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Jed River Cemetary

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Last Saturday was a gorgeous, warm (for winter) day, so Gayle suggested that we take our lunch out to Gore Bay and have a picnic.  What a good idea!  Since it was high tide and therefore not good for beachcombing, we decided to try to find an old Maori graveyard that a local farmer pointed out to the boys last spring.  We didn’t find that, but we did find an early European cemetery, dating back to the earliest days of settlement in this area.  The most recent burial there was 19 years ago.  There are around 25-30 graves, only about 1/3 of which are marked.  It was a beautiful spot for a cemetery–on top of a hill overlooking the Jed Estuary and Gore Bay, and so peaceful.

Getting ready to go

To go to the cemetery, we had to cross the mouth of the Jed River/Buxton Creek. It was only an inch or two deep, but with it being high tide, there were often several inches of water. Seth ended up carrying the two youngest over by himself!The trail from the beach to the cemetery was fun!

The Jed Estuary, with an old woolshed on the far side, and Gore Bay in the distance.

This is all that marked one grave.

All that’s left of the gate to the cemetery.

After exploring the cemetery, the boys worked on punting their “raft”–a large forked log–around the lagoon at the place where the Jed River and Buxton Creek flow into the sea.  They had great fun learning to maneuver it around, and then pulled it out so it will hopefully still be there next time we go.

The boys reenacted Hone Heke, a Maori chief in the 1840s, who chopped down an English flagpole on a hill overlooking present-day Russell, four times.

A hut that someone built out of driftwood. Daddy helped pull the log to a deeper part of the lagoon. Pulling the log out

Our Week

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This has been a pretty normal week–lots of school and other real life, too.

Baby wants more kombucha!

Baby loves his daddy! These Usborne puzzle books have been very popular this week.

Part of school every day–the most popular part–is practicing math facts with a game on the computer. I forgot to include these two pictures last week! Our hedge was trimmed.

The children have been bringing in heaps of these field mushrooms. They are delicious!

The hills to the north-west of us.

We see a lot of these cows in the paddock next to the house.

Baby fell against the wood stove Sunday night. Ouch!

After trying in vain to get into this laundry basket, and squealing in frustration, he picked it up and brought it to me. I put him in–and he was delighted!We enjoyed the sight of snow blowing off the tops of the mountains north of Kaikoura as we drove to church this morning. Finally, here are some of the pictures Esther took when we stopped at the beach on the way home this afternoon.  One boy was moving so fast all the pictures of him turned out blurry!

This Month

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I am not getting anything put on here, so I’ll share what Esther wrote about the past three weeks.  She has lots of pictures to share, and this will bring you up-to-date!  Maybe in a month or two I’ll have more time to write!

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Dear Friends,

We’ve been very busy lately, but I thought you all would probably appreciate a quick update! ☺ So here goes…

Grandpa’s (Dad’s parents) arrived on Saturday, the 23rd of February. They brought along with them my cousin, David (David’s father is Dad’s brother). I had found out ahead of time (like at least three weeks before) that he was coming, and in the last week Seth and Simon (the next two children after me) had found out he was coming, but all the younger ones were totally in the dark—they had NO idea that David was coming! So it was a really nice surprise for all of them.

On Sunday, we all went to church together, then in the afternoon went up to a church friend’s farm. He owns about a thousand acres of very hilly land (they’re the foothills to the K——- mountains; the farm is so rugged that he hasn’t even set foot on some of the land!), where he raises sheep and cattle. He gave us a demonstration of sheep dogs working sheep, and also sheared a sheep so we could see how that process works. It was all very interesting! I’ve seen sheep dogs working sheep before, but only two (out of our 12-person group!) of us had ever seen a sheep sheared before. So that was a very special afternoon…

To read the rest, go here and enjoy her pictures!

Napenape

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Today was Christmas Day.  We didn’t have anyone to spend the day with, so we decided to go to a beach we hadn’t been to before.  Napenape (pronounced nappy-nap) is just south of the Hurunui River.  It is a beautiful beach!  It always amazes us how different each beach is from all others.  We thoroughly enjoyed spending time there and relaxing this afternoon.

Looking down the hill, across the Hurunui River towards Cheviot (on the other side of the hills)

Hills on the way to the sea

The beach road at Napenape

Napenape beach

We had a picnic for lunch

The boys found this baby shag

On the way to the end of the beach, the boys climbed this little hill. The day was quite misty at first.

This cliff marked the end of the beach we could walk today! The tide was near high.

Baby loved the rocky beach!

