Miller Street house

More of Mr. Sweetie’s Pictures

July 25, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Mr. Sweetie took my camera outside again last week. The creek in front of the house, by the road, is finally flowing again! It’s been dry since about October or November. He and Mr. Diligence were playing in it for awhile.

Apparently, Mr. Diligence was clearing a dam of leaves so the water could flow in from the neighboring property.

A selfie.

There is a healthy crop of stinging nettles in the cabbage patch! I keep thinking I ought to cut some and use them…. Supposedly, they are very good for you….

Somebody’s hut.

Hay Shed and Creek

July 13, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I finally looked at the May pictures on Esther’s memory card. As always, she had some good ones! These are from one day when she walked around with her brothers. This is Mr. Sweetie in the hay. It is unposed; he just popped up when she was looking at the hay!

Mr. Intellectual in the hay.

Mr. Diligence, Mr. Sweetie, Mr. Inventor and Mr. Intellectual salvaging things from the junk pile.

Mr. Inventor building something with stuff from the junk pile. I think it was a support for a hut made out of hay. The hay shed, which he is sitting in, is an old semi trailer. It was wrecked along the Kaikoura coast, and laid over on its side. When it was dragged off the road the side was messed up beyond repair. Our landlord collects junk like that; he always planned to take the axles out from under this trailer and set it down for a hay shed. He never got that accomplished, but we’re using it for hay up in the air. That keeps the animals out!

There are two creeks on this property. One is between the house and the road; the other is at the back, where this row of grass is.

This is Mr. Sweetie, Mr. Diligence, and Mr. Imagination beside the creek.

Mr. Imagination in front of a cabbage tree.

Mr. Sweetie, Mr. Intellectual, Mr. Imagination, and Mr. Diligence on the bridge. Gayle and the boys found this old gate, and put it in place so the cows could cross the creek to graze on the other side.

Our landlords lived here for 17 years and never saw this “pond” dry up. This was a dry year. Since this photo was taken, the boys pumped some water out of our underground overflow tank and refilled the pond. The waterfowl are happy again!

Mr. Sweetie’s Pictures, Part 3

June 24, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

This is the last set of his pictures for now. This is Esther at her desk in her new bedroom, which was our schoolroom.

I’m not sure why he took this picture! It is one of my favorite history resources.

The bike trailer Mr. Inventor built for Mr. Diligence. They painted it with paint they got free from the dump. The dump, actually a transfer station, is at the end of our road, and the two boys go there at least once a week to see what treasures they can find.

The trailer Mr. Inventor built for himself.

A conference between Mr. Inventor and Mr. Diligence.

Mr. Handyman.

Mr. Imagination.

Mr. Sweetie’s Pictures, Part 2

June 23, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

More pictures that 5-year-old Mr. Sweetie took on my camera. All these were taken across the driveway north of the house. One of many old vehicles that litter this place, this is a tow truck. If I remember the story correctly, the owner of the place sold this truck to someone a long time ago, and it hasn’t been picked up.

Our house and container from the tow truck.

The younger boys collected acorns awhile ago, and Mr. Diligence put his in this hole.

I guess they weren’t all taken from across the driveway. The picture above is back on this side. The creek hasn’t had any water in it since October. The picture below is taken in the yard between the middle and south driveways. (Yes, this five-acre parcel has three driveways! We have two blocked off with fences to keep wandering sheep out.)

Mr. Sweetie’s Pictures, Part 1

June 22, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Mr. Sweetie loves to take pictures. A few weeks ago he took my camera one Saturday afternoon, and took somewhere around a couple hundred pictures! I didn’t save all of them, but here is a nice selection. Gayle and Mr. Handyman were fixing a set of shelves given to us by the local farm store. That’s Mr. Inventor holding his baby sister.

The workshop part of the garage.

Mr. Imagination.

Mr. Diligence’s garden.

The house, from the other side of the garden.

Tour of the Mud Town and Our Garden

May 8, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

On Sunday, when Mr. Sweetie had my camera, he also took a video outside. It is rather long (maybe 8 minutes), and shaky, but if you’re interested in the town my boys have been building all summer in the banks of the dry creek in our front yard, here is a guided tour of what they currently have and the place they did have a town before it was destroyed. He also gives you a glimpse of what’s left in the garden. Just please keep in mind this was taken by a 5-year-old–that explains a lot!

