Lots of Helpers

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Fosters Road house

Things We’ll Miss When We Move

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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

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One evening, Mr. Sweetie 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 Elijah 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!

How to Make Egg Cake

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Our ducks have been laying their eggs in puddles–especially in the large “lake” in the paddock in front of the house. The boys ate some of the first ones they found, but decided they tasted like swamp muck. We cooked the rest of that batch to feed to the chicks. The next time some came in, I told the boy responsible that either he would cook them, or we would throw them away. My 9-weeks-pregnant tummy couldn’t handle the thought of possibly cracking open a rotten egg! Of course, he opted to throw them away. Boy #4, however, had a brilliant idea: cook with them! Here is the video he and a brother made of his creation. And yes, he is up high in a tree. What can I say–we have real boys!

Lots of Water!

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We still have the aftermath of the big flood Easter weekend. Directly out our living room window, we can see this lake; in fact, I took these pictures out that window! Surprisingly, the boys have only played in it the one time. It’s about too cold most of the time this time of year to want to go swimming. The lake is larger now than when these pictures were taken, since we had another torrential rain a week or so ago. Thankfully, the creek didn’t flood around the buildings that time.Our landlord’s cows visiting with our steer.

And, a brief video clip I got of the boys splashing.

Training a Sheepdog

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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!

Early May Pictures

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We’ve had Welcome Swallows around lately. They act and sound a lot like the barn swallows we had in Michigan—I love them!

This is what our milk refrigerator looked like one Saturday evening, after we were given about a dozen ducks, a turkey, and six geese, plus butchered a large lamb! We breasted most of the birds, or there would have been no room for all of them!

Boy # 4 (James) in disguise!

This hen laid her eggs 3 meters (10 feet) up in a pine tree in the hedge! Her eggs hatched while we were on our Timaru trip, and the morning of the day we got home the lady who was doing our chores saw the last one jump out of the tree!

Little Boy Having Fun

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Our  littlest, who recently turned two, loves playing outside. One evening, I looked out the kitchen window to see him hanging over this gate! His big sister grabbed the camera, then ran to his assistance. It turns out that he had climbed up, dropped a pen he was playing with, then couldn’t get it. Poor little fellow was quite distressed. After he got the pen back, though, he was fine. The next act was to try to stare down the calf—and then he pretended to shoot him with the pen!

Another day, I was hanging laundry and he came out and wandered over to the shed where a puddle forms instantly under a leaky rain gutter when it rains. At that time, we hadn’t had rain for a few weeks, and he sadly commented that there was no water there. Within a few hours, however, it started raining and he happily discovered the puddle again!

He somehow manages to lose his pants frequently, and we often don’t get them back on for awhile. He likes it better this way.

One day, Daddy was fixing a door and had to lay down to see what to do with it. He had helpers!

This little fellow’s favorite activity for a couple of days was “cooking”. He would get all the pots he could carry from the cupboard in the kitchen, then spread them out on the floor in the living room and “cook eggs”. Those pots were HOT! he said.

Birds

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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

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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!

More March Pictures

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Some of you may have seen a post like this a week or so ago, because I did post it, but it disappeared. I did six posts one evening, and scheduled them so they would appear every two days, but three vanished—one before it was posted and two after. Why does that happen? So frustrating. Anyway, here are these pictures again.

When you finish your chicken, use the bones for a telephone.

Playing in the rain!

He found a bag of carrots in the fridge and helped himself to a snack.