Our family's life in New Zealand
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!
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!
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.
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.
This has been another busy day. We started out butchering roosters and making tomato juice, and while I cut up the roosters the boys worked on their projects. We also picked apples and made applesauce, and the boys helped their daddy cut off the rest of the cornstalks from the garden and bring them home; we’ll husk the corn tomorrow.
Now it is tomorrow; I didn’t get this finished last night. So, I’ll add the pictures and try to get it posted today!
Simon (boy # 2) is working on building a workshop to store his tools in, in this picture.
The base for Simon’s sleepout.
James working on his sleepout–a defunct freezer that served as a swimming pool for a couple of years.
And this is what the kitchen looked like!
Applesauce,
dehydrated onions,
tomato juice, applesauce and a jar of lentils to fill the canner,
vinegar, I hope,
and corn being cooked!
Gayle and the boys brought home all the corn, then picked it off the stalks and husked it.
The cows enjoyed the stalks, husks, and cobs. They would have enjoyed the corn, too, but we didn’t share.
My solar-powered dryer isn’t working today…
…but the wood-fired one is!
I will be back soon with more posts! We finally moved two and a half weeks ago, and I’m almost done unpacking. We started school last week; today is our sixth day. I’m finally feeling like we’re getting into a routine again. We’re on our third day of rain and cold, so very thankful for that good woodstove in the living room. We also love this coal range (wood cook stove) in the kitchen. We run it for a couple of hours in the morning and have all the hot water we want for the day, plus we can cook breakfast on it. This picture shows the boys cleaning out a shelf of honeycomb that the professional chimney sweep missed. They checked into it when the stove smoked badly the first couple of times we used it. It works great now!
Esther walked home from the new house one afternoon a few weeks ago, with her camera. I love some of these pictures she took!
This little guy accompanied his sister on her walk home. He got to carry the snack!
The railroad tracks are about half a mile from our house. This is taken from a road bridge over them.
Naptime for the toddler!
The new part of the kitchen is progressing!
If you’re interested, here are more pictures from our new house.
“Rabbit Hill”–this is what we see when we look out the north living room window.
Panoramic view from the top of “Rabbit Hill”. Our house is down at the extreme left of the picture.
That’s me, in the van, coming with lunch for those who went earlier.
Looking from the top of the hill, past our house, to the hills beyond.
The progress in the kitchen so far.
I’m working up a bed along the front of the house to plant tomatoes and basil in.
The house, our van, and the container. The container will be moving; the permanent site is not ready yet.
We can see the train from our new house! This passenger train goes from Christchurch to Picton and back every day.
The story goes that he was pretending to be asleep!
The owner came while we were there yesterday, to start taking out the trees in the paddock we’ll use for a garden. I liked seeing the boys all lined up on the water tank to watch!
He pushed the trees over, then pulled them out and around to a burn pile.
The trees are all down in the garden now!
I knew I’ve been neglecting this, but didn’t realize it’s already been nearly a month! Can you tell we’ve been working at the house? That’s where we go when we can spare some time at home (which isn’t often, as it turns out). We’ve been over there two days a week, so far. It’s a good thing we can’t move in for a few weeks yet–it will take that long to get the place cleaned up! Here are a few pictures of what’s happening so far.
This is the driveway.
The cattle stop has a big plum tree growing through it!
Our shipping container/sleepout.
The audience watching the container being unloaded included these curious girls.
The overgrown house, from the north.
Looking toward the house from the gate at the road–south side.
Inside the container.
Some trees have been taken out.
Now we can actually see the back of the house!
The path from back of the house to the road. The footpath is totally over grown, so we’re working on uncovering it.
My favorite feature in the kitchen–a wood cook stove!
View from the kitchen window. This is the only countertop space so far.
Gayle is remodeling this area to make more countertop space. There was a space here for a frig and chest freezer, but it was too short for modern fridges.
One whole wall of the kitchen is cupboards!