Animals

Chicks in the House

September 13, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We were peacefully working on finishing school around noon today, when someone knocked on the door. It was our next-door neighbor, and she had 8 chicks in a bucket. Something had killed their mother this morning, probably a stoat, and she didn’t have time to raise them. Did we want them, and two more that were running around in their paddock? Sure–we’ll take any unwanted animal! (Except a dog.) She took two of the boys with her to catch the last two chicks, and ran to town for me to pick up some feed for them, because I don’t have the van today. I worked on fixing up a home for them. We couldn’t find the hanging light socket we’ve used before for baby birds, so I improvised with a couple of hot water bottles. The younger boys found wood chips and made a water and food dish out of peanut butter jars (plastic) and we are all set! There is a cheerful cheeping sound in the living room now.

Goat in the House

August 16, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

No, we don’t normally have goats in the house. But, this morning, as we were nearing the end of the day’s school (thankfully!) the boy who had finished first came running in, telling his sister that she had a present in the barn. Of course, we knew immediately what he meant, since when she checked the goats this morning she came in saying that Cocoa was getting pretty close. Sure enough, when we went out a pretty little doe kid was being cleaned off. Soon, a buck kid joined little Spice, but the mama didn’t seem interested in him. We brought Spice in the house to try to get mama to clean the second kid, and after awhile went back out to milk her to feed the kids. The mama doesn’t seem very interested in the babies, which is all right with us, as we were planning to bottle feed them anyway so we get a little more milk. The buck does have Esther a bit concerned, though–he won’t eat much. Spice is eating plenty, though–nothing wrong with her. The children named the buck Captain Cook, since he was exploring around the barn as soon as he was on his feet.

Milk!

July 2, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We have another cow on the place today. Our landlord is wintering over several hundred dairy cows from farms near Culverden (122 cows are here). Ninety percent of New Zealand dairy farms are seasonal, meaning all the cattle calve in about August and are dried off in May, and most are trucked away from their home farm and grazed elsewhere over the winter to give the home farm a rest. Our landlord planted oats after the wheat was harvested, and the cows are given a small strip every day. This one cow had her calf at least a month earlier than she should have, and of course it died. She bagged up, though, so they offered that we could milk her till the herd goes home. That will keep her in milk for the farmer and give us more milk! Our own cow is still in milk, but not producing a lot, so this is good timing. The cow arrived here at 11:00 this morning, and I milked her immediately. We got 10 liters of colostrum! Now I’m trying to figure out how to use it. I found a couple of intriguing recipes here and here and here. We’ll see how many I actually get around to trying. Looks like, if we want to try the Indian recipes I’ll have to find some cardomom; wonder if the little local supermarket has it?

I think I’m a farmer at heart, and that cows are my favorite animal. Also, I look at things around me with the thought of whether we can get food from them!

She stood very still while I milked, although she has likely never been hand-milked before. She has lovely big teats!

This cat showed up while we were milking–looks as though it wants to move in.

Today’s Family Fun!

February 24, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Our family fun activity today was electric- and halter-breaking our two calves! It was quite the rodeo, with one calf collapsing and rolling over into the mud, then deciding he would never willingly stand up again. The other was scared nearly out of his skin. We did accomplish our purpose (we hope), at least as far as electric-breaking, and got both calves out in the big paddock with the cows.

Charley decides he will not be moving anywhere, ever.

Daddy's home! Reinforcements for our side. Poor Charley had no options left.

Meanwhile, the little boys were playing by themselves.

Calves are stuck in tiny enclosures of electric wire to learn what to respect.

Now, they go out to the paddock with the big cows. Charley has to wear a weaner because he still wants to suck from his mom.

Mom is excitedly waiting for her son to arrive!

Henry, Part 2

January 28, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Little Henry is thriving in the house. He loves attention; if he feels neglected he starts fussing till someone picks him up. The last couple of days, he’s been able to jump out of his box occasionally; this may mean banishment from the house. I don’t relish the idea of a duck on the loose in the house, not even a cute little one. He still makes messes. He would get stepped on, too. He loves to sit on shoulders and nibble on clothing, cheeks, necks, and ears.

