Ahaura

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.

Turkeys, Cows, and Projects

October 26, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We have a small breeding flock of turkeys that we kept when we moved here. Last year, we kept the tom and two hens in a run that Mr. Diligence built, and they hatched out 10 babies. After they hatched them, we moved the adults into a small movable pen and let the young ones have the run. We were given some more turkeys after that, from ones we had given to our friends when we moved, so we added the females to our breeding flock. For several months, we discussed what to do with the turkeys for this year’s breeding season. They multiply best when they are allowed to free-range, and the paddock we were given for the cows is a turkey’s paradise. There is open area for them to forage in, and brush in which to find hiding places for nests. We asked the owner of the property if we could put the turkeys there, and he agreed. The next problem to solve was how to feed them, and catch them when we need to. Mr. Diligence built this hut with a slide-out feed trough. It works for feeding them! We were hoping that they would go in when they were fed and we would be able to trap them with the side doors. Unfortunately, they must not be hungry enough for that to work—they don’t come for feeding! We’re hopeful that we’ll get babies in another month, though, as most or all of the hens have disappeared. We’re hoping that they are sitting on nests.

This cat followed us all down when the men took the feeder down. She gets quite upset when she goes so far from home, and keeps yelling at us to turn around and go back!

After the feeder was put in place, the boys carried the turkeys down.

Just a couple of days later, the cow calved. We weren’t expecting the calf to come just yet, because she hadn’t bagged up. He was born nearly two weeks early, and was quite tiny, but very healthy and he’s growing fast. The cow started bagging up within a day after calving, and only a few days later was producing quite well. We’re very much enjoying having milk and other dairy products in abundance again!

Mr. Intellectual got the idea this winter to build us a picnic table. His daddy helped him draw up plans and figure up the timber he needed, and he worked at in in his spare time. We enjoyed one meal outside at it so far, and expect to use it more this summer!

Simon bought this van a few months ago, hoping to fix it up and resell it. The rust needed to be repaired before it is legal to be on the road again, so he got started on that awhile ago. He ground off the rust and repainted it. To do so, he needed to take out the front windscreen. He got it out with no problem…but cracked it putting it back. Oops. That added quite a lot to the cost of the project! He’s learning a lot!

Birthday Blessings

October 12, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 6 Comments

I have some wonderful children! I really don’t care if I receive any gifts for my birthday or not. It’s lovely to know that I am appreciated and loved, but they make sure I know that anyway. However, now that they are reaching adulthood, they are doing some incredible things for my birthday. Last year, they installed lights in the food-storage room in the garage, so I don’t have to find a flashlight when I need to get something from that room. I am appreciative every time I flick on the lights and open that door. This year, they topped that—when I didn’t think they could come up with anything I would like better!

My birthday was yesterday, and no one had any gifts for me. It was just a normal day, until after family worship—just at bedtime, actually. We finished our evening prayers, and the two youngest boys took off out of the room. They returned with:

A very interesting lemon cake that they had made without a recipe! It tasted fairly good, to my surprise. I was quite pleased with their thoughtfulness and initiative.

This morning early, the two oldest boys and Mr. Sweetie took off to town. I didn’t think much of it, because Simon goes to town on a Saturday morning every so often. They returned a few hours later, and brought a bag of kumara (sweet potatoes) into the house. I was surprised, and they told me, “We have a secret informant!” Last evening, Gayle had asked me, at bedtime, if the meal I made last night was my favorite. I told him I like it—but I like most of what I make! I had thought, while I was making it, that kumara would be good with it, but we didn’t have any. Apparently, he told the boys that I was hungry for kumara before they left!

The next act was to forbid me to go to the other side of the garage. I had planned to work in the greenhouse today, and pretended to fuss about not being able to go out there. Before lunchtime, however, they came in and told me to go out with them. I got to the greenhouse, and the first thing I saw was that the brick path was finished. The next thing I saw was:

A hazelnut tree and a lime tree! I wanted a hazelnut for a pollinator for the four we already planted, and the lime tree someone gave us froze this winter, so they replaced it for me. We’ll take more care with this one! Then, as I was admiring the trees, I suddenly got wet. Someone had turned on the sprinklers they had just installed along the ridgepole of the greenhouse! There are enough sprinklers to water the entire area, by simply connecting a hose to our outside tap! They had also tilled everything that needed replanting, so I got to play out there this afternoon and get some things planted. Isn’t this a beautiful place?

Freshly-planted cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli.

The last of the lettuces we set out in April, and some of the tomatoes I’m growing for this summer.

My baby plant nursery, out of reach of the slugs, and the silverbeet (Swiss Chard) plants the neighbor dug out of his greenhouse and gave us. We’ll get a few meals off it before it bolts.

One of the sprinklers.

I love that brick path!

The sprinklers are on—Mr. Imagination likes to get wet!

Esther shared some photos with me that she took while they were doing the work. I enjoyed seeing them all working together!

They pulled out some of the bricks that were already in place, compacted the soil and leveled it, then finished the path.

