Canterbury

January Garden

February 3, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The garden is doing splendidly! My boys have been a great help again this year. We’ve picked cabbage twice; this is the first harvest—30 heads! We made 110 pounds of sourkraut that day, more than we need for the year. It took only about 4 hours from picking the cabbage to finishing the cleanup.

Another day I picked a bushel and a half of peas. It was a lovely day to sit under a tree to shell them.

Little Miss loves to eat peas!

Mr. Intellectual has his own beautiful garden at the edge of the big garden. Here is Mr. Imagination showing the size of his brother’s sunflowers and corn.

This is our corn and pumpkins, with cabbage just beyond, and potatoes on the other side of that.

Little Miss likes zucchini, too!

Mr. Intellectual has been harvesting dandelion roots as well, and making them into “coffee”. He looked up directions and figured out how to roast them. Yum!

Videos of Little Miss

January 25, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Little Miss has some brothers that love her. She is also becoming quite a chatterbox. It’s really hard to record her talking, because when she sees the camera she quits. I did manage to get this clip from behind. Looks like Mr. Imagination wanted in on the video, as well! In the second one, we had leftover whipped cream from a special treat one evening (waffles served with cherry pie filling and whipped cream), so Mr. Diligence fed some of it to her while he cleaned out the cup.

This Afternoon and Last Night

January 22, 2016 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

It’s pretty hot today, so I’m letting my little people cool off with water. They would love to go to a swimming pool, but the big boys are all at work so I’m giving them the next best: cold water in a bathtub, with a plastic tub for Little Miss. This is when I really like having a laptop, so I can watch them while still getting something done! This is what I see as I write this:

When I went outside last evening to take a few pictures for the post I did featuring the garden, I got to enjoy a brilliant double rainbow. It was much more beautiful than these pictures show.

This is one of this year’s experiments. Right after we planted the tomatoes, I had broccoli and cauliflower that also needed planted, but didn’t have any space for them. I put some between rows of tomatoes. A chicken ate most of them while they were tiny, but some of the broccoli survived. It’s getting taken over by tomatoes by now, but I noticed that some are starting to form heads!

The sunset was gorgeous, and I always enjoy seeing the Indian Runner ducks running in single file across the paddock. The geese were pretty active, too, but the turkeys were going to bed. It was dark enough that my camera flashed, and in this picture, the second one I took, they were getting nervous.

Tonight’s Shopping Trip, and Frost Recovery

January 21, 2016 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

I had great fun cooking dinner tonight. My first step was to make a shopping trip. I walked through the garden collecting ingredients to put with some cooked lamb I had in the fridge, to make a delicious stew. This was what Mr. Diligent and I picked in a few minutes:

I love this time of year! We eat so well.

Our late frost was five weeks ago already. The zucchinis are completely recovered; within three weeks they were the size they had been before that frost. The tomatoes, on the other hand, while they are the same size again, have really been knocked back. They are finally blooming again now, but I’m afraid we won’t get much of a crop. Here are pictures of the same zucchini plant and the same tomato plant, the day of the frost, three weeks later, and tonight.

One Year Old!

January 15, 2016 by NZ Filbruns 5 Comments

Little Miss turned one yesterday. She didn’t seem to care one way or the other, but we are having a hard time believing we’ve already had her that long. We don’t do much of anything for a first birthday, but some of her brothers wanted to give her gifts. Mr. Imagination was sadly wanting to know what he could give her, so I suggested he pick a few peas in the garden and shell them for her. He happily did so, and they shared a bowl of raw peas! Here are the pictures we’ve taken of our precious little girl over the past month.

One evening when everyone else was away, she checked out the lawn mower, then went to investigate the ducks.

This was when she had just learned to walk and was thrilled to be able to transport things. She must have decided I needed the nearly-empty jug of molasses for the cow in the house, so she threw it in the door.

Here she was absolutely thrilled to have figured out how to climb the stepstool. Don’t ask how many times she’s fallen off by now when we forgot to turn it over!

