Simon

Simon’s Life

August 6, 2023 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

One day last week, I had an errand to run which took me about halfway to the farm on which Simon is working, so I decided to take the four younger children to visit him at work. He has been living and working on a dairy farm about 45 minutes’ drive from us since he got clearance to go back to work in March, and he seems to really be enjoying it! Several other members of the family had been up there to see where he lives, but I hadn’t been there yet, so I was glad to finally see his house.

He took this Safari up there a few weeks after he moved, so that he would have something to do in the evenings after work. He bought the vehicle a couple of years ago, and he’s been working on restoring it ever since. It had a lot of rust that had to be cut out and new metal welded in, and the whole thing needed to be painted. He’s getting close to ready to put it on the road again and try to sell it; at the moment he is building a new bumper for it.

The view from Simon’s back door. The white roofs are the two barns that farm uses for housing the cows when the weather is nasty. The milking shed is close to them, but not visible behind the other worker’s house beside Simon’s house.

Simon hard at work. He was milking around 2-300 cows that day. There are 800 on the farm, but they haven’t all calved yet. It was interesting to see how a rotary shed works. The boys were quite fascinated, and wanted to go back after we visited the calf shed.

Lots of calves! Two ladies work full time to care for them right now. And look at the view those calves (and the people who care for them) have!

The scenery on the way to Simon’s place was amazing, too. I thoroughly enjoyed the snow on the mountains.

Simon’s New Life

September 20, 2022 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A little over a month ago, Simon quit his job as a mechanic and started a new job at a dairy farm. He has always said that he wanted to farm, and was getting very tired of being inside all the time. He moved to the farm at the beginning of calving, so he was rather dumped into the deep end. All at once, he had to learn how to milk, how to rear calves, and how to fend for himself! He and another man who lives on the farm work together to cook their meals. He’s learned a lot about feeding himself in the last month. He was very overwhelmed the first couple of weeks, but has gotten to the point where he really enjoys his work now.

We all went up there the day before he moved to the farm, to have a look at it. It is about 45 minutes away, to the south of us, at the base of the mountains. Here we are having a look at the milking shed, a double 34 herringbone.

We also went up a couple of Saturday evenings after he moved, and took a meal along. Esther took a few pictures the second time, since it was still daylight. This is Lake Haupiri on the way up (Gloriavale is just on the other side of the lake.)

These next two pictures are valleys we saw on the way to the farm.

Simon spends a lot of time feeding calves in these sheds.

The sunset we enjoyed from Simon’s house was incredible! I just stood there at the window and soaked it up for awhile.

Esther also got some video clips of the calves–and Miss Joy. She loves calves!

Celebrating Simon

December 26, 2021 by NZ Filbruns 1 Comment

Simon recently completed his apprenticeship, and is now a fully-qualified mechanic. His boss put on a party this week to celebrate. I had been thinking about doing it myself, but the boss wanted to combine it with an end-of-year party, so that worked out well. The family who run the workshop where Simon works did most of the work for the party, although we had it at another friend’s house. These people have an outdoor pizza oven, so pizza was the main course of the meal. A number of people helped get the pizzas ready to go in the oven. The owner had built a fire in the oven earlier in the day, and then scraped the fire out when it was time to bake the pizzas.

One of the boss’s daughters made the Land Rover pinata, and Elijah bought a race car pinata in town. There was plenty of candy!

They had a lot of fun with the drinks! I didn’t get any pictures of the dessert bar, but the idea was to build your own car, with pink wafers for panels, oreo cookies for wheels, jello for grease, different colors of custard for paint, and other bits and pieces, like nuts and bolts made out of chocolate. There was also ice cream. Some people got very creative, but it didn’t occur to me to take a picture till all the creations had been eaten.

The children had a lot of fun, hopping around in feed sacks while the older children played soccer. Some of them tried to hop up this steep bank to the house with their feet in a feed sack!

Simon has these two certificates as a record of his accomplishment.

