but then the project sat for a week or two. Then, a neighbor offered to help concrete the floor, and organized with the local concrete company to pour the floor the next day, a Saturday! Suddenly, preparations swung into high gear. It looked nearly impossible to be ready in time, but the job was finished that day!

Simon dug out too much soil, so we had to fill in with gravel, and compact it.

Some of the extra concrete got poured under the rain water tank.

Isn’t that a beautiful sight? I like it, anyway!We let the concrete cure for a week before using it for cows. During that week, Gayle and the boys built the stall and head catch. Now, the two cows are walked up to the house every morning and milking. Poppy never flinched, either at the cups going on her teats, or the noise of the vacuum pump. Pansy took a little longer to settle down, but she’s happy to be milked with the machine, too. And, it was none too soon for her. The calves were on her for just a month, but she has huge sores on three of her teats from them sucking. At this point, it’s impossible to milk her by hand, but she is all right with the machine. And, we’re overrun with milk again!

This is Pansy, waiting impatiently for her turn, while Poppy goes first.

Mr. Diligence has done most of the milking so far. He can’t bring the cows up, because of his knee, so he milks and rinses everything down. He keeps the shed and equipment spotless!

November 2020 Photos

December 8, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Esther is enjoying having goats again. This was awhile ago, not long after we got the nanny. They are now being moved over the hillside in the background, across the road from us.

Recovery: Simon and Mr. Diligence spent a few days playing Phase 10, before they both got fed up with sitting around healing. Then, they found other things to do, outside, of course, while still being as careful as possible with their knees. Simon went back to work yesterday, after two weeks off. His knee didn’t hurt when he came home last night, but his calf muscles and feet did. Mr. Diligence is still limping around.

On his 2nd or 3rd day of recuperating, Simon’s back was hurting, so he laid on the floor for most of the day. He was listening to audiobooks, and helped his baby sister listen, too.

She loves to have someone to cuddle up with!

After a week, I took Mr. Diligence to the doctor to have the dressing changed. I took this picture to show Esther how it was healing.

After several days of sitting, they couldn’t stand it any longer, and went out to do something useful. They scooped sawdust from the chicken coop into buckets, and the younger boys hauled it to the potato patch for mulch.

Ten baby turkeys hatched the day Mr. Diligence was in the hospital! I took this picture to email to Esther, who was with him.

Our young chickens started laying in mid-November. We’ve been inundated with eggs! The chickens are selling, though; there are only four of the young ones that aren’t spoken for yet.

Mr. Diligence took these pictures of the bridge construction just outside of town the day I took him in to get his stitches out. The bottom picture is our current bridge, the one that’s being replaced. It was built in the 1930s; the deck is wooden, with tarseal on top—although that is no longer being maintained, since the new bridge should be ready within a year.

This Week

November 22, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 4 Comments

Some weeks are uneventful and everything happens as normal. Other weeks—we kind of wish we could hit a “redo” button.

Wednesday afternoon Esther, Elijah and Mr. Diligence went up the hill across the road to move the goats’ fence. An hour later, I went into the house for a minute to grab a couple of tools to transplant seedlings. I stopped for a moment to grab a drink before going back out, and the phone rang. It was Esther. She asked me to grab her car and come up the hill to pick Mr. Diligence up because he had cut his leg with a machete. I got up there, took one look at the size of the cut, and made the decision to take him in. It was much too big for us to patch, and right over the center of his knee. I expected to get stitches and bring him back home. However, the cut had gone all the way to the kneecap, and when they did an xray they saw air in the joint, which meant that there was a big risk of infection in the joint—not a good thing. There is no orthopedic surgeon over here, so he had to go to Christchurch. He spent the night in the Greymouth hospital, and then went to Christchurch in the morning in the ambulance that goes over every day. Esther followed him in her car.

He arrived in Christchurch around 2:00 in the afternoon, and waited until midnight to go into surgery to patch his knee up! Esther got this picture of his wound soon after arrival, while they were waiting to go to his ward to wait for surgery. The blessing in this injury is that he missed both tendons and all the major blood vessels around the knee cap.

Esther spent the night with a friend, and then came back to the hospital in the morning. This was the view from his window. The river in the third picture is the Avon.

They played Phase 10 a couple of times.