One rainy day, her daddy and brothers rigged up a swing in the living room for her. She loved that!

Thrilled again to find a way to the top of the stool!

A family with seven children spent a day with us right after Christmas. The two babies started playing together late in the afternoon. We loved watching them “working” together with this toy computer!

She spent a couple of weeks playing with towels and washcloths and Mr. Imagination’s neon-green shirt, trying to get them onto her head. It takes a lot of work and concentration to accomplish that goal! Once she figured out how, she quit doing it!

It rained! She found a puddle just her size.

Another puddle! She likes to “wash” her feet and hands in the cat dish. I have to push it way back under the grill if the cat is to get any milk.

The faces she makes!

December Fun

December 30, 2015 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

I was thrilled one evening when I came across this scene! This is only the first or second time ever that Mr. Diligence has voluntarily read a book! Mr. Imagination loved listening, of course.

We saw this impressive cold front on its way up from the south as we came home from church one Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, it blew over without dropping anything, although we did get a bit of rain later that night.

Is that a kiss—or a bite?

For our last homeschool gathering of the year, we went to a campground by the Waipara River. We were the first ones there, so the boys spent some time building dams while we waited for others to arrive.

Little Miss tasted rocks.

The boys discovered Little Miss with a jar of jam she had managed to get open. Instead of cleaning her up (we were supposed to be leaving in a few minutes for a barbeque!), Mr. Inventor started snapping pictures. It was cute, I’ll have to admit, to see her dipping in for yet another handful of jam! Thankfully, it was sugar-free, so not bad for her.

Mr. Sweetie was happy to get his cast off. The boys were all very interested in how it was done.

When Esther and Mr. Handyman came home, they brought gifts from the grandparents. This was Mr. Imagination’s favorite. He needed help putting it together a few times, but now he can do it himself.

Little Miss discovered an empty cupboard, and then Mr. Imagination joined her in it.

Christmas Day

December 28, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Christmas Day here is sure different from anything we ever experienced in Michigan! There, most years, we stayed holed up inside the house, with snow blowing outside. Here, most years, it’s warm—if not hot—and sunny, and we like to go to the beach! This year, we took a picnic lunch to Claverley, to a beach we went out onto for a few minutes, once, several years ago. It turns out to be a wonderful beach for the children to play at, at low tide anyway. The beach is covered with tiny gravel, all worn smooth. It’s a dark color, so really attracts the heat of the sun, which felt good in the chilly wind that was blowing. Above the high tide line, the gravel was too hot to walk on comfortably with bare feet, but below that line there was moisture just below the surface and it felt just right. There was an area of rocks going out into the sea at one spot, and it made a perfect place for children to splash and play, until the tide came up about halfway. We found a lovely pine grove to eat our picnic in. The thick layer of pine needles on the ground made a lovely soft floor to sit on, and we were shaded from the bright sun. After lunch, we went and sat on the beach again for a couple of hours while the boys played in the water and then buried each other. It was a great day! On our way home, we picked cherries, but I never got any pictures of that.

Mr. Diligence and Mr. Sweetie running into the waves.

Looking north; the area with all the kelp is where we spent the most time. You can faintly see the Kaikoura Peninsula sticking out from that point of land.

Looking south.

As long as she wasn’t looking at the water, Little Miss was very happy. She loved playing in, and tasting, the gravel.

Our picnic grove. Our nephew who is spending a few months in New Zealand was with us for the day.

Mr. Inventor brought his boat along—half of a barrel! He sort of surfed with it.

The boys had fun being buried by Daddy. This is Mr. Diligence, Mr. Imagination, and Mr. Sweetie.

Little Miss helped bury Mr. Diligence, too.

Mr. Sweetie wasn’t feeling the best that day. He stayed buried in the warm gravel for a long time.

Esther was teasing Little Miss! The scared chuckling noises were pretty funny, as was the way she tried to climb higher on you.

