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November Pictures

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Here are the last few pictures from November that haven’t made it into other posts.

My wonderful mother, several days after she arrived here. We sure enjoyed her time here, and everyone was sad when she left.

I think this is the same nest that I had a picture of recently, with the eggs in it. How ugly those babies are!

These babies are a bit cuter! The ducklings are all Indian Runners. The picture in the middle is a turkey. Our second son has the ducks and a pair of turkeys. He put some of each kind of egg under a hen, so the turkey hatched with the ducklings. For several days, until two more turkeys hatched, he thought he was a duckling—see how he’s wading in his water! The ducklings love water from day one; they take baths frequently. It is quite a challenge to keep their water dish full, and their bedding halfway dry. We were all glad when they could be moved out to the chicken coop.

We went to Gore Bay the last week Mom was here. I think it had been a year or so since we had gone out there. The boys loved playing in the water!

Near the end of Mom’s stay, we celebrated American Thanksgiving Day. We made a Thanksgiving dinner for our evening meal, and invited some local friends to enjoy it with us. We roasted a large chicken, made mashed potatoes and gravy, and stuffing, corn, and a big salad (fresh from the garden—not exactly normal in America this time of year!) and some cranberry sauce with a package of frozen cranberries I had been able to find awhile back. For dessert I made a pumpkin custard, and Mom and one of the boys made lemon meringue pies.  I intended to get a few more pictures, but I guess I’m not a real good blogger—this is the only one I remembered to take!

 

Last Day With Grandma

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No one wanted to go to Christchurch the last day of November. Going to Christchurch meant dropping Grandma off at the airport, and we just weren’t ready for that! The tickets said we had to take her there that day, though, so we did it. We went to church in Waikari that morning, since it is on the way to town. Going between Waikari and the highway, we crossed Weka Pass, which is a low pass through a range of hills. There are some spectacular rock formations in that pass! The last one is called Frog Rock.

Since we had about three hours in town before having to be at the airport, we went to Willowbank Wildlife Reserve, a small zoo. Before entering, we were taking a picture of the children in front of this small building, and a bus driver who was waiting nearly came up and offered to take a picture of all of us! We greatly appreciated it; he said he does it all the time.

There are some beautiful spots along the trail that winds through the park.

See the black swan under the branches?

One special extra we had at Willowbank was when we happened upon a group of keepers releasing three emus into an enclosure. They had just gotten them and were opening the crate when we arrived on the scene. It was pretty funny to see those heads popping up over the edge of the crate, then hiding again. Once the door was open and the keepers were all out of the enclosure, it took a long time for the emus to get up the courage to actually leave the crate that had been their home for three days! We stayed to see one bounce out, but after 10 minutes or so moved on and left the 10 or so keepers to keep watch! This was obviously the event of the day at Willowbank!

Late October Pictures

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Yes, I’m behind. I should make a list of things that ought to be caught up before the baby arrives. Anyway, here are a few last pictures from October that I liked, that never got posted.

Several of the boys have been finding bird’s nests this year. This was one of the first to be discovered.

 

When you want to re-hang a gate that got crushed by a tree, you have to straighten it out first. Gayle and the boys spent an hour or two, using both vehicles, to try to get it straight. They still have to do a bit of welding, but it should be usable when they are finished.

 

Esther did a little photo-shoot with the two youngest one day. I love the expressions on their faces!

Off on a Holiday!

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We don’t get to take very many trips, which is fine with me, being a homebody, but ever since May we’ve been planning to go to the West Coast while Mom is here. Gayle has a very hard time getting permission to take time off from work, even though he is legally entitled to it, so we were excited a couple of months ago when his request for a week right now was finally approved—after waiting three or four months for his boss to make the decision! We borrowed a neighbor’s pop-top camper again, and Wednesday morning last week packed it and the van with all we thought we’d need for a week of camping, and then took off!

We made it across the range of hills directly to the west of us, and passed through the little village of Waiau, then crossed the Waiau River on this long one-lane bridge. It’s a good thing it has a passing bay in the middle, as someone was coming toward us and had to pull off for us to pass! Then, we went up through wilder and wilder hills towards Lewis Pass.