The last step was to till everything again so it looked perfect!

Birthday Cookout

September 28, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

Mr. Sweetie turned 10 yesterday. He wanted to celebrate with a fire down at the river, and roast sausages and marshmallows. We invited some friends to join us, but because of an emergency on their part, we ended up just having our family. We weren’t sure we could even do it, though, until the last minute, because it’s been rainy all week and was threatening this morning. About 11:30, Gayle and the boys decided to give it a try, and went down to the riverbed to start a fire. We’ve just gotten back, at 2:00 pm, and it’s still not raining—we got away with it this time!

I didn’t get any pictures while we were roasting our sausages. Once we were finished with them and the children had started roasting marshmallows, I remembered I had a camera! The marshmallow roasting was the amusing part, anyway. One boy declared that he couldn’t catch his marshmallow on fire. He roasted them slowly and perfectly. The next thing we knew, his marshmallow was on fire! He did do one perfectly for me. Another boy deliberately caught every one of his on fire. He’s too impatient to do them slowly.

Miss Joy seemed to enjoy her first cookout. She looked around, and slept for five minutes, and looked around some more.

Mr. Imagination charred his marshmallow, then worked at picking the charcoal off.

Several people put roasted marshmallows on top of their chocolate cupcakes.

Despite the early-spring chill, Mr. Diligence wanted to go swimming. He put on his togs and leaped into the creek—and came right back out again, shivering!

Several of the boys went up the creek with their sausage sticks to try to spear eels. They didn’t get any.

The last step before leaving was to douse the fire, which these two did, gleefully!

Boys’ Fun

September 21, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The boys have been having fun blowing bubbles lately. They have made some pretty big ones with dish soap on a plate! Mr. Diligence blew this bubble one day. See the other camera focused on it?

Just after I snapped the picture above, Mr. Imagination pressed the button to take a picture—just as the bubble popped! The result was this next picture, which he was tickled to have gotten.

A few days later, he took this picture, of Mr. Sweetie blowing a bubble.

One evening while we had family worship, these three clowns all pretended to be falling asleep. This is Simon, Mr. Diligence, and Mr. Sweetie.
When you have a lot of boys living in your house, you are going to have a lot of roughhousing. Our boys have invented this game of wrestling on the couch. The goal is to stay on the couch longer than anyone else.

This wasn’t exactly fun, nor was it boys. I’ll put it in here, though. One Sunday afternoon a couple of weeks ago, some of us came home early so I could rest. Mr. Imagination and Little Miss went out to play, and got quite muddy. Esther found Little Miss looking like this and grabbed a picture before administering a bath.

Snow in the Grey Valley!

August 10, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We rarely ever see snow on the ground. When we lived in Cheviot, I believe we saw it four times in eight years. Here, we live in a river valley, at a very low elevation. We sometimes see snow on the mountains around us, but it’s been 10-15 years since our village had it on the ground. So, we were quite surprised, Sunday at lunchtime, to see this out the window:

The children were thrilled!

The huge flakes came faster and faster!

When we got home, there was snow on everything.

The boys immediately started building snowmen.

This will be one of my favorite pictures from this year! Left to right are Mr. Diligence, Simon, Mr. Imagination, Mr. Intellectual, and Mr. Sweetie.

The next morning, there was still a lot of snow around. Simon and Esther went to work, and Simon took this picture from the car.

I took these pictures from our living room window.

By Monday evening, the snow was gone, except for the snowmen, who stayed a little longer. Now they are just memories!

Last Part of July 2019

August 3, 2019 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

Here are the rest of my pictures from July. This month went by crazily fast! And, now that we’re in August, we’re very close to meeting the newest member of our family—hopefully, in about three more weeks.

Esther achieved a major goal in July—she passed the test for her full license! Now, she can take passengers with her. She also bought a car, a Honda Accord, which she’s quite happy with.

Mr. Intellectual finished this cup, made from four different types of wood. With all the glue that went into it, we advised him not to drink from it, so he’s using it for a pencil cup.

Another of Mr. Diligence’s pictures of big trucks! He saw this load of sheets of steel going past one day.

I asked the boys to recover the frame I used for starting seeds last year with new plastic. They decided to scrap it and build me a new one, twice the size, to better utilize the sheet of plastic they had available! It is now finished and waiting for baby plants.

Last weekend, Gayle and the younger boys dug the last of our potato crop. Mr. Imagination was delighted to find this enormous one, and brought it in to show me. See the weight?

Little Miss played with the potatoes in her own way. That big one is her; she’s the mother, sitting on stones, and her babies are on top of her. The other stack, just on the other side of her, is more of her children, also sitting on rocks.

We had nearly a bushel of potatoes that needed used quickly, so we cut a lot up Saturday night for Sunday dinner. They needed a lot of trimming, between stabs from the fork and the wireworms that our garden is infested with.

Grandma asked what Mr. Imagination has been building from legos. He took this picture for her, of his fire ship. See all the nozzles for spraying water?

