Fosters Road house

Cutting Wood

June 17, 2014 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Gayle and the boys have spent quite a few Saturdays and a holiday, now, cutting up trees that were pulled out from around this house before we moved in. They cut the tops and roots off, and then pulled the trees out of the paddock with the van. They only got stuck once! A neighbor came to the rescue with his tractor. These pictures are from the first day they worked on it—a beautiful, sunny day!

Little overseer. He hates getting muddy, and he is scared of the sheep, so he stayed up out of harm’s way!

It had been a very cold night—see that sheet of ice!

Esther was cleaning out a shed, in preparation for getting goats, which, after all, is not going to happen.

Opening up an old gate to pull the trees in close to the woolshed, where the wood was to be stacked.

And this is what happens when boys are trying to do a job too big for them! I superglued it together, and it has healed very nicely. To get it stitched, we would have had to drive an hour and a half, since it was a holiday, so I tried something I had heard of, figuring if it didn’t work, I could take him in to the local medical center the next day. Praise God, it healed without infection! I gave him massive doses of vitamin C for several days.

I took the picture because he wanted to know, while he was laying there, what it looked like!

Things We’ll Miss When We Move

June 16, 2014 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

I finally got around to taking pictures here to show you this house and the features we especially love. Before I got them posted, we were told, this past week, that we have three months to move out. The landlord decided he wants to sell the house and thinks it will sell better empty. Now, we have the challenge of finding a house again—no easy proposition for our size family. It will be interesting to see what God does this time—but it’s sure not fun to be in this position! We love living here, all except the flooding, and there are certainly things we’ll miss.

The kitchen, with its wonderful coal range (wood cook stove):

The living room/our bedroom:

The boys’ bedroom:

Esther’s bedroom:

And outside, I love the freezer room (old woodshed several steps from the back door):

the jar room:

the big clothesline:

and the dry, convenient place to milk my cow.

I sure don’t know what God has in this, but I’m trying to hang on to the fact that He does have a plan for us. Your prayers would be appreciated! We thought we had located a place already, but then they changed their minds.

Late May Pictures

June 15, 2014 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

One evening, boy # 5 was trying to make himself a costume with a blanket and clothespins. His little brother tried to help!

We had another heavy rain, and were afraid that we would have another flood, but thankfully the rain slackened just before the creek overflowed. We did have water running along the footpaths in front of the house again, though.

A mob of a couple hundred—maybe several hundred—sheep went past several days ago. The leaders were approaching our place, and the tail end of the flock had still not turned onto our road! Those vehicles in the distance are on the other road, behind the mob. The sheep were spread out over about half a kilometer (over a quarter mile).

This is probably the winner of the giant pumpkin contest for this year, although there is still one more to be weighed. This one weighed 30 kg (66 pounds). Unfortunately, we proved to ourselves that Atlantic Giant pumpkins don’t taste good. Actually, that is a mis-statement. They have no flavor at all! The cow got it, but didn’t get through the whole thing before it rotted.

I came in from milking one evening and found the little boys washing the window! They had great fun.

One Saturday, Gayle took all the older children to clean a house that his co-worker is moving into. I stayed home with the little boys. They get along so well together—it is great fun to watch them play! They got this barrel and set it up under the tree, then climbed the tree to get on top of the barrel. Big brother helped little brother get settled, and they pretended there was a flood. The barrel rocked back and forth rather violently, then toppled over!

Little fellow got hold of a small ball of yarn, and “tied” it onto various things, stringing it from the hallway into the kitchen. Then, someone helped him make it into a “hut”, which he is standing in in this photo.

This is boy # 3 doing his math—his favorite place is on top the piano!

One very frosty morning, the “lake” in front of the house was frozen over, except for this open spot in the middle where the ducks were.

Another morning, we were eating breakfast when we looked out the window and saw these two herons in the trees across the road.

I was out with the camera one afternoon and enjoyed seeing the ducks relaxing.

On my way back to the house, I opened the door so the chickens could free-range for awhile.

Our landlord worked for awhile on repainting the house and got this side done!

Training a Sheepdog

May 25, 2014 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One day a week or two ago, I went into the living room and noticed our landlord on the hill above our house, on his motorbike (4-wheeler). He had one dog with him, and the dog went into the trees near the top of the hill and herded a small mob (maybe 50) of sheep out. He bunched them in a tight mob, then headed them across the hill below the trees. The dog took the sheep back and forth a couple of times, with no apparent purpose, but we found out later that he was just being trained. It was quite fascinating to watch!

Birds

April 26, 2014 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

One morning we saw this kingfisher right outside!

Esther saw this Yellowhead another day.

And this little fellow lives in the house! He was alone for a few days, until more hatched. Now he has three friends to live with him in the corner of the kitchen.

We were all glad when some more hatched to keep him company, because he would set up such a racket when he wanted attention. He loves to ride on shoulders, but only one person likes it. He leaves “calling cards” behind!

He calls this chick his peregrine falcon!

