Miller Street house

NASA Super Balloon

April 26, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Yesterday evening when I was on my way home with the cow from where she grazes on the roadside during the day, I noticed a bright object in the sky off to the southwest of us. I thought that was an odd shape for a plane, and it didn’t seem to be moving, but I didn’t think much of it and soon forgot it. After I got home, I put the cow in the area where I milk, picked a few things from the garden, and headed for the house. The turkeys started fussing about then and ran for cover under the macrocarpa hedge. They were acting like there was a hawk, so I looked around, and saw a large flock of Canada geese coming toward us. Several of the boys ran out into the paddock to see them, and soon yelled that they saw a planet—maybe Venus or Mercury? I knew it wasn’t Venus, because I’ve been seeing it to the east in the morning shortly before sunrise, so I told them it must be Mercury, but went to see what they were seeing, because it didn’t seem likely that we’d actually see that small planet! They pointed out the same bright object I had seen a little bit earlier, and it was definitely not a planet. It was much brighter and larger than any heavenly body I’ve ever seen, except of course the Sun and the Moon. It was round, or oval, but we couldn’t make out what it was. Mr. Intellectual and Mr. Diligence ran for their binoculars, but that didn’t help much, so Mr. Inventor got the telescope. I went inside to look online and try to figure it out. First I looked for the International Space Station, but that was obviously not what we were seeing. I tried one or two other fruitless searches, and then thought of the NASA weather balloon we had heard was to be launched several weeks ago. I searched for that, and after one or two more dead ends, found an article that said the balloon had finally been launched today, after seven failed attempts. The accompanying video showed an object exactly like what we were able to see with the telescope!

This picture shows what we were able to see with the naked eye (this is very zoomed in):

This is a screenshot from the video in the article; this is what we could see through the telescope:

We were pretty excited to get to see this!

Little Miss and Her Bicycle

April 25, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Mr. Inventor and Mr. Diligence found a tiny bicycle with training wheels at the dump a few months ago. They brought it home and presented it to their favorite little sister; it was just the right size for her. She was thrilled to be able to ride it. I grabbed the chance to get this video one morning when she slipped out of the house still wearing her nightgown! She moves so fast it’s hard to capture a video like this.

Children—March 2017

April 1, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I’m not sure what her problem was, but she sure thought it was terrible!

I dehydrated some strips of zucchini one day. When I brought the dehydrator in that evening to empty it, the children started eating them—and didn’t stop till they had eaten about half of them!

One afternoon, the hot water heater was boiling, after the fire had been burning most of the day. I said that the little boys ought to have their bath. Later, I went looking for Mr. Imagination, and this is what I found! Obviously, he didn’t catch what I really intended. Of course, Little Miss soon let go of her dress and was soaking. They had fun for awhile.

It rained! The creek had some water in it, and the little children had a lot of fun for a few days. What a mess!

Mr. Inventor’s latest project. An old brother in our church died a little over a year ago, and Mr. Inventor recently asked his widow if he could buy the man’s three old motorbikes. None of them are working, although the motors will turn over on two of them. He’s hoping to put together one that works. They had to dig them out from under several year’s worth of grass and thistles, to load them on the trailer. I managed to grab this shot of the boys riding on them up to the house before we left to bring them home from Kaikoura. All five boys are on board; Mr. Sweetie’s head is just visible behind Mr. Intellectual’s shoulder. There wasn’t time for a better picture before they disembarked.

Mr. Diligence doing school while Princess naps. That cat sleeps in the funniest poses! I have several more pictures for another post.

Mr. Imagination was given a huge teddy bear at a secondhand shop we went to on his birthday. Little Miss loved it, so when a friend at whose house we were a few days ago mentioned that she was sending some teddy bears to the op shop, I said Little Miss would like one. Did she want the bears, though? No—she fell in love with this penguin!