Henry

January 18, 2012 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We have a new baby in our house. He showed up Monday evening, in the hands of the girlfriend of a young man Gayle works with. They had been out walking, and found a tiny duckling running along the street, alone. They knew it wouldn’t live without help, and thought of our boys. We named the little fellow Henry, after a duckling in a picture book we have (Henrietta if he turns out to be female). Henry is the tiniest duckling I’ve ever seen; we’re wondering what kind of duck he is. We’ll have to wait awhile to find out! For now, Henry resides in a box in the corner of the kitchen, under a lightbulb, with a jar lid full of water and another with feed. He gets lots of holding, and I have a feeling that by and by he’ll forget he’s a duck! The first morning he was here, I was reading my Bible in the easy chair next to his box, and he was very quiet–until our flock of of ducks went by the house, quacking. He immediately started calling them!

Mud and Boys and Life

December 11, 2011 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

This has been another normal, interesting week. The “mud” in the title comes from Wednesday evening, when the three youngest boys slipped outside after supper when I wasn’t watching. They went into the garden, which they had been told before supper not to do, and played in the mud. I’m sure it was fun–but what a mess! I didn’t get a picture of it, but it looked worse than this one from Michigan two and a half years ago! This time, they were coated from head to toe in thick, sticky clay! Because they had disobeyed, and because they knew beforehand what the penalty is for getting muddy, I had no compunctions about hosing them down with a cold-water hose. I had to hose and rub with my hands to get the quarter inch of clay mud off their clothes, then had them take off their clothes, and hosed them again, and then sent them to the bathroom to finish off with a cold shower! And it wasn’t a warm evening. They all decided they don’t want that again. While the youngest watched the other two getting cleaned up first, his lip stuck out farther and farther as he considered his coming fate.

One warm evening, the kitchen door was open, and Ginger came along to see what we were doing.

I spent a couple of days this week sorting clothing. Does this look anything like a secondhand shop? or a garage sale? We’ve been blessed with lots of hand-me-down clothes for the boys!

Next step: sort through what each boy had in his drawers/closet and decide what to keep and what to put away/throw away. Here is one boy’s stack (think he had more than he needed?):

One rainy day, Esther decided to make a batch of bread, since it always raises better on that sort of day. I gave instructions while I worked on clothing. It turned out pretty nice!

One day this week the sun shone! I did lots of laundry (and it all got dry!) and we weeded the strawberry bed. We found a number of ripe strawberries. Yumm! We have to get them quickly or the slugs eat them.

Aren’t Esther’s kids cute?

We went to Gore Bay for a baptism this afternoon, and when I mentioned we wanted a family picture, one of the ladies there offered to help take one. It took quite a few tries to get one with everyone’s eyes open, and this is the best.

After the baptism, we went to the home of the girl who was baptized for a meal. Joe discovered this wheelbarrow and had so much fun with it that they gave it to him when we left!

So there you have it–several tiny glimpses into our week. It was a good one!

This Has Been an Interesting Week!

November 19, 2011 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

This week has been very full, and I haven’t had any great inspirations for a good post, so here’s a quick look through some pictures Esther took throughout the week.

Sunday morning was a beautiful morning to drive to church–but apparently eggs are not a good choice for Sunday morning breakfast. I’ve been watching what we eat and how the children react in terms of carsickness (quite an issue when you go through the Hundalees and along the coast!), and the two weeks lately that we’ve had eggs we’ve had a lot of complaints about upset tummies. The week in between, when we had granola, no one complained. Anyway, this time the youngest got sick, for the first time, and got you-know-what all over his shirt, pants, and car seat. We pulled off immediately and cleaned up while the children enjoyed the ocean. What we didn’t get a picture of was Daddy down at the water, rinsing out the shirt and pants when an extra-large wave drenched him!

