The garden is nearly done for the year, and not pretty anymore, but I decided to make one more video of it, to record some observations I have made recently. I’m not completely sure I have come to the correct conclusions, but preliminary observations seem to indicate that compost is pretty powerful!
Video
Tiger Moth
Sometime in early March I was in Greymouth with the children and we noticed three small planes flying over in a triangle formation. They circled around in front of us and came toward us, in a straight line. We happened to be driving past the “airport” at that moment, and realized they were planning to land, so we pulled over to watch, since we had noticed by then that all three were biplanes. After they landed, we drove around to where we could get a better look at them, and several more that were already pulled up to the hanger. In the next day’s paper, we learned that they were Tiger Moths, and the owners were making a tour around the island. How fun to see them!
Garden–February 2025
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!
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.