About to grab the camera (and taste it!)

Gayle and some of the boys climbed the cliff

We played tic-tac-toe

The mist cleared shortly before we left

On the way out, we stopped so the boys could investigate a spring

They said the spring water tasted good.

 

Fossils and Port Robinson

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Last night, we took a picnic supper to Gore Bay.  It was a warm, breezy evening, unusual for this time of year.  Last week, when I took the children there for lunch one day, we had found a couple of rocks with fossilized bones sticking out of the top, and wanted to go back to take pictures of them.  They are in a place you can only go at low tide,  which is why we had to wait till evening yesterday.  We got there about two hours before low tide.

The boys took off down the trail to the beach as soon as they were done eating, taking a cloth shopping bag with them to hold all the mussels they were planning to collect!  The rest of us followed a little more leisurely.  We were able to find the fossils we had seen the last time without too much trouble–and then found more and more and more!
A lovely paua shell.Baby appreciates rocks, too–salty ones, especially!
Finally we made our way to the south end of Gore Bay, where the boys were diligently hunting.  After walking around a little on the rocks there, we decided to go around into Port Robinson.  This was the only access to the Cheviot area in the early days, 100-130 years ago.  Apparently, they would unload the ships and send the goods up some sort of track to the top of the cliffs.  They say there is no trace of the port left at sea level.

Port Robinson

I’m not sure what this tunnel was all about, but it opens out of the cliff just above the high tide line.  As you can imagine, the boys were pretty excited when their Daddy found it–that is the sort of thing you generally only find in mystery stories!

The tunnel that Daddy discovered in the cliff.


The boys, of course, had to practice their mountain-climbing skills, in addition to gathering a shopping-bag nearly full of mussels (now I have to figure out how to cook them!).On our way back to the van, we stopped for a few minutes to chat with some tourists from Australia, and then got caught in the rain when it started suddenly.  No one minded getting a little wet, though.  Everyone agreed that this was a perfect way to spend an evening.

The largest chiton I have ever seen! They are normally 1/2-1 1/2 inches long; this one was 4-5.

Sea squirt

Exciting Birthday!

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Today is my birthday, and I had a wonderful birthday present–my cow calved this morning!  She was nearly a week late, so we’ve been keeping a close eye on her.  Last night she looked like she was very close, so we moved her into a paddock (we had her beside the road) so the calf wouldn’t end up on the road.  When I went out at 6:30 this morning to check on her, it was apparent that she was in labor, but she also had milk fever and couldn’t get up.  Of course, Gayle was at work, so I called our landlord, who knows a lot about cows, and asked him if he would be able to come over and give her some calcium.  He very kindly came over soon, and instead of giving her the oral calcium that I had, he gave her two bags under her skin.  He tried to hit a vein, but missed both times.  It still works, just not quite as fast.  We continued to watch her closely, and around 9:00 I felt inside to see if the calf was in the right position.  It was, and half an hour later the feet started showing.  Around 10:00 she finally stood up!  The feet and nose disappeared back inside, and she took a break for awhile, eating some grass and hay.  By 11:00, though, the calf was born–a healthy little bull.  The children all got to watch.  They had been hoping for that.  They’ve had quite the education–they witnessed the breeding and now the birth.

And here’s a funny:  This is Chestnut’s third calf, and all three have been born on a Thursday.  We’ve had four different goats kid here, and three have kidded on a Thursday.  What are the odds of that happening?

Just born!

Everyone wants to meet the new baby!

Worn out.

This afternoon, the two oldest boys went to help a local man “tail” lambs.  Of course, lambs are born with long tails, but if you leave the tails on, poo builds up on them and then flies lay eggs…. I’ll spare you the details, but it’s kinder to cut off the tails.  At the same time, they notch the ears for identification, and “ring” the males.  This farm has around 2,000 ewes, so there are 3-4,000 lambs.  The farm is in the hills directly east of Cheviot.  We were able to drive the van to the back of the farm where they were working, since we have 4-wheel drive in it.  We were going up and down some mighty steep hills!  I have been looking at those particular hills, and the farm road we went up, since we moved here, wishing I could go up them!  What a day for my wish to come true–my birthday!  The views from the top were awesome.  Snow-capped peaks in one direction; the sea in the other.

Ever since we moved to Cheviot I’ve wanted to go to the top of this hill. The tailing operation.

On the way back down, we stopped on the hill at the base of the cell tower (we were higher than the tower when we were back where they were tailing!). We live at the edge of the worked ground in the middle of the picture–just beyond Cheviot.

