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Beach Clean Up

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We were given a trip on Whale Watch this week.  They asked that, in return, we spend some time doing a beach clean up.  Last week, we had a day that was so lovely and warm that we decided we would do it then, at Gore Bay.  We split up into two groups; three of the boys went one way and the rest of us went the other way.  I told them to start back after half an hour and we would meet up near the start.  It is amazing, and disgusting, what you find on the beach!  Why don’t people pick up after themselves?  Most of what we found had been thrown under the bushes at the edge; there were a lot of beer bottles.  Yuck!  We also found an old tire and some lumber, but the most unusual find was the huge wad of frayed rope that the boys found!

One group went north.

One group went south.

He said he wouldn’t help, since he couldn’t go on Whale Watch, but when we got started he couldn’t resist! After our time cleaning up (and deciding we should do it again in a few weeks), I let the boys play on their “raft” again for awhile.  They sure are having fun poling that around the lagoon!

While we waited for the rafters to come back, these two built a bridge. I found this mermaid’s purse.Mussel shell with coral on it.The biggest find of the day!

And then, the camera got dipped into the water, so we had to buy a new one in order to take pictures when we went on Whale Watch!

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

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!

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

Beach and Playground

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Yesterday the sun shone!  We’ve had several weeks of mostly rainy days, so when it was nice yesterday I challenged the children to finish their schoolwork by 11:00.  Everyone was done by 11:30, so we went to the beach for a little while.  We wanted to be home by 1:00 to be around when our landlord’s son came over to work with a wild cow that was here, but the beach is less than 15-minute’s drive away so we can go for just a short time.

A cold wind was blowing off the Pacific, so we didn’t stay out there very long.  I told the boys to see who could find the most interesting item washed up along the high-tide line, and they came up with some good ones.  There was part of a horse mussel shell with barnacles on it, a sponge attached to a shell, and a clump of several different seaweeds with various shells through it.  The 2-year-old collected a lot of sponges.  (When his Daddy came home from work, he wanted to show him his “seahorses”!)

The trail that goes up and over a small bluff to the beach.

Off on the search for treasure!

The clump of seaweed and shells.I carried baby, in his wrap, and the sponges that 2-year-old collected.

After spending awhile on the beach, we went to the playground on the other side of the bluff.  There is just enough of a rise of land to break the wind, and it was lovely and warm there.  Some of the boys just climbed around, but most of them spent time one time or another figuring out how to balance the seesaw with their various weights.  A seesaw, by the way, is a great way to learn how a balance scale works, and how you can use your weight on a lever in different ways!

Balanced! Baby woke up and enjoyed the bright day, too! On our way home, we drove through the Cheviot Domain–an area of public land–to admire the daffodils.

Fossil Hunting

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Yesterday at our homeschool writing group meeting, a man showed us a powerpoint presentation about fossils.  He has been collecting fossils for several years and has an impressive collection from the local area.  My boys badly wanted to go to Gore Bay and search for fossils along the cliffs there, so, since it was sunny and warm today, we went right after lunch.  When we arrived, the tide was high, with waves hitting the cliffs, so we sat on top and read some of our books for school before we went down.  The tide was still so high that we couldn’t get to the best places, but the boys climbed up some of the less-vertical cliffs anyway.  We never found anything that we were sure was a fossil today, but had fun exploring anyway.  One unusual thing we saw was an oystercatcher (bird) with a missing foot!  I could tell something was strange about it, and when I was able to see its tracks, it had one normal footprint and one that was just a round peg.  Poor thing.

The tide when we arrived.

Reading stories.

This one quickly got bored with the stories and found something more interesting! Climbing the cliff to hunt for fossils

After they gave up on fossils, they cut a few branches of lupine bushes.

Driftwood makes a great boat.

The tide when we left–quite a ways farther out, and notice the shadows. Short days right now.

And these two pictures are just because they’re cute!  The first one was this morning when 2-year-old needed something to do during school and I assigned him to “read” to baby.

This one was after we got home this afternoon.  I set baby on the couch while I went to do something else, and when I came back he was staring, fascinated, at his booties!  They kept wiggling!

Baby’s First Outing

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Today was Baby’s first time to leave home.  We took a picnic lunch to Gore Bay, and the older children played in the sand for a couple of hours.  Esther and Grandma enjoyed taking pictures!

Baby slept happily on the way to Gore Bay and for an hour or more while we were there.

Lots of waves and lots of foam today!

When the waves went out, there was still enough water in the sand to make reflections. Daddy, Grandma, and the boys.

Baby was not happy about being in his seat when we left, and cried until he fell asleep (in a couple of minutes!) with this aggrieved expression on his face.

 

Picnic at the Ocean

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We had a spur-of-the-moment picnic at the ocean tonight.  I threw together a quick casserole by baking sausages and cutting them into little pieces, then mixing in a couple of cans of baked beans and topping it with leftover mashed potatoes, while Elijah made Ants on a Log (celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins) and Esther cut up fruit.  Then, while the casserole baked, we milked quickly and then left.  The children had great fun digging in the sand, while Gayle and I got to be by ourselves and walk down the beach to the rocky cliffs at the other end.  What a lovely end to the day!

Looking south along Gore BayIs he really having fun?

One of my sweet boys picked this bouquet for me on the way back up the cliff!

Gore Bay

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Yesterday the children got the dishes done and the daily housecleaning done in a hurry, so I took them to the ocean.  We only have about a 15-minute drive to Gore Bay.  We spent about an hour there.  It was too cold to play in the water, so they played in the sand while I read stories.  The waves were really high yesterday, and we got to watch a few surfers for awhile.

We go through a range of hills to get to the ocean.

Just before we get to the ocean, the road runs along this cliff at the edge of the most gorgeous valley.

Driving through Gore Bay village–houses to the right, ocean to the left on the other side of the dunes, water’s-edge cliffs ahead.

Down at the beach! Tide was about halfway out when we got there. This is looking south.Looking north along the beach, after we went back up the cliff to where the van was parked.