Random Pictures from February and March, 2017

March 23, 2017 by NZ Filbruns 4 Comments

I often end up with an assortment of pictures that don’t seem to fit any theme, so here they are.

We see this rock wall every time we go to Kaikoura now. These rocks were stacked up to try to keep new rocks and dirt off the road if the slip slips again. I always think someone with a huge piece of equipment must have had fun stacking them up!

One of the boys found this cicada that died halfway out of the shell! They were quite intrigued with it.

We’re doing Apologia’s Exploring Creation with Astronomy this year for science. An assignment for the first chapter was to make a model of the solar system with balloons. From right to left are Mercury (black), Venus (orange), Earth (blue), Mars (red), Jupiter (orange), Saturn (pink with a green ring), Uranus (blue), and Neptune (purple). The yellow one represents the sun, although it would have had to be the size of half of our house. Jupiter and Saturn should have been twice as big as they are, but the balloons kept popping when we tried to get them bigger. And apparently, Pluto is no longer considered a planet! Even though this is quite out of scale, we had fun doing it.

I made tiny ponytails in Little Miss’s hair one day, just for fun. I think it will be awhile yet before we need to do any such thing again!

Our onion harvest this year.

We took the Inland Road to Kaikoura one Sunday when the coastal highway was closed due to slips from rain and fresh earthquakes. This is a church in Waiau, which was badly damaged in the November 14 quake. The bell tower is leaning pretty badly, although it’s hard to see in this photo.

One evening at the table, we were discussing how old each of us would be in Mercury years (Mercury goes around the sun four times for every Earth year). Someone got out our new abacus to figure out his daddy’s age. Multiplication is challenging with the abacus! We finally worked out how to get the answer, but it took awhile.

Mr. Intellectual drew this picture of a volcano, presumably in Hawaii, erupting into the ocean.

Garden Stuff

March 12, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I sliced a bunch of zucchini for the freezer one day, and decided to try dehydrating some. I sprinkled them with salt, and they are quite good! I did learn that it’s best to oil the trays before putting the zucchini on, or they stick tight. A couple of the children had fun putting the slices of zucchini on the first time.

I had never seen a head of cabbage like this one! It had many small heads growing out around the stem, between the leaves.

One of the little boys was quite impressed with the bumblebees on the sunflowers.

One day’s harvest of cucumbers and squash.

Little Miss helped me fill jars of green beans one day. She did a good job of it.

We did an experiment this year with the tomatoes. After reading on the blog of one of Gayle’s cousins how she fertilized her tomatoes with sour milk and had very good results, I decided to try diluting the whey from cheesemaking and the buttermilk we couldn’t use up from making butter, and water the tomatoes with it. To make it a good experiment, we only did that with half the patch. The tomatoes on the right came from the milk-fed tomatoes, and the ones on the left came from the others. I would say the experiment was a success!

Children and Kittens—February 2017

March 8, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One day when I was hanging out laundry, Little Miss found this headdress that her daddy wears at work to cover his hair and beard. She thought it was great fun to try on!

Little Miss wanted me to take a picture of Princess’s feet!

Bandit going out the living room window.

What fun! A box with a hole in the side!

Mr. Inventor bringing the little ones in for dinner.

One cool morning I lit the fire in the coal range. Princess spent a lot of the morning on this stool in front of it, soaking in the heat.

Little Miss was excited one morning to find a kitten asleep in the dirty laundry pile. She covered the kitten up, so I carefully picked up the pile of laundry and put it in a basket so no one would step on the invisible kitten. Then, both of them ended up in the soft “bed”.

Little Miss is playing with dolls more and more. Here, she was carefully covering up her baby’s toes. When I put her in bed at night, and she has a teddy bear with her, she wants me to cover its feet, too!

Mr. Inventor’s latest project: a recumbent bike. It’s still in the process of being made, but he rides it around a lot.

Trying to sync the front wheels so steering is easier, and fix the chain.