Mr. Diligence was able to come home Saturday afternoon. He was happy to be out of the hospital, although he has to take it easy for a few weeks. Here he is showing pictures to Mr. Sweetie and Little Miss.

Sunday afternoon: The next act? Soon after some of us came home from church, Elijah called, asking Esther to pick him and the younger boys up. She asked why. “Simon just dislocated his knee!” Gayle was on his way to the hospital with Simon. It turned out to be his kneecap, and it was easily replaced, but he’s wearing a brace for a couple of weeks, and supposed to take two weeks off work—when they are overwhelmed with vehicles to fix! He’s in a lot of pain tonight, though, so I think it’s wise to take time off. Ironically, it was the same knee that Mr. Diligence injured. And how did he do it? Jumping over a low fence that he has jumped over dozens, if not hundreds of times before.

This was when Simon had just gotten home and was on his way into the house. Can you imagine—two boys on crutches at the same time!

Once both boys were settled on the couches again (we now have a shortage of seating in our living room!) their brothers tried out the crutches.

Videos–Cattle and Tractor

November 16, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Last Friday evening, the boys moved our heifer Pansy, her calf Iris, and our other heifer calf Bluebell, down to the bottom paddock. I had been milking Pansy, but her teats are so small my hands were not holding up to the job, so we put the calves on her for now. We tried to get her to feed our steer, too, but she hates him with a passion and if he’s around she won’t let the others near, either. It’s always amusing to watch calves being led on a rope for the first time–it’s a good thing Simon is so strong! He had quite a fight with Iris.

Simon moved his tractor and his vintage car to his house last weekend. In preparation, he moved them around the evening before, and Esther got a video clip of him driving the tractor. It runs well, but he was having trouble getting it stuck in 1st gear, and not going into reverse, when he was using it to move undriveable vehicles around at his place (he also acquired a Land Cruiser, which he’s storing in his old chicken coop at his house).

October 2020 Photos

November 9, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Here are the last of the October photos! The first two are actually from the end of September; I’m not sure how I missed including them somewhere. They were taken the day before Mr. Sweetie’s birthday, when we had a cookout down at the river with friends. The boys took their boats down and had a lot of fun with them. Here is Mr. Sweetie in a boat Elijah built for Mr. Imagination, and then Simon and Mr. Diligence with a friend in Elijah’s other boat.

We got the smallest chicken egg I have ever seen! There it is between two normal eggs.

One day, I was able to grab quick pictures of all three of our working men! Here is Elijah, formerly known as Mr. Intellectual. Now that he has turned 17 I’ll use his real name. He was working on the new veranda in front of the workshop Simon works in.

This is Simon walking through the workshop.

This is the mill where Gayle works. He is in about the center of the photo, second from left or third from right. He was writing down what was in a bunk of wood he had just pushed out from under the roof. The boards come off the saw and out a chain through this open-air building. They are marked as to what size and grade they are, and the men who are “working the table” sort them out into bunks.

Mr. Diligence got some pictures of the bridge construction as we crossed the river one day. Here is one of the massive 52-ton beams being put in place.

This shows the inside of a pipe being dug out so they can drive a pile deep down under the river bed. The place we often picnic is beyond the crane in that green area.

I don’t know what kind of flowers these are, but I noticed them one evening when I was going to milk the cow. Very unique!

Miss Joy—October 2020

November 3, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Here are pictures of our favorite toddler in her 14th month!

We had crepes with whipped cream, sweetened yogurt, bananas and chocolate sauce for breakfast one morning. She loved that breakfast!

She loves to climb into things. We use this crate to take our Bibles to church. As soon as it was unloaded, she sat in it.

She found my teacup on the couch one morning when I forgot to take it to the kitchen. She loves that cup!

Gayle brought firewood home from the mill one day, and she helped unload it. She was handing pieces to him. Little Miss helped, too.

Gotta put the earmuffs on! The big people do!

She found her favorite big brother on the couch and had to climb on him.

One afternoon she was playing with her brothers in the empty section next to our house. As you can see, she found some mud!

Babies!

October 19, 2020 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

We have a lot of baby animals around here right now. As I mentioned last week, our heifer had her calf the beginning of September. About three weeks ago, near the end of September, we bought a beef calf to raise for the freezer, and were given two goat kids and several lambs. Sadly, all but one of the lambs died; the tiniest one survived! Now, two days ago, our cow had her calf. Lots of cute babies to enjoy!