It was a great evening, with lots of talking and laughing (and good food!), as well as a time when anyone who wanted to give Simon some encouragement could stand up and give a speech.

Spinning Wheels

January 4, 2018 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Simon has been home for two weeks over the holidays, and we have really been enjoying having him here! There’s nothing like someone being away for awhile to make you thoroughly enjoy having him around again. He has been doing a number of construction projects, and having a lot of fun, too. One evening, he took an electric motor and fastened a round plate to it. Then, he used it to get a bicycle wheel spinning fast and tried to make it jump over various ramps. Esther got some video clips of this on her phone, and let me put them together into a short video to share here. (Enjoy, Grandma!)

Nelson Creek

November 12, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

After we visited the gold dredge, we drove to Nelson Creek to explore a bit in an old goldfield. Simon was very happy to drive some of us in his car. He was careful, and never scared his mom!

To get to the swing bridge, we first went through this tunnel.

If you don’t like walking on bridges that bounce, this one is not for you! Even with noone trying to bounce it, it still did a lot. I crossed it, but I really didn’t like it.

Looking upstream from the bridge—yes, it was drizzly.

I thought it was appropriate that the water was somewhat gold-colored!

After we crossed that little side creek, we started up this trail. I couldn’t possibly capture the scenery here; there were steep banks going up both sides of the trail. We were walking at the bottom of a deep ravine. It was amazing to walk through this area!

When we reached this cave, of course everyone had to explore it. It was a mining tunnel dug by the Chinese gold miners in the late 1800s. A creek runs through the bottom of it, into Nelson Creek. We enjoyed seeing glowworms in the ceiling—but our feet got cold! The water was frigid.

This is Simon, in a part of the tunnel some 20 feet above where Esther and Little Miss were standing in the picture above! He was pointing out the marks left by the mining picks in the ceiling around him. It was very dark, and my flash wouldn’t reach to where he was, so that’s why it’s blurry.

Going back through the ravine. The boys explored another tunnel they found, but some of us stayed on the path.

It lightened up a little as we crossed the bridge again going back to the car!

Gold Dredge

November 6, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Simon has been telling us about a gold dredge that he likes to ride a motorbike to in the evenings after work, so we wanted to see it while we were there. It’s across the road and through some paddocks from where he lives, near the banks of the Grey River.

We drove as far as we could, then parked the vehicles and walked the rest of the way. It was drizzling, as it did the entire time we were over there—when it wasn’t pouring! There were a few five-minute times that the sun shone, but then the clouds would close in again.

This is the gold dredge, from a distance.

We crossed this bridge to get to it.

The water weeds were quite interesting under the bridge.

A close-up of the dredge. It is enormous!

Look closely; you can see buckets inside here that are used to dig 10 meters deep. They haven’t run this dredge for several years, but they would dig out gravel and sand, then separate the rocks from the small stuff. The rocks were pushed out the back; you can see a huge pile of them behind the machine. Then, they ran water through the sand and ran it over a series of riffles. The sand ran off, and the heavier gold dust stayed behind. This dredge would move back and forth to dig up all the ground, and it took the water with it—it’s always floating. They would level out the tailings behind it, and then gorse and broom would grow on the rocks. After several years, someone would spray the gorse and broom and the ground would grow grass for animals. We were told that this is the best way to make productive land in the area. Before the dredge went through, the land was swamp, good for nothing except growing sandflies; after, we saw herds of cattle grazing on it.

Visit to Simon

November 1, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Since Monday the 23rd of October was a holiday, we decided to go visit Simon. We were pleased to discover that, even with our somewhat weak van, it only took four hours to get there, since we weren’t towing anything this time. We got there at lunchtime Saturday, and left right after lunch on Monday. We enjoyed getting to spend time with our boy and the family he lives with, and see where he lives and works. This room is his sleepout, on the deck attached to the house.

All five boys slept in the sleepout for the weekend.