Kubb

February 27, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We have learned a new game this year. It’s very fun, everyone can be involved, and it gets people outside and active. Win, win! This game is called Kubb, and apparently originated in Sweden—possibly as far back as Viking times. Basically, you throw batons to try to knock over pieces of 2x4s, while avoiding a larger piece of wood set up in the center. It’s very easy to make the game—just get yourself a length of 2×4, a length of 1-inch dowel, and a chunk of 4×4. Read the rules on the Wikipedia page here. We’ve learned that Mr. Inventor is the man to have on your team; he almost invariably wins. This game is addictive. I’ve found that you want to keep going, hoping against hope that eventually you’ll actually hit a target! Here are pictures of the game we played together last week.

The spectators. We had to keep moving them out of the playing field. Once, they were stretched out on their tummies, watching us throw!

Sometimes you get to stack up several Kubbs. That makes it easy to knock them down!

We were all amused when Princess chased one of the throwing sticks!

It can be very difficult to get the stack to balance sometimes!

Children—January 2017

February 9, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

This is just a random collection of pictures I found on the camera of the children from the past month.

Mr. Sweetie picking cherries the second Sunday of the month.

Mr. Imagination’s reaction when I told him we were working on buying plane tickets to go to America in June. Think he likes the idea? We’re all excited!

To go to America, we have to get American passports for the two youngest. Mr. Imagination has one, but it will be expired before we go, and we haven’t done Little Miss’s American paperwork at all yet. So, one morning Esther and I worked on getting passport pictures taken. That’s a challenge!

We have a family staying with us for awhile. One day I was harvesting cabbage, with help from several children, and Mr. Sweetie found his head covered with cabbage leaves after I trimmed the head!

Mr. Inventor went to work again on his well. He got it dug down to about six meters below the surface, with about two meters of water in the bottom, but then the bottom caved in before we were able to try pumping out of it. I love his imagination and ability to make do.

Little Miss pretending to be asleep.

Mr. Sweetie wanted me to take a picture of him with this tower.

Kittens and Children

January 29, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We are really enjoying our kittens! They are so fun to watch, especially for about an hour first thing in the morning when they race all around the living room, over and around the furniture, and over my lap while I’m reading the Bible. Little Miss loves to carry them around. Princess, the black one, is very patient and gentle with her, although she’s the roughest when she’s playing with the rest of us. Bandit, the gray one, though he’s a cuddler with the rest of us, hates to be carried by Little Miss, and sometimes scratches her! She’s offended—but it doesn’t stop her from doing it again!

Mr. Sweetie with Bandit

Little Miss with Bandit

and with Princess

A fight happening on top of Daddy

and another fight on top of Mr. Intellectual

Bandit tried to ride bike! I didn’t quite manage to get a picture of him trying to figure out our mirror, but it was quite funny.

Little ones love kittens! Mr. Imagination and Little Miss

One afternoon, these two spent several hours asleep on a chair under the table. As they moved around in their sleep, they took turns falling off the chair and getting back up.

End of December 2016 Pictures

January 16, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Here are the rest of our pictures from December.

Mr. Inventor dropped a piece he needed to work on a pump into our underground cistern, so he put on his swimming trunks and went down into that cold water to retrieve it. He was glad to be able to pick it up with his toes, so he didn’t have to go all the way under. Mr. Diligence took the picture.

Mr. Diligence also took this one. He and Mr. Inventor were perched in an oak tree. Mr. Diligence has a new camera, which he keeps in a case on his belt, so he gets some interesting pictures. I’m glad he lets me look at his memory card sometimes!

Mr. Sweetie, piling up long grass that Mr. Inventor had just mowed, to mulch the garden.

Mr. Diligence was pretty impressed with this egg, about twice the size of a normal hen’s egg! The poor chicken who laid it.

Gayle took Mr. Intellectual and Mr. Diligence on a picnic one Saturday. They walked around a new trail in the Domain, and came across a family of ferrets.