It took about a week for this little lamb to really get on his feet, but he is thriving now. Sometimes we let him loose while we’re outside, and he follows us very closely—he even wants to get in the house!

He loves his bottle! We’re still feeding him small amounts every 4-5 hours, and about two hours before the next feed he starts crying for it, even though he’s very fat.The evening that the boys took the three big cows down to the other paddock, the babies excitedly ran to the fence to see them go past.

This is Poppy, our older cow, a week before having her calf, and Pepperoni, the yearling steer. Pansy, the heifer I’ve been milking, was not cooperating, so I didn‘t get her in the picture.

Twice a day all four babies get a bottle! Everyone prefers to feed the goats.

This stump in the middle of the paddock provides the perfect playground for two young goats!

The long-awaited baby! Both calves born to our cows this year were heifers, which is exciting. Isn’t she gorgeous?

September 2020 Photos

October 11, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

September was a fairly busy month. At least, we took a lot of pictures!

Mr. Imagination found this hedgehog walking around in broad daylight one day. He wanted it for a pet, so tried to fix it a house and feed it. Unfortunately, it died the next day. They are normally nocturnal, so I’m guessing something was wrong with it.

Our heifer had a heifer calf of her own the second of September. This cute little calf has a mind of her own! She’s a challenge to handle. There will be a post coming soon with lots of photos of cute baby animals…don’t miss it! We’re waiting for one more calf to arrive and then I’ll publish that post.

These plover eggs hatched a few days after the calf was born. We never got a photo of the chicks, though. They are good at hiding! After the first day, we couldn’t even see them, and then the parents moved them out of our paddock to a park where they would be safer.

One evening the river was roaring very loudly. The children piled into Esther’s car and went down to take a look at the flooding. We normally walk through this space to get to “our” picnic spot.

This is the area we have our picnics!

We went to Canterbury for a weekend. The mountains were spectacular!

Miss Joy loves to sit in things!

We saw this tui on the neighbor’s tree one day. The photo doesn’t do it justice; in the sun, its feathers were glowing iridescently. So beautiful!

We bought a high chair for Miss Joy at an op shop. She loves feeling like a big person! She has to have a pillow behind her so she can sit right up to the tray. (We now have it in a plastic bag!)

What is Princess doing?

We had a cookout down by the river for Mr. Sweetie’s birthday. Some friends were with us, and it was a lovely afternoon, even though it was cloudy and threatening to rain.

Simon roasted an apple over the fire after having his fill of sausages!

This giant spider was found in the garden when Esther was replanting rhubarb. It was at least 1 1/2 inches long!

Greenhouse

October 5, 2020 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Today’s helpful tip: If you buy plastic for a greenhouse, make sure it is high quality. We bought greenhouse plastic twice, a few years apart. The first cover was used in Cheviot for a couple of years, and then we bought another cover for another greenhouse. It was never used over there, but we brought it here, and when we set up the greenhouse last year, we used both pieces to cover it. The newer piece shredded after just a year, and when we had a couple of storms in the last few weeks, with high winds, it blew off—in pieces! The older one is still in good shape. So, we bought a new piece of plastic to cover the entire house, so it won’t have to be pieced together. When I got on the website of a greenhouse supply company in the North Island, I found the end of a roll of plastic that was bigger than we needed, for less money than ordering the exact amount cut to size! That gives us enough to recover the miniature greenhouse I use for starting plants. On Saturday, the boys got the old cover off, and they and their dad put the new one on. At one point in the afternoon, I was urgently called outside—all hands were needed. They had unfolded the new cover and put it over the greenhouse—the wrong direction! I got out there to see this:

After I took that picture, Simon said, “Wait! Let me pose!” So, he struck this pose of wondering what to do about the mess they were in.

A few hours later I went out to see how the project was progressing, and they were finishing fastening the plastic to the roll-ups on the sides. They had the plastic securely fastened down to the side of the house, but the bottom foot and a half or so on each side rolls up on pipes.

This is what I have growing inside. Lots of salad stuff! I was out there today, and the lettuce to the left has about doubled in size in the last two days!