Mr. Sweetie decided he wanted to stay buried until the waves came up to him. We watched as the tide crept higher and higher…

Mr. Inventor wanted to be buried sitting up. Daddy wore himself out burying so many sons in one day!

The waves have finally come up far enough that Mr. Sweetie got wet. He jumped up and ran to safety.

Check out Mr. Inventor’s expression!

Little Glimpses into Our Life

December 19, 2015 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, the boys noticed a peacock running along the fence on the north side of this property. The next morning, the peacock was in our paddock, preening and generally making himself at home. We frequently see him showing off his ragged, beautiful tail, and the sounds we hear multiple times through the day make it sound like a zoo here!

I got out this box of milk bottles so I could put milk in the freezer. Looks like the rats got there first. I was glad to hear that the bait we put out is gone; we haven’t seen signs of rats recently (these bottles have been stored in that spot since about March). Why they would eat empty, clean milk bottles, and the calf bottle, is beyond me.

Mr. Imagination

Gayle decided they needed to find out what exactly it was like in the underground water tank. The water level was down to about 2 feet deep, after watering the garden for a couple of days, so he tied a rope around Mr. Diligence and lowered him in. He walked around and reported that the floor is solid concrete, covered with a layer of mud and debris.

I liked this—all the boys laying around the hole, looking in.

The boys found this hedgehog while they were feeding the chickens one evening.

Little Miss was delighted to be able to see the hen with her four chicks!

Mr. Sweetie can read! I found a couple of beginning readers for him the other evening, and he didn’t want to go to bed; he wanted to keep reading. I told him he was allowed to get up early in the morning to read. He didn’t like that idea, but as soon as he was up in the morning he was reading!

Little Miss is 11 Months Old

December 14, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

She has learned to do a lot of things in the past month. About two weeks ago, she started walking, and now she goes everywhere she wants. These first two pictures were from about three weeks ago, when she first learned how to go outside by herself without falling on her nose. She would sit down at the edge, swing one foot out, then the other, and then plunk down on her bottom. I love that look on her face! She was so pleased with her accomplishment.

Here, she was quite upset because she was locked out of the kitchen while the floor was being washed. She did her best to pry the door open, screaming in frustration the whole time.

Here, she was very pleased to be able to play with the broad bean pods after we shelled them. It’s so much fun to scatter things!

Just waking up from a nap.

She’s discovered the joy of playing in gravel and dirt in the past couple of weeks. She loves to push it back and forth with her hands.

She worked out how to climb into a box of toys.

All ready for church.

Mr. Imagination loves to play with soft toys, and he lined his dolls and stuffed animals up on my rocking chair one morning. Little Miss was delighted to play with them, too.

Now that she can walk, she loves to carry things around. Here, she found the handle of a croquet mallet. She wanted it in the house, so she threw it in the door, then climbed in herself and walked around brandishing it.

Checking out a Silverbeet (Swiss Chard) leaf.

Garden Update

December 13, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

The boys and I have been spending an average of half an hour a day, each, on the garden. It’s really amazing how much can happen in that amount of time! The garden is thriving. We’re watering when we have to, from a large cistern by the house that collects the overflow from our half unit of water from the Council. We’ve had a little bit of rain lately, which does wonders. We also save all the water we can in the house, such as from washing lettuce, or Little Miss’s bath water, and bucket it out to the garden. We’re loving having all the lettuce salads we want. We’re going into my favorite time of the year!

These first three pictures were taken the last week of November.

I took this one a couple of days ago. The boys were finishing up their 30 minutes, with Little Miss’s help, while I fixed lunch. Left-right: Mr. Sweetie, Little Miss, Mr. Inventor, Mr. Diligence.

This isn’t quite the garden, but it is a plant! We were recently given a couple of pitcher plants. They are catching a lot of flies for us—so many, in fact, that the plant can’t digest them all and gets indigestion. We’ve had to cut off a few traps that were dying because of all the flies inside them!