View to the north from the cell tower.  You can vaguely see the Kaikoura mountains here; in reality they were quite clear.

Look how steep this hill is!

See the cows along the top of the ridge across the valley?

The road we drove on to get to the back of the farm, viewed from the other side of Cheviot. That’s the road I’ve been eyeing for nearly three years!

Classic Cars

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We had some different entertainment on our way to church this morning.  There was a classic car show in Kaikoura yesterday, and the cars were on their way home this morning.  We probably saw around a hundred of them–didn’t think to count till we were nearly there!  This post is mainly for my brothers who like old cars–we were thinking of you as we enjoyed the “parade”.

A few of the cars were not being driven!

We also saw a couple of railroad track-fixing-machines–made us think of our friend back in Michigan who used to build them!  These were built in Australia, though, it looked like.

We also saw this picture of spring.

This Past Week or Two in Pictures

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I keep thinking about things to blog about, but real life keeps getting in the way.  So, here are a bunch of pictures to give you a glimpse into the past couple of weeks.

Now that he can get around we have to be more diligent about cleaning up ashes!

Last Tuesday we had the biggest hail I have ever seen. When it hit a boogie board in front of the house it bounced up 3 meters (10 feet)!

After the storm passed, the cows finally made it to the trees for shelter–and when the sun hit them a cloud of steam went up!

Hail on the trampoline.

Almost crawling!Gayle and the boys built the framework for raised beds on Saturday.

On Sunday we stopped to explore some rock pools along the coast.

Starfish Sea anemone

Shags

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After our hike around the Kaikoura Peninsula Sunday, when we were waiting for Gayle to bring the van back around to pick us up, the children who were with me, and I, were quite amused by the sounds of the shags going to bed in the tree above us.  A shag is a large bird that lives along the coast; I think they eat fish.  They sleep in trees, and when each one comes in for the night they apparently have to discuss the day!  The sounds they make are so funny that I tried to capture them in this video so you can enjoy it, too.

Kaikoura Peninsula

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We had an adventure Sunday!  It was such a lovely day that after leaving church at 2:00 we went to the Kaikoura Peninsula to walk on the rocks.  Gayle has been wanting to walk around the Peninsula again, but we weren’t sure what the tides were.  When we got there, however, it became apparent that the tide was going out, so we took off from the north side of the Peninsula, and walked around to South Bay at sea level.  It’s quite a long, strenuous walk, but beautiful!  We made it to the other end around 5:00.  Gayle went ahead of us the last little ways and then he and two of the boys hurried up the cliff to the trail on top and across to where we had left the van, then came back to get us.

Seagull at the north end, before we started out hiking.

Here we go! Just starting around the first point.

The tide was still high enough we had to be fairly close to the cliffs, and the seaweed on the rocks that were in shadow was extremely slick. We had to search for dry places to walk on. Lots of energy at the beginning!

Simon climbed halfway up that high cliff! He climbed several hills on the way, and at the end ran back across the top of the Peninsula to catch up to his dad, who was on the way back for our van. Incredible energy, there.

Some of the easiest walking on the whole trip.Some of the first seals we saw up-close that day–but not the last!

The game of “Pass the Baby” was popular with the one being passed–until one big brother fell down with him. Then, he wanted Mom.

See the boys most of the way up?

More seals, and a shag grooming. At the base of the cliff ahead of us is where we first came very close to seals–like, on the trail! Seals can be quite dangerous; if they bite you can get a very bad infection. Don’t go between a seal and the water, and don’t threaten them! Signs are posted saying to stay 10 meters (30 feet) from seals.Our protector going ahead to scout for seals.

Here we come, skirting as far around the seals as possible. Simon, behind me, very thoughtfully waited there for me, keeping a lookout while I watched my footing, then brought up the rear.

I had to stop to feed the baby, and while they were waiting, Gayle and some of the boys climbed up through a cave and came out on top, where they could watch us coming up!

We all ended up going through a branch of the cave to get to the other side, because the only other path had a big seal on it!

More seals–all over the path! We were very cautious.

At last! We have rounded the end of the Peninsula and can see the mountains again. Our destination is across the bay.

This fascinating layer of rocks, shells, and bones ran along the cliff for quite a long ways.

Simon found this whale’s vertebrae sticking out! He brought it home.

Seth found this fence post washed up, and carried it a LONG way along the beach. He fell down four times while carrying it across slick places, but persevered. He really wanted it!

South Bay–the end of our hike.

Google Earth map of the Kaikoura Peninsula