Canterbury

March 2016 Photos

May 7, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Time to share the rest of the pictures from March. I think they’ve aged long enough now. More to the point, life is starting to slow down just a bit for the winter. Not that it ever slows down much, but anyway…. I think all I have left to process is apples for apple butter, and tomatoes. I need to pick tomatoes tomorrow, and see what the chickens who won’t stay out of the garden have left for us.

Little Miss loved corn--at first. She got tired of it after awhile. — Little Miss loved corn–at first. She got tired of it after awhile.

Feeling like a big person, with a pear in front of her at the table!

Mr. Imagination using his "smart phone" to find the right motorbike to buy. — Mr. Imagination using his “smart phone” to find the right motorbike to buy. This “smart phone” was a piece of cardboard, but he was enthralled with it. It was hilarious to watch him swiping with his thumbs!

Puzzling over something on his "smart phone". — Puzzling over something on his “smart phone”.

Looking sideways at the rest of us, who were trying not to crack up about him using his "smart phone". — Looking sideways at the rest of us, who were trying not to crack up about him using his “smart phone”.

We saw four baby hedgehogs one afternoon in the yard. Unfortunately, they've been found stealing eggs from us. — We saw four baby hedgehogs one afternoon in the yard. Unfortunately, they’ve been found stealing eggs from us.

My three youngest, all diligently doing school together! Little Miss loves to write in books. I try to make sure there is a book handy during school that she can write in like everyone else.

This is one of the biggest bumblebees we've ever seen. — This is one of the biggest bumblebees we’ve ever seen.

Little Miss posing in front of someone's geometric design. — Little Miss posing in front of someone’s geometric design. That whiteboard gets a lot of use!

Playing a game on Esther's new smart phone. No, this doesn't happen very often at all. — Playing a game on Esther’s new smart phone. No, this doesn’t happen very often at all.

Mr. Imagination wants to dictate a story for Grandma.

“One time, me and J goed up in a tree. Then we goed up in another tree. Then I got stuck. Then I climbed up some more. Then I got stuck again. And then I climbed up some more and then I got up to the top. I climbed down. There were these strange marching sounds and here came Ja, marching, and here came S, and E, and M, walking. And everyone came and didn’t see N. And then, J came down and then all the people was gone. And then I climbed down the rest. And then I heard some more marching sounds. And then I climbed up to the top and then there was these bad marching sounds and here came a blackbird, marching. I came forward and caught it and I ate it for my supper. The end.” (I’ve changed the names to just initials.)

And, he has another story:”One time, J and Ja goed up the tall tree, which I could touch the top of. And then, I goed up the top of the tree and then I fell down and I broke my neckbone and I climbed up again and I tried not to break my neckbone and then I broke it again. And then I goed down to the creek and then I saw a frog jump up. It was big and I ate it for my supper. The end.”

And another: “One time, me and J goed up to the top of the big tree, which I could touch the top of. I climbed up and I hit my climber bone and then I fell down and I broke my knucklebone and then J came down and then I just went and touched the top of the tree. And then a snake came and then I killed it. And a squirrel came after the snake and the squirrel ate the snake all up. Then another snake came as I was going to the house and I killed it by stepping on it. I speared it. Then I chopped its head off and it wiggled and I chopped another piece of it off and then it wiggled again and I picked it up and I chopped it again and I set it down and ran off to the house. The end.”

By the way, all three stories are purely imaginary. This four-year-old has never broken a bone, or seen a snake or a squirrel, and he rarely climbs a tree. He’s awfully cute, though!

Today

April 23, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Yesterday we spent the day in the city, with a couple of appointments and shopping for Mr. Inventor’s next project: making a large trailer. He needed gas for his MIG welder, and steel for the frame of the trailer. I had told him I was not going to try to help him figure that out, so Gayle took the day off work (yay! We ought to come up with excuses like that more often!) and went with us. On the way home in the evening, we had been invited to a friend’s house for tea. After she extended the invitation, she realized that yesterday was Passover. Their family celebrates the Christian Passover, so she invited us to join them for that instead of just an ordinary meal. What an interesting experience! I was awed at the way the Jewish customs, which are not detailed in the Bible, point so directly to Jesus. It made for a late night getting home, but was very worthwhile.

Today, then, I was very tired, and after a short nap this afternoon I finally got to the kitchen again to try to get something done. I was feeling like I hadn’t done anything yet today—and then looked around and decided to take pictures of all the projects that were underway. Nice to know that I have done something, after all!

