Just over a week ago I took a video of a walk through the garden. We hadn’t had rain, at that point, for about a month and a half, but a few days later, we got 2 1/2 inches over the course of 2-3 days, and everything is a lot happier! We’re bringing in bushels of food; yesterday Esther picked 46 kg (2 banana boxes) of tomatoes. Yum!
Video
Mountain Climb
Once a month, Simon has a three-day weekend off from work. On his weekend in November, he and some friends came up with the idea of climbing a mountain early in the morning to see the sun rise. They left here at 3:30 on the Saturday morning and drove about 20 minutes to a track that goes up into the Paparoa Mountains, a low range between us and the Tasman Sea. They were at the top in time for sunrise, but clouds came up with the sun and they didn’t see much of that. They had great fun, though, and the scenery they did get to enjoy was amazing! This is the town just below the mountain.
One of the boys found this bottle in a tree.
Elijah took this picture for Grandma, for obvious reasons.
Simon in silhouette.
The track goes to this group of cell towers, which are visible from our house if you know where to look.
They found some sort of vine that they could swing on. I enjoyed these video clips, so thought I’d share them.
November 2024 Photos
One afternoon, Esther and Elijah walked around the block and took their little sisters, who rode their bicycles.
Esther watched this starling building a nest in the garage roof. She was amused by the size of its load! Apparently, it didn’t get much of that load to its destination.
Esther also took this picture of a sunset. We got some smoke from Australian bushfires, so that’s probably part of why the colors were so vivid.
Miss Joy is learning to read! That’s slightly bittersweet, because it means my baby is no longer a baby. I love watching her learn, though. I took this video sometime in November, when she had just started to read stories. She was delighted with her new skill and wanted Grandma to hear her.
I found the girls having a picnic in the garden one day.
Miss Joy wanted me to take a picture of her with foxgloves on her fingers and her crinkle-cutter in her hand!
The Garden in December
We finally finished planting the garden–although, to be honest, that is a job that never really finishes, since I keep planting little bits throughout the year. The most of it is done, though, and to celebrate, and as a way of keeping a record, I took a video as I walked through. So, if you want to see what we’re doing right now, have a look!
September 2024 Photos
Here are the rest of the pictures we took in September! This was the one picture I took when I went to the HEART retreat for homeschool moms near Christchurch. The view over Lyttleton Harbour is so beautiful!
Bluebell had her calf while I was away that weekend–a little bull. He’s very healthy, unlike her calf last year.
When Gayle and I went to Christchurch, we had a little extra time, so we stopped to walk through a park. The flowers were beautiful!
Esther often reads aloud in the evenings. One evening I noticed how enthralled these boys were. They were both listening intently!
The older boys went hunting and got more venison for us.
The youngest three love playing and taking pictures of each other and what they are doing.
I always enjoy seeing and hearing the tuis when they come in the spring. One morning while I was hanging laundry I got to see these two.
Cats
We continue to enjoy watching our goofy cats, and teasing them. Of course, any new surface must be sat on–this sheet of newspaper was obviously the best place around for taking a bath!
The house the little girls made was a great place to hide out, too–especially when we were trying to catch Princess to put her outside!
One evening, James started teasing Princess, and it was so funny I grabbed my phone to get a video of it.
Mr. Sweetie was amused at Grizzly enjoying the sun on top of our ute one day.
The picture above, of Grizzly from behind, reminds me of Capyboppy in the book by that title–a capybara that was a pet for awhile. This is the picture:
A friend stayed here with our boys for a few days, and the last day he was so worn out that I found this!
The Conking Donkey
Mr. Imagination was assigned to write and perform a puppet show as part of his Language Arts program. He chose to adapt one of Aesop’s Fables from a book we have, and got his older brother to help perform it. This video was taken during a practice run, and then they performed it for our homeschool group the next day. The first few seconds are blurry, and then the camera got focused, so hold on till you can see what is happening.
This is the story he was inspired by:
Leaf Fun
When the leaves fell off the peach trees in May, the three youngest had great fun raking them up and playing in them. I remember loving maple trees when I was young, because of the wonderful leaf piles! This isn’t as good, but as close as our children are likely to get to that. While they were playing with the leaves, they got the idea of making a movie about it. I’m not sure what the plot was supposed to be, if any, but I put together the clips they got. You might want to turn it off when it starts getting crazy–when all three are tumbling together in the pile.
January 2024 Photos
I’ve finally finished posting the pictures from our North Island trip! Now to catch up on the photos from around home. Here are the rest from January.
After a couple of four wheel drive trips, the boys’ trucks were in need of a wash. Miss Joy happily helped operate the power washer!
James spent more time working on his sleepout. This was the day he started cladding the outside.
The boys cleaned the carport and garage. They decided it was time to get rid of this old stationary engine that had been sitting there for about three years. Simon wanted to restore it and get it working again, but finally gave up. Elijah listed it on Trade Me for a $1 reserve auction, and it went up over $250! The next challenge was to load it on the buyer’s truck. This was the test run with the tractor-mounted crane that Simon and James built to hoist cattle they are butchering. It worked, so when the buyer came to get the engine, that’s how they lifted it! The engine had wheels under it, so it was easy to get it out of the carport, but too heavy to lift by hand.
We went to Nelson Creek for a baptism one Sunday afternoon, and of course the children wanted to swim.
See what James has on his feet to go swimming? They were actually very light-weight boots, full of holes so they didn’t fill up with water.
I think this was taken down at the river.
Little Miss wanted to make braided bread, so Esther helped her.
Part of the second hatch of chicks. It’s so fun to see them hatching!
Huka Falls
Our last stop that morning was Huka Falls. Now, what do you think about when you hear a term like that? I picture a vertical waterfall, and since this was such an attraction I figured it would be a very tall one. What a surprise, then, to walk through a row of trees from the carpark and see this! The first picture is the view upstream, and the second is looking downstream from the bridge over the falls.
I called Simon on a video call while we were on the bridge. He had tried to call me the night before and I missed him, so since this was his lunch break I got hold of him. That way, he got to see what we were seeing, in real time, and we could hear about what had just happened to him. The gear box on his truck had blown up the day before, and he was borrowing one of our vehicles, so we had some things we needed to discuss (no, it wasn’t a problem that he was borrowing a vehicle from us!).
Looking back upstream toward the bridge, after we walked down to another viewing platform.
At the end of the narrow gorge, the water leaps over a ledge and rushes away.
And, of course, we took a video of this, too! It has to be seen in action to be believed.
Huka Falls was not quite our last stop of the morning. Before heading back to our friends’ house for lunch, we stopped at an overlook from which most of the city of Taupo could be seen. My favorite part of the scene was the mountain that stands over the city and the lake.
Late that afternoon, Gayle took the children to swim in the lake. It was chilly, so they didn’t stay long, but they had a lot of fun collecting pumice that washed up on the shore. When they got back, we gave the girls a bubble bath–the first one in their lives! What fun!