Rain

April 25, 2014 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

This has been a very wet autumn. We live at the bottom of a valley, and it is WET here! One day was especially wet. It had rained all week (that was a Thursday), and poured all that day, too. I looked out in the afternoon and was shocked to see the creek from the living room window. Normally, it trickles along at the bottom of a ditch and there is no way to see it. The ducks were having fun, but within a few minutes even they gave up and went to find calmer water. The creek had already overflowed its banks just past our house, and was rapidly building up a river across the paddock beside us.

I went out soon after these pictures were taken, and went to check the stock. Normally I don’t do that, but we’re thankful I did that day. The creek upstream from the house, in the paddock our animals are in, was only a foot below the top of its banks; normally it is a good six feet down in a gully. I could see that if it would overflow, as seemed likely, it would flood the area where our chickens were. Gayle got home from work about that time, so we spent the next hour cleaning out a chicken house we had things stored in and putting all the chickens in there. By the time we got that done, the creek had risen another half a foot and was swirling more angrily than ever. Another hour and it overflowed! The boys came and told me that there were several inches of water in the shed where I milk, and that it was up to the buildings. I had no idea when the water would go down, so I went out to milk in the flood. By that time, there was half a foot of muddy water swirling around in that shed! We were thankful that we had put all the feed up on top of two pallets to keep it out of the water. One of the boys had to sit on the other side of the cow and hold the bucket to keep it from floating away while I milked. Meanwhile, there was a river flowing fast along the front of the buildings, and around and under the house. We moved the calf to higher ground so he wouldn’t be standing in the water. Unfortunately, between the dark and the rain that continued to pour down, we have no pictures to show you—and we weren’t sorry an hour later to realize that the water was gone already! It goes up and then down very fast, apparently. The road was a raging river, too; there are drifts of gravel in places on the roadsides, a foot or more thick!

A week later, there is still a lake in the paddock beside the house. It’s beautiful on a clear day!

March Pictures

April 7, 2014 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

And here is the assortment of pictures from March that didn’t make it into their own posts!

A beautiful fall day–Esther enjoyed watching these steers out her bedroom window.

One night, we ran out of hot water, so my oldest son fired up the coal range. He stuffed it full of pine cones–and soon this is what the oven thermometer registered! I made him quit feeding it at that point. We had hot water!

Bigger brother reading to littlest brother!

This is the way to do math!

February Pictures

March 20, 2014 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Just a few miscellaneous pictures from February that didn’t fit in anywhere else!

Breakfast time for two happy little boys!

See the crack? My washer did that suddenly one morning! We decided it was time to stop fixing it and get a new one.

The new washer was delivered two days later, and the boys were fascinated by the first load washing!

Early morning mist from Esther’s bedroom window.

When I’m too busy to fix lunch or don’t have leftovers to heat, I sometimes let the children make their own lunches. This was my oldest boy’s lunch on one such day: Three pieces of cheese bread, two eggs, in a sandwich with two slices of bread, and two pieces of cinnamon toast! He ate it all, too.

I enjoyed watching these three playing together on this water tank one evening. They had great fun up there!

Moving Day

March 17, 2014 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We were finally able to move on February 15th. That was quite a busy day, as you can imagine—actually, it was quite a week! We had been waiting for the power to be hooked up so we could move, and on Tuesday that week it was done. The electricians finished rewiring the house on Thursday; we cleaned Friday and moved Saturday! Wednesday was spent finishing the kitchen and painting. Thursday Gayle and the boys moved our firewood while I did things at home. We were very thankful for help cleaning on Friday, and for friends who helped us move on Saturday. We didn’t get very many pictures, because all hands were working so hard with the move, but I’ll share the few we did get!

The living room is filling up!

The piano was one of the heaviest things we had to move.

Trying to get the piano in!

The cattle had to move that day, too. It is about 7 km from the old house to the new, so we walked them down the road. From left to right are our steers, Curry and Checkers, then Red Heifer and her mother, Mrs. Moo (Nervous Nellie), the cow we’re milking while ours is dry. She goes back to her owners when they move to their farm the first of May.

As we went past our former landlord’s house, one of his dogs joined us! We couldn’t convince him to go home, so he went with us the rest of the way, and then Gayle took him back when they went for another load.

Our new home! This is the back door, the west side.

January Pictures

March 16, 2014 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Time to catch up! Here are some pictures we took back in January that I never shared.

The littlest fellow still needs naps, although he doesn’t necessarily want them. One evening he fell asleep, and I laid him on the couch. When he started waking up awhile later, he ended up like this! While we were working on the new house, he took naps on a blanket in the corner of the living room.

This is a close-up of the windowsill in the living room. For 16 years, flies and bees had been the only occupants of the room! We scrubbed the white windowsill, then sanded and painted it—now it looks much better! I was amused at the layers of old paint on the outside; can you see all three?

The kitchen remodeling, getting closer to completion!

I painted the living room ceiling. It is wallpaper, but was looking old and dirty. The paint really freshened and brightened the room. I had to glue a lot of spots up, too.

The boys love playing around the creek!

The creek is nearly dried up.

Fosters Road house

Thank you!