Photos From Early July 2019

July 27, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We’ve had a busy month! Here are a few photos from the first couple of weeks of the month.

We’ve had a few sunrises! It’s been a very rainy month, but here is proof that occasionally we see a little sunshine (actually, this week has been sunny). The person walking along the road is Mr. Intellectual, heading down to bring up the milk for me.

Esther went to the library one day, and the little ones spent a lot of time that evening reading library books!

Every time a pilot vehicle goes past, Mr. Diligence tries to grab my camera to get a photo of whatever big thing is passing this time.

This is a kayak going down the Nile River!

Something that makes me very happy! Mr. Diligence actually reads for fun sometimes now. This has taken a lot of years and much hard work to accomplish. He discovered he can enjoy reading when he was sick in the States in February and didn’t have an audio book to listen to, but couldn’t do anything else.

A few years ago, my boys found a huge ball of yarn at the dump. It was hand-spun, and fairly loose; I suspect it was actually roving, which was intended to be spun into better yarn. I crocheted it into a rough rectangle, and now I’m making it into the inner for a baby-sized duvet. It smells of lanolin—a smell I love! I’ve gotten as far as sewing a cover over it, and sort of quilting it together with the sewing machine, and cutting out fabric patches for another, removable cover.

So, we wash a tub and put it outside in the sun to dry—and what does Goofball do? Ensure that we have to wash it again! Doesn’t she look happy.

June 2019 Photos Part 2

July 13, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Here are the rest of June’s random photos.

Little Miss got hold of my camera one afternoon and took a bunch of pictures of the toys she was playing with. I saved a couple I thought were interesting!

One Saturday evening, Simon went with me to milk. Because of the steep hill down which we have to go to reach the cow right now, and the fact that I’m pregnant, I need help carrying the bucket back up, so the bigger three boys all help out. Simon rarely gets the privilege, because he’s usually not home from work yet when I head down. This time, though, he needed a piece of wood for a project he was working on, so he took his ax along and accompanied me. Just after we left our street, Esther and Mr. Sweetie came up towards us from a walk around the block, so she took our picture.

All seven children played a game of Skip-Bo Golf together one Sunday evening!

Mr. Imagination created this deer for his daddy’s birthday present!

I was amused when this happened one evening! I was helping Simon with a lesson for his apprenticeship, since he has trouble reading, and Esther wanted input on an order she was putting through for me with some company.

Princess is rather a spoiled cat. She thinks the space in front of the fire belongs to her. A lot of mornings, she will sleep there with her paw tightly clamped around her eyes, like this!

Mr. Sweetie built this train track one day, then wanted to document it.

June 2019 photos Part 1

July 6, 2019 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I have a lot of random photos this month! So many I’ll have to divide them into two posts, so watch for the next installment in a week.

One Sunday afternoon, around the beginning of the month, the mountains were covered in snow and so beautiful! All the children decided to go on a bike ride up the road and enjoy the beautiful winter sunshine. Esther took this picture.

Simon goes through a lot of mayonnaise. Every work morning, he fries two eggs for his breakfast, spreads mayo on two slices of bread and puts the eggs on top of that, then eats them with a large cup of creamy tea. Because he uses so much mayonnaise, he ends up making it for us quite often in the evening, to make sure he’ll have what he needs in the morning!When I took the children to Hokitika for the homeschooler’s art day, we had another gorgeous, sunny day. I asked Mr. Diligence, who was in the back seat of the car, to take some pictures for me. This is the bridge going out of our town; it’s scheduled to be replace within a year and a half.

Looking downstream from the bridge, down the Ahaura River. Its confluence with the Grey River is just downstream—the Grey is under the line of fog. See the snow on top of the Paparoa Mountains? The Tasman Sea is just the other side of those mountains.

Going on down the road towards Greymouth!

Another view of the Paparoas, across a dairy farm. The Grey, again, is under that line of fog.

This is the bridge my sons built me over a ditch in the paddock our house cow is currently living in. They built it strong enough that a couple of big boys standing on it can’t make it sag! I requested the chicken wire to be stapled on so I don’t slip on wet or frosty mornings—and I’ve been very glad for it! During the summer, I milked at about the place the fence turns, just above the end of the bridge, but the cow didn’t like crossing the ditch after the rains started, so I knew I would have to cross it myself. The new milking shed is just behind you, if you were standing where this picture is taken. By the way, I plan to get a photo of the cow in the shed sometime, but I’m milking before sunrise and after sunset right now, because our days are so short, so there isn’t enough light! It’s working well, though. She has learned to walk right in and put her head in the proper place, and the morning it was pouring, I was very thankful for the roof.

Midwinter harvest! I got the cabbage, leeks and carrots from the garden, and everything else came from the greenhouse. We are enjoying this feast.

One evening while we had family worship, Mr. Imagination was acting up, so I told him to do 5 push-ups. Mr. Intellectual and Simon couldn’t resist; they had to join in. Simon did 20, I believe, before he had to give up. Mr. Intellectual saw his brother grabbing the camera, and jumped up on his chair before the picture was taken.