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLl6u5mYljI]

A Tour of Our House

May 7, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I stayed home Sunday with several children who had bad colds. Mr. Sweetie, the five-year-old, asked in the afternoon if he could use my camera. I took a look at the memory card this evening, and found a couple of videos. This one is a tour of the inside of the house, if you’re interested. Keep in mind that a 5-year-old took it! The background noise, other than the baby crying, is Mr. Inventor’s audio book playing (With Lee in Virginia); he listened to it most of the day.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=831qKGJ9st0]

September Pictures

October 18, 2014 by NZ Filbruns 2 Comments

Esther took these pictures around her little house soon after we moved. The chickens were left here when the owners moved out; they’ve now been locked up. Our cat, Ginger, loves her house. He has a comfortable bed on the front porch!

The littlest boy loves the little picnic table close to the kitchen door! He wants to take his lunch out there to eat it, and sometimes asks to take his breakfast out. The other boys sometimes join him. Apparently, this time, the youngest had gone elsewhere, because the ones in the picture are the second and fifth boys.

I’m horrible about getting before-and-after photos, but we put two shelves up in the kitchen to make more space. Our second boy bought himself a cordless drill, and was thrilled to use it to put up the shelves. That’s the fourth boy helping him.

Time to work up the garden—but the tiller (rotary hoe here) broke. They’re busy fixing it. That’s the first, fourth, and second boys.

The youngest is enjoying this swing, and his big brother likes to swing him!

Some Views of Our New House

September 21, 2014 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

My 8-year-old went around taking pictures the other day of this new place, so I can share with you some of the grounds. I haven’t taken any inside yet, so you’ll have to wait till another time to see that.

Esther’s sleepout—the gray-green bush beside her porch is wormwood.

The creek in front of the house (there is also one at the back of the property).

The garage, by the house. I have the freezers in the right-hand side, and behind that is a stage with some built-in shelving, plus shelves we put in, where all our jars of food are.

The daffodils are in full bloom right now on the east side of the creek.

The container/sleepout, and fertilizer for the garden.

The lemon tree, in a sunny, sheltered corner of the house.

The sand box, under the water tank—the littlest boy’s favorite place!

Another sleepout, inside and out.

Some of the piles of junk! After the ground dries out, they are planning to clean up. The last picture is a World War II crane. The owner here is a trucker/mechanic/antique car collector.

The creek at the back of the 5 acres, with a couple of cabbage trees.

The bridge over the back creek!

A pukeko nest the boys found.

Our two ram lambs.

I took these pictures during school the other morning—this is the view from the school room!

Monday evening, Gayle brought a surprise home from work—a ewe lamb! She was not impressed at being taken away from her mother and tied up. She has since decided, however, that our oldest boy is her mother and will follow him everywhere. He led her into the kitchen a couple nights ago. She promptly squatted and left behind a puddle! He got to clean it up.

Our New House

August 9, 2014 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

As I promised last week, here are a few pictures from the next house we’ll be moving to. This is the front of the house, towards the road. The light isn’t the greatest here, because this side faces east and we were there late in the afternoon.

The door to the left goes into a bedroom, which will be our spare bedroom/schoolroom/library. Next is the door opening into the hallway, and then our bedroom. The third bedroom is just down the hallway from our room, on the same side of the house. The schoolroom will be cold in winter, but nicely cool in summer.

This house was the first maternity house in Cheviot. It was purchased for that purpose sometime soon after being built, in the few years just before 1915. A woman named Mary Davidson was the local midwife, although she never had any formal training. She ran the maternity home from when she bought the house, just before 1915, until about 1930. She never lost a mother or baby! At that time, the house only consisted of the three current bedrooms and the living room. The living room was apparently the kitchen, with a coal range where there is now a logburner. The room we’ll use as a schoolroom was apparently the parlor. They would put mothers in there when both bedrooms were occupied (of course, back then, women usually stayed in bed for two weeks, if I understand right). All the water they needed was heated on the coal range, and to have enough they put it in a “copper”—a metal cylinder—in a corner of the wide hallway, camouflaged with a large wicker basket. When a baby was expected, the home was kept in readiness night and day. The story I read said that was not hard during the day, but nighttime was much harder—that was when the store of hot water in the copper came in handy! The hardest thing for mothers was to get to the maternity home, as the only transportation then was horse and buggy, and it’s not exactly smooth terrain here! I found this history quite fascinating.

Esther is planning to make this sleepout into her bedroom. She’s quite excited about making it attractive inside, and having her own space. It was originally a railway hut, and the present owners of the house moved it here.

When we move, we’ll work on getting more pictures of the place. It’s not as beautiful a location as the one we’re in right now, but it will work for us for a couple of years.

Miller Street house

Thank you!