Miller Street house

Late June Pictures

July 12, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

It looks like most of our pictures are of Little Miss! With good reason; she’s the cutest person in the family right now, and changing the fastest. This is Mr. Imagination, building something with legos in Esther’s bedroom.

A beautiful sunset.

Our favorite (and only cat), Ginger.

I want that camera! It must taste yummy!

Mr. Imagination

“Pick me up, please!”

One Sunday afternoon at church, Mr. Inventor put Little Miss in this old pram that lives in the building, and gave her rides around the room. She loved it!

That same day, after we got home, Gayle helped the boys pop some popcorn—a rare treat in our house.

Esther was holding Little Miss while she slept, and getting some reading done for school. I decided to take a picture of this common scene, and said as much. I reached up for the camera, turned it on, and stepped over to take the picture. Just as I lifted it up, Little Miss flung her arm out and her eyes popped open!

Mr. Imagination’s Pictures

July 11, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

You never know what a three-year-old will think makes a good picture!

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!

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.

More Harvesting

May 4, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

This was the zucchini we found in the garden after our trip to Timaru. It ended up being nearly the end of the zucchini for the year, too, since we had a killing frost a few days later. We were happy to have these, since I’ve discovered a way to cook zuchini that everyone likes. I dice it in about 1/2 inch cubes, then toss with salt, pepper, fresh rosemary, and oil. Then, I spread it on a cookie sheet and bake at about 350°F for an hour or so. Yum!

Last week, Gayle and the boys dug all the potatoes. It wasn’t a very good harvest, but we’re thankful for what we got—and thankful that they weren’t rotting in the ground like they did last year! This is Mr. Handyman, Gayle, Mr. Diligence, and Mr. Inventor.

This is Mr. Diligence running away!

Finishing the Harvest

April 27, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We are getting close to the end of harvesting food for the year. Gayle and the boys are digging potatoes today. That is quite different from last year! It was so wet last year that there was water in every hole made by the fork when they dug up a potato plant. About half the crop rotted in the ground, and I had to deal with rotten potatoes in the bin all winter. Yuck! This year, the soil is bone-dry! We’re hoping for heavy rains soon, though, so Gayle decided it was time to get them dug.

The shelves in the jar room are very nearly full. The freezers are mostly full—even the “new” one we bought to put a steer in in another two weeks is a third full! Onions are braided and hanging beside the jars of food, and the pumpkins are piled in there and on a porch. We won’t go hungry this year!

Fantails

April 24, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

In other words, flying flytraps! Since we leave the doors open for ventilation on warm days, and have no screens, we often have fantails in the house these days! They are such cheery little birds. They are so friendly they remind me of the chickadees we had in Michigan in the winter. They eat insects, though. As they swoop through the room, you can often hear a sharp little click as they catch another fly! That makes them welcome guests, you can imagine. I’ve been trying to get pictures of them in the house, but they move so fast it’s hard to catch them. That’s how I ended up with a picture of one taking off in flight. If you listen closely to the video of one, you can hear a faint twittering. It was a lot louder in real life, but apparently the sound capture isn’t real good on my camera. If you want to hear it better, go to this page, click on the sound icon, and choose “South Island fantail, male song.” Oh, and by the way, we’re studying birds, insects, bats and flying reptiles this year for science. We recently had a lesson about feathers, and one type of feathers is bristles. Bristles are found around the mouths of insect-eating birds. When we looked closely at the fantails in our house, we could see the bristles! They apparently help the bird to catch insects in flight. The bristles touch the insect and then the bird can turn to grab the insect.