Sunday evening after we got home, one boy asked to look up how to make a slingshot, on YouTube. A magpie has been terrorizing the boys, and drew blood on one the day before–he came in with his hand pressed against his head, and blood streaming down his forehead. It seems to be a juvenile magpie, just having fun. (The juvenile delinquent of the bird world?) So, my boys are out to protect their family from this terrorist and a slingshot seemed to be a halfway decent idea. This was what he came up with, and we had the materials on hand (milk bottle top and balloon; he added duct tape to secure the balloon later):

Monday was a gorgeous day, and my photographer got some beautiful shots of the animals and the views from around the house.

Our landlord's paddock of wheat and corners of some of our raised beds.

The littlest goat kids--tied out because otherwise they will steal all the milk we need!

The cow--happy because she can be near one of the calves, even though he isn't hers.

The hills west of us in the evening; wheat in the foreground.

Tuesday we went to Christchurch for Dead Boring (homeschool writing group). The younger children were playing at making a garden in the afternoon. All five of my boys are in this group–can you pick them out?

The family who hosted DB this time live across the street from the Avon River–still beautiful in most places even if sewage gets in it now! The water level seems a lot higher than before the February earthquake; if I understand right, the bed of the river was pushed up.

The house next door to our friends is unoccupied; the people moved out after the September quake over a year ago. This crack goes through their yard.

We drove through a section of town that I hadn’t been in since a week before the February quake. Although a lot has been cleaned up, the destruction is still incredible. It seems like all the older, beautiful buildings are gone or going, and only the newer, less pretty ones are left. So sad.

This picture doesn't show it very well, but the whole house was sort of "wracked"--almost twisted. This entire area is going to be demolished and not rebuilt.

The Grand Chancellor Hotel--tallest building in Christchurch. It's been leaning since February 22, and now it's being demolished.

Churches, built out of brick or stone, suffered the most.

…And we were glad to get back home again to our peaceful spot in the country, far away from the quakes and the city!

The roses are blooming! With 40 bushes around the house, and most of them different varieties, we enjoy quite the array of colors.

While I was in town on Tuesday, I bought 30 kilograms of carrots. I wanted to bottle 20 kg of them for quick additions to soups, so Wednesday I had the boys peel and chop while I read to them. They did about half that day. The next day, they got started on the remaining carrots before I even suggested it, and before I knew what was happening they were finished–with no story to listen to! They were racing to see who could peel and chop five the quickest. My boys are growing up.

Friday we went back to Christchurch because Gayle had a series of appointments with medical professionals to get a paper saying that he does not have tuberculosis. Hopefully now our permanent residency visa will go through.

So there you have it–the partial story of our week! I am very thankful that I don’t have to go to town very often, let alone twice in a week! Glad to have it over with, but I’m also glad we were able to go and attend Dead Boring, get the medical work done, and we even got to have a date while we were there (a dear friend kept the children for a few hours!). It was also good to be able to stock up on groceries and get fresh produce that we can’t afford up here (I spent nearly $200 on produce this week–but hadn’t bought much of any for six weeks.)

Bringing the Cow Home

July 27, 2011 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We decided that today was the day to bring the cow home. She’s been in a neighbor’s paddock, about 600 meters (a little over 1/3 mile) down the road. They had grass going to waste and offered it to us. About six weeks ago we put the cow and her grown calf down there, and have been walking down to check on them a few times a week. The past week, we’ve checked on them every day, as she is getting closer to her due date. Well, that day is tomorrow, and she’s looking close! This afternoon, after school was finished and house was cleaned up, the whole crew went with me to fetch Chestnut. She’s very calm, and leads extremely well, especially considering how wild she was when we first got her a little over a year ago! Now, she’s trying to figure out where her daughter is, just wandering around the enclosure we put her in. We’re hoping for a new calf tomorrow or the next day!

Animals

Thank you!