This is Simon’s car, which he bought a few weeks ago. Apparently, it was completely covered with moss, which took a few hours to waterblast off.

The workshop where he spends his days.

This is the house, when you approach it from the workshop.

Simon’s sleepout is at the far right.

The front of the house. This was the Ngahere Hotel until the family Simon lives with bought it about a year and a half ago. It was in quite bad shape inside, having been very neglected even though it was still in use. They have done a lot of work and turned it into a large, nice house.

Simon

September 11, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Mr. Inventor turned 16 a month ago! How time flies. I remember so clearly the loooong week of waiting after his due date before he finally arrived, on the hottest day that summer (I’m positive it was the hottest, anyway!). He was my shortest labor to that point, and I remember being slightly in shock that it was over so quickly. And now, since he is 16 and has moved away from home to begin a new job, I’ll start calling him by name on here, Simon. One less nickname to remember to use!

We all went together to buy him a tap and die set, which he had been wanting for a couple of years, for his birthday. It didn’t come in time, so Mr. Diligence went to town and bought a box of ice cream and some cones. He worked hard to make the biggest stack of ice cream possible on top of the cone, and then put it in the freezer. After we ate dinner, Simon asked, jokingly, “When am I going to get my chocolate ice cream cone?” Mr. Diligence had been teasing him that we were plotting to get him chocolate ice cream. Was Simon ever surprised when he was presented with this cone! Even though he shared a bit with his little sister, it took him two sittings to get through it.

He was very pleased with his tap and die set when it came!

And for those of you who are wondering, he is working for a mechanic, planning to start an apprenticeship with him after a 3-month trial period to make sure he wants to do it. He is living with the family, a lovely Christian family with eight children, about 4 hours from us across the mountains, on the West Coast.

Strange People

May 14, 2017 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

We had some very strange-looking people in our house this evening. First, this apparition appeared:

He wouldn’t tell us his name, but we think maybe it was Mr. Imagination. Sure sounded like his giggle, anyway! Then, a little while later, this one showed up in the kitchen:

Later, after we ate, we were treated to a sword-swallowing show. I’ll let you catch a brief glimpse of Mr. Inventor’s skills.

Mr. Inventor

December 9, 2015 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Mr. Inventor has been very busy living up to his nickname lately. Here are pictures of some of his projects just in the past week.

He built a forge out of an old 20-pound propane cylinder. He had watched a YouTube clip online, and and added his own ideas. He cut off the top of the cylinder and attached a pipe to the lower side to which he attached an air pump. Then, he lined the lower 2/3 or so of the tank with an inch or two of clay and let it dry for a day. He started a fire in it with wood, and then added coal to get a very hot fire. He was able to get it really hot by pumping air in.

After getting the bar of steel red hot, he beat it on a piece of railroad rail with his hammer to try to make a chisel. He later ended up melting this end of the steel, though, when he was experimenting to see how hot he could get it! When he pulled it out of the fire one time, part of the bar was missing.

He made this handle for a chisel with his wood lathe.

He also built this hand-crank bench grinder one day. He spent a lot of time on YouTube trying to find directions for building something like this, but couldn’t find any, so he made it up himself, if I understood right. He wanted to make another, and make a video of it to post on YouTube for other boys to watch who want to make the same thing! He used the bike pedal that was originally attached to the gear at first, then made this handle on his lathe. He likes the bike pedal better, though, because it’s easier to turn. Actually, now he’s saying to take off the pedal but leave the bolt it turns on.

He’s also using his lathe again to make wooden bowls. There has been a lot of creativity here in the past week!

After the bowl is shaped and sanded, he oils it for several days with olive oil. These bowls are beautiful!

Of course, the boys had to have fun with the forge, too! Besides melting aluminum and making odd shapes with it (Mr. Intellectual has now made a clay mold in which he wants to try casting an aluminum signet ring), this short video shows some of their other fun. And by the way, after only doing this trick four times, the bucket of water was hotter than dishwater!