Boys

A New Forge

June 13, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Mr. Inventor built himself another forge this week. He cut apart a propane cylinder and used the top for the place for a fire. He welded it to a pipe and used the bottom of the cylinder for a stand. The pipe coming out the side is to attach a blower to (he uses an old vacuum cleaner) for air for the fire. He welded a metal grate inside to hold the coal fire up off the air hole.

Here is the forge in action. It worked great—it was so hot they could hardly get close enough to work with the fire! However, it melted the grate. I’m not sure what he’s doing next!

Digging a Well

March 12, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

When you need water for irrigation, and you know that two of your neighbors have found water at 6-10 feet below the surface, and you have lots of boys with lots of energy, what do you do? You get them interested in the challenge of digging a well by hand, that’s what! The four oldest boys have been spending every spare minute for the past week or more, digging. The soil is solid clay, under the top 6-8 inches of topsoil, and with the drought that is now well into its second year, that clay is bone dry and not quite but almost rock-hard. They are chipping it away, a 6-inch level at a time, with their spade, and using it to fill in holes in the paddock. Mr. Inventor and Mr. Diligent built a crane to lift the buckets of clay out. I thought it was pretty ingenious! It only lasted a few hours, long enough for me to get these pictures, and then a screw came out of the hinge. They are now pulling the buckets of clay up with a rope. As of last evening, the well was 5.5 feet deep. Hopefully in another week I can report success!

Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination

October 7, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

These two little boys are a lot of fun! Mr. Sweetie just turned six, and Mr. Imagination is three and a half, and they add a lot of enjoyment to our lives. We are so thankful to have them. Mr. Diligent was already nearly four when Mr. Sweetie was born, our biggest gap between children, and we were wondering if there would be anymore babies. Here are a few glimpses into what the two of them have been up to lately.

I got a package in the mail one day, and Mr. Sweetie turned the packaging into a hat!

When Mr. Sweetie was done with it, Mr. Imagination took it over.

Mr. Inventor made a robot mask out of a piece of cardboard packaging from another parcel, and Mr. Sweetie dressed up!

Mr. Sweetie helped Esther make the pavlova for his birthday a week or so ago.

Mr. Imagination made a bed for himself and his baby, and I tucked Little Miss in with him. She loved it! She adores her big brothers.

Homemade Generator

September 12, 2015 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Mr. Inventor has all kinds of ideas. One of the recent ones he tried was making his own generator. He wanted one he could crank and generate some power. He tried a few different things, and then the man who runs the local dump gave him a tip. He suggested that Mr. Inventor take the motor off an old top-loader washer. There was one at the dump that day, so the motor came here. Mr. Inventor hooked some wires up to it and gave it a spin by hand—and Mr. Diligence got shocked! The next step was to hook an electric drill to the shaft, and they were able to generate enough power to light a bulb. That isn’t a very economical way to run a generator, however, using electric to turn it! Now, they have hooked it up to a bicycle. The first time they ran it, they blew a lightbulb. They soon figured out how to make electricity arc, and then used that to start a fire so they could burn some brush! This picture and video are of the demonstration we were given of how he could light a bulb with the drill-operated generator. I loved Mr. Imagination’s delight, so got a video of that, too.

Glue Stick Jack

July 29, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I have some very creative children. Mr. Diligence, last Saturday, was looking at an empty glue stick. After investigating it, he figured out how it worked, and thought it might be able to lift something up. He took it outside and got busy with tools and wood, and after several hours of trial and error he had come up with a jack! He was able to lift things by screwing the cap. He lifted a heavy stack of books and a few other things, but when he tried to lift the couch it broke. He rebuilt it, however, using a different glue stick he found!

Pottery Wheels

July 27, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We recently read the book A Single Shard aloud recently. It is a fascinating story of a village of potters in 12th century Korea. As soon as we finished it, Mr. Inventor wanted to know how to make a pottery wheel. I let him go on YouTube to find some ideas, and then he went out to the junk pile and found this wheel. He found bearings and bolted them together and added them to the wheel. He’s still experimenting; when he saw these pictures, he said, “First attempt, worst attempt!” Apparently, he has something better now. The second and third pictures are closer to what he has now; they’ve hooked a washing machine motor to the wooden disk, but are using a smaller wooden disk. I told him I need more pictures!

Here’s a brief video of the wheel in action:

Fire!

July 15, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Every year here in the Hurunui District, there is a ban on open fires in the summer. This year, the ban wasn’t lifted until early May, because we were so dry. As soon as the ban was lifted, the boys wanted to burn the brush pile they’d been accumulating since November! One afternoon when there was no wind, I let them.

For safety’s sake, they strung a hose out to the pile and got the pump going. This is Mr. Intellectual, Mr. Imagination, and Mr. Inventor.

Mr. Handyman watching the flames.

I took Little Miss out to see the fire.

Esther’s camera caught this interesting effect—Mr. Handyman through the heat haze.

Mr. Inventor’s birds didn’t seem too worried, and neither did the cat (on a post in the center).

When I went back in the house, Mr. Handyman took Little Miss so she could keep watching.

The fireman on duty! It was a good thing that he had the hose; the flames caught in the dry grass several times.

Hay Shed and Creek

July 13, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I finally looked at the May pictures on Esther’s memory card. As always, she had some good ones! These are from one day when she walked around with her brothers. This is Mr. Sweetie in the hay. It is unposed; he just popped up when she was looking at the hay!

