Random Photos

A lot of things happened in May! Here are the rest of our photos that we wanted to share. This first one was taken when Elijah was experimenting with the camera on his new phone. He took it down the hill when he was taking care of the chickens one evening as the moon rose.

Elijah took this one when he went up the road one day to try to find a place where he didn’t have cell service. He’s been paying for satellite connectivity for a few months, but it wasn’t working, so he kept testing different things and communicating with his phone company about it. They finally found a setting that was not turned on, in his phone. He thought I would like to see this waterfall (I did!).

Two friends (Mr. Imagination and a friend of his) eating jalapenos. These jalapenos hardly have any spice–very disappointing! I think I watered them too much.

Simon spent a week cutting and welding to mount a winch on his Land Rover.

The girls spent an evening building a zoo.

This is a space right next to our church in Reefton.

My last hatching of chicks for the season. That batch of eggs wasn’t very fertile; I only ended up with 31 babies from 56 eggs.

There was a large patch of these toadstools at a place where we had a homeschool gathering. Before Little Miss could get a picture, though, most had been knocked over.

Ahh… a fire!

Esther came upon a fascinating YouTube channel about Tudor farm life. After we watched one segment, Little Miss created paint brushes the way it was done then.

As I was working in the garden one day, Miss Joy joined me and spent a long time investigating earthworms!

Another day, she helped Esther peel garlic to put in the freezer, so that she could watch the video about 19th-century breadmaking that Esther had playing.

A woolen blanket next to the fire! What bliss. It didn’t matter to Princess that the shape was bumpy.

Esther went away for a weekend, and the girls decorated their room to welcome her home.

Joe wanted another picture of his screw when he had another checkup.

Here are the rest of my pictures from January. The big project in January was to replace the roof of our church, Reefton Baptist. The building is an old A-frame Scout hall. The first picture here was the day they trimmed trees away from the building and took part of a wall off, and started taking the top off the chimney.

The next Saturday, more people went. They took off the old roof and replaced it, and a couple of people spent the whole day jackhammering and sawing the chimney to finish taking it down below the level of the roof. They had the building water-tight by late that night.

Little Miss wanted a picture of my harvest one morning.

One day, Mom and I took the three youngest on a walk to the bridge. We located all three geocaches that are around the bridge–what fun!

Esther was in Timaru for a couple of weeks in January, and one evening she sent me a picture of the sunset. I returned the favor–ours was more brilliant!

The budgies are tamer all the time. Mr. Imagination enjoys them.

So do the girls!

When I went to the greenhouse one day to work, I found two cats enjoying the dry warmth in there!

A friend of ours bought a berry farm last year. He allowed us to come in and pick crops that would be going to waste. These were blueberry bushes in among tayberries. We came home with enough blueberries to last us most of the year!

Picking peas and beans is very enjoyable–see all the colors!

I’m not going to attempt to organize these pictures into categories. I’ve had enough trouble getting anything posted that I’ll just put them up in a few posts.

We finally threw this old foam mattress out, after it hadn’t been used in many years and was just taking up valuable space. The girls had fun with it for a couple of days, and then Mr. Imagination cut it into pieces for archery targets.

Some friends from Australia came to visit one evening, and the girls appropriated the man’s hat and sunglasses for a little while!

The cat got dressed up, too. Think she liked it?

One of Mr. Imagination’s knives.

One Sunday we had lunch with and spent the afternoon with some friends at Maruia. They have an outdoor aviary with a number of budgies, and the girls enjoyed seeing them.

This is the view from their deck, as one storm after another rolled through the mountains.

We did a lot of puzzles with Mom. That was a great way to spend relaxed time together! This first one was Miss Joy’s; the others were a group effort.

We had another hatch of chicks in January. After I took them out, while the unhatched eggs were still in the incubator, Princess took a nap with them. As soon as I started picking them up, to take them outside and open them to see what went wrong, she was wide awake. She knows that they will be her snack!

I have not been keeping up with posting photos of our life very well! I guess this will just be a photo dump from November. Can you guess who took the first one? Yes, the cat lover–Miss Joy!

I’m guessing one of the girls took this picture, too, of a snail on the lemon tree.

Little Miss climbed the tall tree in our garden one day and took a lot of pictures. Our parking area was almost empty that day! The pink house is ours.

I took this picture one day while we were preparing the garden for planting. It sure looks different now! It’s a jungle today.

We were pulling up self-sown parsnips in this area.

We had visitors one day and I grabbed a picture of the water-gun fight to send to the friend who gave them the water guns.

When the children came inside a little while later they were cold, so Miss Joy got a pan of warm water for herself, and shared it with her three friends!

The greenhouse blew apart in the big storm the end of October, so the boys spent a couple of Saturdays rebuilding it. It is very nice now, except that the end wall still needs covered.

Towards evening, we heard the ice cream truck come through our village. A couple of the boys ran out to buy ice creams for everyone–think they enjoyed their treat?

Elijah saw the Southern Lights on the way home from work one night, and was able to capture them with his phone.

I think these two pictures should actually have been in the October post. We had a big truckload of compost delivered, and it had to be dumped on the edge of the street, so we spent an entire afternoon working hard and fast to move half of it in order to clear off the tarseal. We were glad, a few days later, that we had done that when the ambulance came to pick up the lady who lives in that house beside our garden. (This is the end of the street–it just stops there.)

Another cat-lover’s picture?

Sighting in the slingshot rifle he built. He actually killed a starling with it!

Here are the rest of the pictures I have from before we left home for our visit to the United States.

A new house is being built in front of us. The man for whom James and Joe work was hired to do the job. One day when they ran out of other work, they started building wall frames. It was pouring that morning, so James threw up a roof to shelter the saw.

By evening of the second day, they had all the frames built and stacked up–and then the boss dropped his nail gun down the stack! Joe was the only one small enough to climb down and get it; the other option was to unscrew the frames and dismantle the stack!

I went out and offered to take a picture of them with their pile.

Simon went hunting one night and got a pig. We turned all of it into sausage meat, and while I was mincing it, the girls used it for playdough. (Hands washed before and after!)

I loved seeing so many of my children lined up one evening, so tried taking a picture. Well, did you know what happens when a flash is used with hi-vis clothing? Rather startling!

I spent a lot of time sewing for the girls in preparation for our trip. I found simple patterns for both their sizes, and had a lot of fun. It’s satisfying to create something pretty as well as useful.

The girls got the Jenga blocks out to play with.

More work on the new house. This was assembling the forms to pour the pad. It was a different system than they have ever used before, and they aren’t impressed with the price. James is at the right in orange; Joe is in the middle with yellow rain pants.

The day I went to town to buy a washer, I stopped on the way home to take a picture of the cloud flowing across the Brunner Gorge near Dobson.

The chicken house that burned down is being replaced! By the time I left, there were walls and rafters, but I hadn’t gotten a picture.

Apparently, Joe was trying out a remote to take a picture from my phone, and he and a visiting friend were having fun!

This is a Bowie knife that Mr. Imagination made. I told him it must remain hidden!