Ahaura

More Children’s Fun

September 24, 2023 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Our children are always coming up with new and creative ways to have fun together. One Sunday afternoon on our way home from church we stopped and let the girls pick a few daffodils beside the road. Then, Esther took a selfie with her little sisters and their flowers.

Mr. Imagination built this contraption for Miss Joy. It’s supposed to be a tractor; it’s more like a go-kart. They have spent a lot of time pushing each other around in it.

One afternoon, I noticed the girls playing that they were going shopping with the book bags Grandma made while she was here. I didn’t want to distract them by going in the room to get my camera, so I grabbed the iPad to take a picture. It didn’t turn out very well, but it’s precious to me anyway.

Miss Joy loves Goofball! Goofball isn’t sure she loves Miss Joy, but she puts up with a lot. She’s a very gentle cat who keeps her claws in.

Gayle frequently walks “around the block” with the children. One time, he let them slide on piles of gravel at the bottom of the hill. They sure had fun–and they sure came home dirty!

Scenery

September 17, 2023 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Elijah has taken several work trips down south to the glacier area lately. He took these two pictures on one of the trips. What amazing views he gets to savor while he drives for work!

But then, I sometimes have amazing views while I work, too! This is the view from the top of the hill across the road, where we pasture our cows at times. They have spent the winter there, and I’ve been milking by hand up there for the past month. I didn’t have my camera along the morning that there was snow on top of that range of mountains, but talk about a spectacular view! Wow. These pictures were taken the morning we had a full moon–that’s a supermoon you can see there. The layer of fog lies over the Grey River; you can often easily see where a river is by looking at the fog in the mornings. Our house, by the way, is just to the left of the picture.

I took this one about 15 minutes later, after the sun was up higher, from a slightly different place on the hilltop. It is looking down to the right of the previous picture, down the hill to the north of our village. We use the paddock across the highway from the road that comes up from the bottom of the picture for our cattle, chickens and turkeys.

Boating Down the Creek

September 17, 2023 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

About a month ago, Gayle and most of the boys and the little girls went down the hill to Orwell Creek, which loops around the hill on which our village sits before emptying into the river. They took an assortment of watercraft, and floated down the creek to the mouth. Gayle drove along to pick them up at the end, and took several photos and a few video clips when he was close to the water. These aren’t very good photos or videos, but they’re fun! The first photo is near the beginning of the excursion; the second is near the end.

June 2023 Photos

July 9, 2023 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Here are last month’s pictures!

I was working in the garden one day, digging oxalis corms and buttercups out under the edge of the greenhouse. Miss Joy came along and laid down flat on the freshly-dug soil, and started digging through it, finding earthworms. I suggested she “plant” the earthworms in soil in her container, so she did, and then tried to dig them out.

Jo-Jo the cockatiel and Kea the budgie get along pretty well most of the time.

We had a lot of frosty mornings the first two weeks of June. Mr. Sweetie used my camera one morning to get pictures of the sun coming up through the trees across the road.

He also got some pictures of a cold kingfisher that sat on this post for awhile. Once, we saw it fly down to the mud, pick something up, and eat it–probably a worm.

Another day, the children found this tiny frog in a flax bush behind the house.

Miss Joy loves to brush hair. One morning when Little Miss needed her hair brushed, and Miss Joy was at loose ends, I suggested she brush her big sister’s hair. She was delighted, and it kept her busy for quite awhile. She’s very gentle, and does a good job.

Mr. Sweetie was outside with my camera one day and took a picture of Grizzly. That cat is always looking for a new place to sit for a nap.

Busted!

May 28, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Several years ago, we got a book out of the library titled Six Dinner Sid. Sid was a cat who had six homes. He had to keep up six different personalities, but he also got six different dinners, had six different beds, and had six different people who doted on him.

Our cat Princess has been away a lot of days lately. She decided about the first of April that it was time to wean her kittens, and ever since she has been very nasty to them, and sometimes to us when she’s upset at the kittens daring to exist in her presence. Some days, we wouldn’t see her until late afternoon. When we got home from our weekend trip on Tuesday evening, she was missing, and we didn’t see her again until Saturday morning. By then, I was figuring that either she had met with a sad end, or had moved in with someone else.