I’m making a batch of cheese—and seeing this picture reminds me that I need to check it!

I put chicken legs and a large pumpkin in the coal range oven this morning. This is my favorite version of a slow-cooker—nearly free, and the water is heated at the same time!

Bread is now baked; we were totally out.

We butchered a turkey, two roosters, and two ducks this morning, when I saw a couple of turkeys in the garden one-too-many times. The turkey was the size of the roosters, but will give us a meal (I plan to roast it in the coal range in a couple of days; if I put meat in early, then let the fire go out after about six hours, it’s just right for dinner.)

I finished the chicken broth that I started several days ago, after we butchered 13 chickens.

Mr. Imagination wanted juice, so I helped him make some apple/carrot juice.

We’re also enjoying two new babies! We brought these kittens home last night; the family who fed us the Passover supper had six to choose from. I chose the black one; her name is Linda. Mr. Inventor chose the tabby; his name is Leif. They are so much fun!

February Garden

April 2, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The garden is now looking pretty sad, after drying out with six more weeks of no rain, a howling wind one day that sucked the moisture right out of the leaves, and then a frost, but it was gorgeous in February. For once, I got a few pictures of it near the peak. Mr. Intellectual grew this beautiful sunflower.

The pumpkins from two gardens grew toward each other. Just after they met, though, we decided we needed a path between them to the gate at the far end, so we redirected the vines to keep it open in the middle.

For a little while, it felt almost like a tsunami spilling out of the garden! The pumpkins and zucchini were trying their best to take over the world. The frost has nearly finished them off by now, though.

We left the onions lay out to dry for a little while. We have enough for a few months!

Mr. Imagination frequently checked on the pumpkins, looking for large ones. I scratched his initials into a few of them.

My Sweeties in February

March 31, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

As always, this has been a busy summer-you can probably tell how busy I am by the frequency (or lack thereof) of posting! Today, we are on our way home from a weekend in Timaru, so while the battery holds out I’ll try to get a few posts ready to upload when we get home. Esther installed a program for me (Windows Live Writer) that is wonderful. You write your blog post and get the pictures the way you want them, offline, and then publish whenever you can! As I write, we’re driving through very flat farming country just south of Ashburton. There are large flat paddocks stretching away from the highway in both directions, and a railroad parallels the highway to my left. I’m seeing nicely manicured shelterbelts (hedges), and now a plantation of pine trees. There is a lot of dairy in this area, and some sheep. We see a lot of enormous stacks of giant square bales of hay, and irrigation rigs are everywhere. We passed one center-pivot irrigation rig with 18 sections a little while ago! I should have had Gayle push the odometer to measure its length, but didn’t think of it in time.

Anyway, here are a bunch of pictures of my younger children, from February. Little Miss loves to eat. She discovered the room, behind the garage, where we keep fruit (it’s cooler than anywhere else), and if someone leaves the door open she helps herself—usually to three items at once. She holds one in her right hand to eat, and clutches the other two to her chest with her left hand for later. Here, she had an apricot—what a yummy mess! It looks like Mr. Imagination had one, too.

Mr. Intellectual and Mr. Diligence on their bikes.

I found this whiteboard at a secondhand shop, and we hung it in the kitchen beside where we do school. Mr. Imagination loves to draw on it. This is a picture of him; the top circle is his forehead.

Mr. Diligence eating a picnic lunch.

The hose was leaking, and Mr. Imagination and Little Miss had great fun playing in the puddle!

Mr. Sweetie considering how to do the cleaning!

Little Miss was worried that she might have to have a haircut, too!

The wheel turns! For several days, she spent a lot of time turning it!

Flyswatter in one hand and a peach in the other—she’s all set!

Mr. Imagination made hollyhock dolls for awhile.

Little Miss loves to draw, too. Thankfully, she sticks with the whiteboard, although she uses pencils as well as whiteboard markers.

One day, the two littlest boys made suits of armor and weapons by stapling together scrap paper.

A Few More Pictures from January

March 17, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Esther let me look through her memory card before she deleted everything, a couple of weeks ago, and I found some lovely pictures she took of the boys and Little Miss. I thought Grandma might enjoy them, so here they are.

This is Mr. Imagination and Mr. Sweetie, studying a large bug they found.

Little Miss, wishing she would be allowed to help pick plums (at the edge of a busy road, with a bank going down steeply! Sorry, little girl, not this year.). The next three pictures are from that time, as well. We enjoyed the rare close-up look at a cicada. Little Miss is on my lap right now, and has been exclaiming over the picture of herself!