We saw snow on the high peaks as we drove toward the mountains, and then as we got closer could see that it was snowing at that moment, up high! When we reached the top of the pass, there was actually snow on the ground! We haven’t seen snow up close for over two years, so we stopped a few minutes to let the boys check it out. Our youngest had never touched snow, and he was thrilled. His biggest brother was very happy to help him investigate this new stuff.

The terrain changed as we went down the west side of the pass.

We had to laugh at the snowplow we saw—rather a contrast to the ones in Michigan! It had come over the pass behind us.

When we reached Reefton, we could tell something was different from home—we smelled coal smoke in the air! Apparently, that’s what people heat with there. We saw a coal mine near the township (village), and a train of coal cars on a siding.

Soon, we were driving along the Buller River. There is a pretty wild gorge that the river, and the road, go through. One place, a road had to be carved out of the cliff. As you can see, there is only one lane! Quite the engineering feat.

Early October pictures

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One of the smallest praying mantises I’ve ever seen (that’s Esther’s hand). It was incredibly hard to get the picture because the camera didn’t want to focus there, and it kept moving (jumped onto the lens once!).

And this is something I was glad to have not known about until I found the pictures on the memory card later! This is my daredevil second boy, way up high in a gum tree. He hauled the ladder up after him to bridge the gap between branches. He did make it back down safely!

The second and fourth boys have been diligently working at lining their sleepout walls with cardboard, and then painting it.

This little boy (our youngest) is so cute! I love the way he walks so purposefully across the yard. His favorite place in the kitchen is up on the countertop, where he can see what’s going on.

One evening our silly boys had a contest to see who could put the most different items on their bread. It started when one put plum jam, grapefruit marmalade, and pumpkin butter on his bread, in separate stripes—that one was actually sensible, in Mom’s opinion. This boy, #2, was the ultimate winner (in his opinion)—he found 15 things to put on his bread! Yes, I made him eat it.

Ryan Craig, from Twizel, is walking the length of New Zealand for the fourth time pulling a cross, carrying the message of forgiveness. He stayed with us for a night, and our boys really enjoyed him. To learn more about him, visit https://www.facebook.com/RyanCraigsWalk2014/timeline

Last Sunday on our way home from church we stopped for a little while along the coast, which we haven’t done in a long time. The boys sure enjoyed climbing around on the rocks! Top picture is James, our 4th boy; next is Joseph, the 5th. Beyond them was a huge flock of birds on the water. Next picture is James, then Elijah, then Simon. The next two include Seth and Joseph with us.

A beautiful spiderweb I noticed while milking one morning.

The calf we were given a few weeks ago. She was born in the yards where Gayle works, just before her mother was butchered. She was initially given to a friend of ours who works there also, who got her started eating but then decided she couldn’t afford to keep her cattle and gave her to us! This calf is very healthy and frisky, and absolutely loves her foster “mother”—Seth, our first boy!

We got our potatoes planted last week, and then I assigned the boys to mulch them with a bale of straw we had. They did a great job!

September Pictures

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Esther took these pictures around her little house soon after we moved. The chickens were left here when the owners moved out; they’ve now been locked up. Our cat, Ginger, loves her house. He has a comfortable bed on the front porch!

The littlest boy loves the little picnic table close to the kitchen door! He wants to take his lunch out there to eat it, and sometimes asks to take his breakfast out. The other boys sometimes join him. Apparently, this time, the youngest had gone elsewhere, because the ones in the picture are Simon and Joseph, the second and fifth boys.

I’m horrible about getting before-and-after photos, but we put two shelves up in the kitchen to make more space. Simon bought himself a cordless drill, and was thrilled to use it to put up the shelves. That’s James helping him.

Time to work up the garden—but the tiller (rotary hoe here) broke. They’re busy fixing it. That’s Seth,  James  and  Simon.

Nathan is enjoying this swing, and James likes to swing him!

Moving

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I know this is rather overdue—but here are a few pictures we got of the moving process.

The first thing we did was to pack as much household stuff as possible into the shipping container. My husband is the world’s most efficient packer, and he taught his boys some of his tricks. We fit approximately 6 tons into that 20-foot container!