Saturday morning we were sitting in the living room having family worship when someone spotted Princess outside! We let her in, since she had been gone so long, even though we don’t normally pay attention to the cats during worship. A few minutes later, the neighbor who had taken care of the animals while we were gone came over. She had a newspaper clipping for us:

Now we know where Princess is spending her days! And the moral of this story is? You can’t own a cat!

Finished!

May 23, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The girls moved back into their bedroom a week ago, after only a week and a half out of it. They are really enjoying having a beautiful new room, rather than than the old room with its horrible pink and purple walls. It now looks quite beautiful! Here are a few pictures of the process of building. This first one was taken by one of my boys, who said, “Safety first!”

By Saturday night, the room was painted!

Little Miss got into some glue, and our friend had just finished cleaning her up when I grabbed my camera. That hat!

Sunday afternoon the boys took advantage of an empty room to play games. It was also warm; since we insulated it, it’s probably the warmest room in the house.

The girls moved back in Tuesday afternoon, after Esther finished painting the trim. In case you wonder what it looked like before, there is a picture in this post.

<p>Esther found the wardrobe in the corner out in the carport when we moved in here. She needed a closet, so decided to strip and refinish it. The project took a lot more time than she anticipated, but she’s happy with the result.

Demolition

May 8, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A friend from Dunedin, who is a builder, offered to spend a week helping us work on the house. For two months we have been anticipating this week, and finally, he is here. We decided that, although the exterior of the house is badly in need of some help, we don’t have the money to work on that right now, so we decided to do the next most urgent project, redoing the girls’ room. We told Esther before we moved in here that we would do it up and get rid of the pink and purple walls. She hated them, even if Little Miss loved them. Saturday, Esther moved everything out of the room, and the boys began the demolition job. They had great fun ripping old wallpaper off, and then they began the task of taking down the boards that were underneath the wallpaper (five layers in places, with the top layer being painted). They also played hard in the room for a little while, since it was an open space!

Typical cat—as soon as the mattress was moved out of the room she was relaxed on the highest point!

We’re looking forward to seeing what the room looks like in a few days, when the gib board is finished and the walls are painted!

March 2018 Pictures

April 21, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We were amused when we looked out one day and saw this truck, with its two very different trailers, stopped on the highway in front of us.

Mr. Intellectual is still working through the Thinking Like an Engineer course that we got for review in October. He recently built this paper marble roller (this is the first step):

Mr. Diligence had to look at an atlas one day for school. He complained about the assignment, but then I found him and Mr. Sweetie studying it for a few days afterward!

Grandma recorded herself reading some picture books that we have, and Little Miss is loving having Grandma read to her! She quickly caught on to turning the pages at the bell, and is good at following along. Even though Grandma lives 9,000 miles away, we can still hear her voice! Esther helped with the first book, but since then, Little Miss is doing it herself.

I chuckled one day when I saw Goofball watching intently as Mr. Imagination told himself a story while he washed his hands!

My garden in March. It looks pretty bad now, since we had a hard frost.

Mr. Imagination was given a toolchest and tools for his birthday, from his brothers and sister, and his daddy and I gave him the watercolor set.

Apple Cider

April 14, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

There isn’t much fruit grown around here, but because Gayle is still working in Cheviot, he has been able to bring us a lot of apples. One Sunday afternoon, the boys decided to make some of them into cider. They washed the apples and cut them in half, then put them through a garbage grinder (which has been thoroughly cleaned!).

They ground the apples into a clean pillowcase, then pressed the pulp between some boards, using a jack to apply pressure.

Then, they carefully poured the juice through a strainer and enjoyed it!

From approximately a bushel of apples, they got nearly four gallons of cider.

Family Walk

April 7, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One Sunday afternoon, our entire family walked down to the Ahaura River. We went down a road near us that went straight down the hill to the railroad track, then turned to cross a large creek.

Esther was very much not impressed with this old bridge. She calls it rickety, although many trucks cross it every day!

The creek.

After looking at the creek, we walked a long way to get to the river bed. It’s not the easiest place to push a stroller, but it worked all right with the big boys who enjoy pushing their little sister.

We had to cross the creek to get out to the Grey River.

This is the confluence of the Ahaura and Grey Rivers.

Just below where these boys are, the water rushes extremely fast through a very deep chute. They were at the top of it, keeping each other from washing away.

We passed these calves on the other side of the creek on our way home. We sure enjoyed that walk—this is a very beautiful area!

Mr. Imagination picked these lovely flowers for me.