Mr. Handyman took Little Miss with him to town one day when I asked him to run an errand for me.

When we got some rain in January, the boys loved playing in the creekful of water. Mr. Inventor took Little Miss for a boat ride, and Mr. Diligence was dared to ride his bike across a 2×4 across the water—with predictably funny results!

Little Miss wanted a pea—but couldn’t figure out how to pick it, so she ate it still attached to the vine!

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!

Gore Bay on Waitangi Day

February 14, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Waitangi Day (the anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi between the Maori and the English in 1840) fell on a Saturday this year, so Monday this week was a holiday. As always, we enjoyed having Gayle home for the day. He and the boys spent the morning in the garden, ripping out the pea vines and working the ground to replant the fall garden, while Esther and I worked on cabbage in the house. Then, we took a picnic lunch out to Gore Bay. It was a gorgeous day, just right to sit on the beach! I thought it was a bit cool for swimming, but all the boys except Mr. Imagination went in for awhile.

Esther read for awhile.

Mr. Diligence found several rocks and experimented with what color they made when he wrote with them on another rock.

Mr. Imagination picked a handful of nasturtiums, which grow wild along the sea.

On our way home, we drove through the Domain, and came across a family we know. We invited them to our house for dinner that evening, and had a nice visit—a perfect ending to a good day!

January 2016 Pictures

February 12, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One morning when Mr. Intellectual was making his breakfast, he cracked an egg into a cup and found three yolks! He was tickled at his good fortune, and took a picture of it. Then, he cracked two more eggs and they were both double yolkers! So, from three eggs, he had seven yolks, as shown in the second picture, which he took to document his good morning.

Mr. Inventor brought one of his goslings in to show me how big it is now. Compare that to when it was newly-hatched, in October!

The boys spent a rainy day playing with Lincoln logs. Mr. Sweetie was impressed with this house-inside-a-house that he built.

The big boys made towers!

We watched a movie one week, Sheffey, the story of a circuit-riding preacher in, I believe, Tennessee in the 1800s. Gayle was holding the two little boys, and Little Miss got jealous, so announced that she wanted to be on his lap, too—right in the middle! I say we watched it one week, because it took four or five evenings to get through it.

On our way home from church one Sunday afternoon, we stopped for a few minutes at Saint Anne’s Lagoon to look around just a bit.

Mr. Inventor’s ducks enjoyed the pool they had for a week or two after a recent rain!

When we went to Christchurch for a day recently, we ate lunch in a small park, and then used the playground for awhile. Little Miss loved the swing ride she got with her big brother!

Summer Afternoon

February 9, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post one afternoon while I was outside watching my three little ones play. Here are a few more pictures I took that afternoon.

Little Miss took a long nap on my lap. That got rather uncomfortable, but she liked it! I got five books reviewed.

After playing in the water in the old bathtub for awhile, the little boys warmed up in the sun with the inner tubes.

Mr. Inventor’s geese checked us out.

After she woke up, Little Miss went exploring again.

That was such a lovely afternoon!

The Two Littlest

February 7, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Mr. Imagination woke up early one morning, but by 7:00 he was asleep again on my chair!

She did it! Little Miss figured out how to get a cloth over her head. She worked on that trick for a long time.

One morning after a rain, Little Miss found a puddle just her size and had fun stepping in it.

She also thought it was fun washing her hands and feet in the milk in the cat dish. Mom was not impressed (and neither was the cat!).

Little Miss is a Daddy’s girl! She wants to be with Daddy whenever she can be. Just before I took this picture, I saw her standing there with her hand on his back, watching intently.

Mr. Sweetie took this one.

Everyone likes to play with Little Miss. One evening, she was “throwing” a ball and chasing it, to the great delight of everyone. Another time, Mr. Handyman brought her into the house in a bucket. She frequently gets bucket rides. This picture with a ball was taken on her birthday.

Mr. Imagination didn’t finish his breakfast, a pancake with applesauce, cut up into bite-sized pieces. Little Miss found it and ate about half, then scattered the rest across the floor.

Mr. Imagination found this dress in the closet one day and badly wanted Little Miss to wear it. The boys love seeing her dressed in really girly clothes.

While I was shelling peas one day, Mr. Sweetie got the camera and took some pictures of the two little ones. This is what I was enjoying watching while I shelled the peas.