The two little boys couldn’t do much to help, but they oversaw the operation! Our truck, and a friend’s trailer, were used to ferry things from the house to the container, which was out by the road.

Firewood had to be moved, too—that was taken directly to the new house, after the container was full.

The company we hired to move the container made a mistake and sent too small a truck the first time. It couldn’t lift the container.

A few days later, we got them to send out their big truck, and that one had no trouble moving the container. The man tried to turn around, but the road was too narrow, and he had to back all the way out to the end of the road (about 360 meters).

Because we loaded everything we could do without for a week into the container, we sat on the floor a lot that last week. The boys laid on their tummies for bedtime prayers; this is Daddy blessing them.

I spent a lot of time the last week cleaning. The little boys helped me wash the kitchen fridge! And that is all the pictures we got of our last week in the Fosters Road house, and of the move!

Hard-Working Boys!

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After Gayle got home this afternoon, he suggested that Seth start mowing lawn. He also told me he wanted to clean his truck. The next thing I knew, when I looked outside, this is what I saw!

Three boys mowing lawn (one mower no longer has the self-propelled feature, so two boys push it)….

Elijah was weed-whacking….

And these two were vacuuming! I love it when they are all working like this. Big sister is at work, too, cleaning at the place her daddy works. I need to get busy now; I’m the only lazy one at the moment! Time to fix supper.

Some Views of Our New House

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My 8-year-old went around taking pictures the other day of this new place, so I can share with you some of the grounds. I haven’t taken any inside yet, so you’ll have to wait till another time to see that.

Esther’s sleepout—the gray-green bush beside her porch is wormwood.

The creek in front of the house (there is also one at the back of the property).

The garage, by the house. I have the freezers in the right-hand side, and behind that is a stage with some built-in shelving, plus shelves we put in, where all our jars of food are.The daffodils are in full bloom right now on the east side of the creek.

The container/sleepout, and fertilizer for the garden.

The lemon tree, in a sunny, sheltered corner of the house.

The sand box, under the water tank—the littlest boy’s favorite place!

Another sleepout, inside and out.

Some of the piles of junk! After the ground dries out, they are planning to clean up. The third picture is a World War II crane. The owner here is a trucker/mechanic/antique car collector.

The creek at the back of the 5 acres, with a couple of cabbage trees.

The bridge over the back creek!

A pukeko nest the boys found.

Our two ram lambs.

I took these pictures during school the other morning—this is the view from the school room!

Monday evening, Gayle brought a surprise home from work—a ewe lamb! She was not impressed at being taken away from her mother and tied up. She has since decided, however, that Seth is her mother and will follow him everywhere. He led her into the kitchen a couple nights ago. She promptly squatted and left behind a puddle! He got to clean it up.

Miracle

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Yes, we have a house chick. This little fellow is a miracle. About a month or six weeks ago, one of our hens started hatching the eggs we had put under her. Six of the eleven hatched on Wednesday, and we brought them in the house for a couple of days, then put them out with another batch, of a dozen chicks, that were just a couple days older. She was still sitting on the remaining eggs, so we let her. The next day, another egg had a hole in it. On Friday morning, the chick was still in the egg, still peeping, and had its head sticking out. We could tell that the egg was stuck to the chick, dried on. I knew you are not supposed to help a chick out of the egg, as they need the struggle to be strong enough to survive, but we also knew this one would not live without help. My chicken-lover, Simon, gently picked the shell off, to give the chick the only chance it would have. Once out of the shell, the chick flopped around on its back, from side to side of the plastic tub it was in with several others, crying piteously when they stepped on it. We put all the ones that were strong enough out with a mother hen that evening, and the next morning this little one was on his feet! He surprised all of us by that. He was still bumping into the sides of the tub, and couldn’t get one eye open, but within a couple more days was acting much more normal, eating and drinking. All the others have moved on, but this one doesn’t fit in with any flock we have. He now lives in a bucket, with a lid on at night because he won’t stay in. During the day, we put him outside in the grass and he scratches around like any other chicken. This afternoon, it was chilly outside, and he came to the door and seemed to want in. Someone opened the door and he hopped right on in and walked around, totally at home!