Mr. Intellectual in the hay.

Mr. Diligence, Mr. Sweetie, Mr. Inventor and Mr. Intellectual salvaging things from the junk pile.

Mr. Inventor building something with stuff from the junk pile. I think it was a support for a hut made out of hay. The hay shed, which he is sitting in, is an old semi trailer. It was wrecked along the Kaikoura coast, and laid over on its side. When it was dragged off the road the side was messed up beyond repair. Our landlord collects junk like that; he always planned to take the axles out from under this trailer and set it down for a hay shed. He never got that accomplished, but we’re using it for hay up in the air. That keeps the animals out!

There are two creeks on this property. One is between the house and the road; the other is at the back, where this row of grass is.

This is Mr. Sweetie, Mr. Diligence, and Mr. Imagination beside the creek.

Mr. Imagination in front of a cabbage tree.

Mr. Sweetie, Mr. Intellectual, Mr. Imagination, and Mr. Diligence on the bridge. Gayle and the boys found this old gate, and put it in place so the cows could cross the creek to graze on the other side.

Our landlords lived here for 17 years and never saw this “pond” dry up. This was a dry year. Since this photo was taken, the boys pumped some water out of our underground overflow tank and refilled the pond. The waterfowl are happy again!

Tandem Bicycle

June 30, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Awhile ago, Mr. Inventor saw a tandem bicycle when we were fueling up the van in Kaikoura. He decided then and there that he wanted one of his own, and studied it to see how it was built. He went home and cut apart a couple of bicycles, planning to weld them together to make his own. Well, that didn’t happen, and in the course of moving twice in a year the pieces ended up being thrown away. Last week, however, the boys were listening to stories their Grandma recorded and sent us. Remember the Henry Huggins books? Well, in one of those, Scooter apparently suggested to Henry that he make a tandem bike by taking the front wheel off a bike and fastening it to the rear axle of another bike. I didn’t listen to the story myself, but from what I’ve been able to gather, Henry didn’t try it. Mr. Inventor, however, was inspired. He and Mr. Handyman spent half an hour the other day working on bikes and created a tandem bike! They are having great fun driving it around! They even rode it through town the other day when they went to fetch our cow home from the bull they had taken her to visit. The Cheviot policeman, off-duty at the time, was out riding his own bike and smiled and waved at them—I was glad to know he wasn’t unhappy about what he saw!

Today, Mr. Inventor and Mr. Intellectual were giving the three littlest ones rides with one of the bike trailers, with a little help pushing off from Mr. Diligence. The video isn’t very good, but it will give you an idea of what I was seeing. The sun is so low in the sky right now that good outdoor pictures are hard to get.

The Way Boys Like to Cook….

June 21, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Over the past year, I’ve gradually turned more and more of breakfast duty over to the children. A year ago I was still cooking something for breakfast every day of the week. Now, on weekdays, I make sure there is something ready for Gayle to heat up before he leaves for work at 5:10 (no, I don’t get up to fix it for him or even to see him off), and fix my own breakfast and make sure Mr. Imagination gets fed. Otherwise, the children are pretty much on their own. Some of them have gotten pretty creative! Mr. Intellectual has become an expert at pancakes. He mixes them up without following a recipe. I’ve given him tips here and there at making better ones. He usually makes enough for himself and one or two of the other boys, which makes him popular! Mr. Inventor and Mr. Handyman usually fry a couple of eggs. When eggs are plentiful, I let them have as many as they want, and Mr. Handyman will eat five at a meal. Right now, I have to restrict them all to two eggs each, and even at that we have to buy some to supplement what our hens produce. Mr. Diligence can’t handle the thought of spending more than a minute making his breakfast, and he hates all the casseroles I make for his daddy, so he lives on leftover toast in the morning. He will make a lot of toast one afternoon, to tide himself over for the next few days! He eats it with peanut butter and sugar-free jam. Esther often makes herself a pudding with 2 eggs, 1/4 cup milk and some vanilla stevia. Just whisk it together and keep whisking until it just starts to thicken, then take off the heat and whisk another half minute or so till it’s just right.

On Saturdays and Sundays I make breakfast for everyone. I often make a fried oatmeal with apples in it on Saturday, or pancakes. I get the pancakes mixed before I head out to milk, and assign some boys to fry pancakes and make waffles (with the same batter) while I’m out. The morning these pictures were taken, a few weeks ago, the coal range was going hot enough to cook the pancakes. Wood heat makes the best pancakes! It is a very even heat, and usually not as intense as electric. We don’t scorch things when cooking with wood like we do with electric. That’s Mr. Intellectual frying pancakes; Mr. Diligence was operating the waffle iron. It looks like Mr. Inventor, in the background, was making tea.

The boys have also been baking potatoes lately, for snacks. We were given a bagful of washed potatoes, so I told the boys they can have them. They wrap them it tinfoil, and stick them in the stove in the living room. It’s fun to see the boys having fun cooking!

Mr. Imagination is playing with Legos while I write. He came over a few minutes ago and very seriously told me that his plane crashed and people were hurt. He showed me the “crashed plane”. A minute later he brought it back over and asked if I wanted some juice. I asked, “I thought that was a plane that crashed?” “It turned into juice,” was his reply. And now, it’s a cup of water!