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You are here: Home / Archives for West Coast

West Coast

Painting

October 4, 2026 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I spent most of July painting. It all started one day in late June when I decided to clean behind a cabinet in the entryway. I pulled it out and found this behind it. I decided it was time to do more than try to clean old wallpaper.

Next step: peel off the wallpaper.

When James got home, he decided that the whole area needed to be skim-coated with plaster before I repainted.

Then, I decided to do the rest of the room. On the opposite side, in an area set off from the rest of the room, this is what I found. When we moved her, there was a water heater in the corner where there are slits in the wall. A couple of years later, it started to leak, and obviously, all that water went up into the wall. James pulled all the old gib board off, since it was so moldy.

This is what we found behind the gib board! This corner must have been outside the house at one time. I like the shade of blue! He filled the walls in with new gib left over from jobs, and then plastered the seams when he skim coated the rest of the room.

While I was waiting for that to be done, I decided to tackle the kitchen. The paint job in there has been bothering me for a year or two already, and there were a lot of holes that needed to be filled in. James ended up spending several evenings plastering those holes. The ceiling used to be the same blue as the walls; I decided to change it to white, but keep the blue for the walls.

I really like the way it turned out. It feels a lot brighter, and much, much cleaner now.

Finally, this past week we finished what we wanted to do in the entryway. We moved the fridge and cabinet to a different wall, and swapped the coats to the opposite wall from where they had been. James built a shelf for the coffee machine, and another boy built shelves for shoes. I got to paint both of those. We’re loving the new look and layout!

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: Ahaura, House Renovation, West Coast

August 2026 Photos

September 6, 2026 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

I think this happens every year–we take so many pictures early in the year that I get way behind with posting them, and then in the winter we nearly hibernate and I get all caught up. One of the younger girls took this picture one sunny day, and I loved it. Notice Princess, to the far left? She is convinced that all cats are terrible–even though those other two are her daughters. Grizzly, the one to the far right, is the fattest cat I’ve ever had. She weighs 7 kilograms.

This was a wedding the girls held one day. It took a lot of ingenuity to make the audience sit up.

Toothpick arrows to go with a miniature bow.

We played Code Names one day, and this boy decided to model the spy look.

The girls decorated a bicycle one day.

Reepicheep loves wet lettuce. First he bathes himself by rubbing all over it, and then eats it. Usually he gets it in his cage, but someone gave him some in the window one day.

This clown makes funny faces! He thought he turned it off before I took a picture…

The little girls fixed a tea party for Esther and I one sunny afternoon. They had great fun!

For her birthday meal, Miss Joy wanted Ambrosia.

This is the time of year for rainbows!

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: Ahaura, Random Photos, West Coast

Lemons!

August 30, 2026 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One thing I loved about this house when we bought it was the big lemon tree beside our side door, the one we use the most. This year it had more lemons on it than I’ve ever seen before. They were starting to rot and fall off last week, so I decided to pick most of them and juice them, then freeze the juice in ice cube containers to use later. Aren’t they gorgeous? I would guess we won’t get very many this next year, though, since the tree has put so much energy into this crop. I’ll prune it, instead. Lemon trees thrive on pruning, but when the branches are laden with fruit I can’t bring myself to cut them off. By the way, what I picked was only about 2/3 of the total–the tree still has a lot on it!

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: Ahaura, Garden, Homemaking, West Coast

More of Elijah’s Pictures

August 16, 2026 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Elijah spent a week in Franz Josef for work recently, and this picture was on his phone from that time. He sees some amazing scenery on the job!

This was another day, and close to home. Elijah helped get a round bale for the cattle, and took this picture looking east toward the mountains. When it’s not raining here, it is gorgeous!

For this week’s LandSAR training, he had to start a fire without matches, out in the bush. It was raining, which added to the challenge. He used a plastic tarp he carries in his pack to shield the fire, and ended up with the best fire of anyone in his group.

He also went to a larger course with LandSAR this week, to learn better how to use stretchers and ropes. It was held at Fox Glacier (the town), and the pictures he came home with are amazing! Mount Cook is in the second and third pictures, mostly obscured behind clouds in the center. Fox Glacier (the ice) is in the valley in the center of the first picture.

Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: Elijah, Fox Glacier, Franz Josef Glacier, West Coast

July 2026 Photos

August 9, 2026 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Princess loves this basket! No matter how lumpy the things stored in it, she’ll curl up and sleep here for hours.

Two of our church families own a dairy farm, and they invited us for a bonfire the evening of Matariki (Maori New Years). It was a cold, frosty night, but it was a great time to sit around a fire and roast sausages and marshmallows, and just be together. On the way there, I was admiring the silhouette of the mountains, and tried to get a picture of them in the sunset light.

I had to take Mr. Imagination to Christchurch one day to see an eye specialist because he injured one eye (it’s fine now), and on the way home we enjoyed seeing the sunset light reflected on the mountains. It was much more beautiful than this picture can show.

One of the many creations we get to enjoy.

This rainbow was visible on the way home from church one afternoon. We see many rainbows here!

The table broke one day, and Elijah fixed it. So wonderful to have handymen around!

We went to Greymouth for another eye appointment, and had an extra half hour or more, so the children and I explored the quay. We’ve never taken time for that, and really enjoyed it!

I went shopping in my favorite supermarket one day, and collected all these ingredients for a couple of meals.

One of the girls made this for her breakfast one morning.

Miss Joy got hold of my phone one evening and took pictures of everyone.

The little girls and I met some of my friends at a cafe in Reefton for lunch one day. When I spotted this collage on the wall, I took a picture for Elijah, who collects stamps.

The girls like dolling each other up and then taking pictures!

This bird loves screens. The children practice their typing by racing cars on the computer, and Reepicheep chases the cars across the screen. Rather distracting!

Filed Under: Activities at Home, Away From Home Tagged With: Ahaura, Mountains, Random Photos, West Coast

June 2026 Photos

August 2, 2026 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

There are just a few more photos left from June that I haven’t used yet! I took this first one when we spent a day in town. We ate lunch at the Greymouth breakwall at the mouth of the Grey River. It was a beautiful day, and we could see the snow-capped Southern Alps way off in the distance, including Mount Cook. If you can zoom in enough, you should be able to see them just right of the center of the horizon.

I spent an afternoon cleaning dead bean vines off the trellis, and Miss Joy helped me. She wanted to climb as high as she could!

Her sharp eyes spotted a spider on this post. I had a hard time seeing it with the naked eye, and it’s harder yet in this picture! It’s along the left side, just below center.

Miss Joy wanted a picture of her hair done up like this when the girls were playing one afternoon.

This was the front view of her costume!

Esther came across a series on YouTube about life in Tudor England, and after watching one episode, Mr. Imagination and the girls created this eel trap. They decided, after completing it and watching an eel go in, grab the bait and go back out, that our eels are longer than English eels. Needless to say after that, they haven’t caught anything.

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: Ahaura, Random Photos, West Coast

Big River? Not Today!

July 19, 2026 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

A couple of weeks ago, the boys took some friends who were visiting on a four wheel drive trip up the Big River track. They decided to do an easy track this time so they wouldn’t break anything. They got a short distance up the track, and found a washout. That took some time, while they jacked up the back corner of each truck and put rocks under. They kept going; about halfway to the end, they came to a tree across the track. They had failed to take chain saws along, but had an axe and a hatchet, so they attacked the tree with that. Once they had gotten through the tree (best guess is that it was a red birch; it was extremely hard wood), they pulled it off the track with a strap. In doing that, one of the trucks nearly went over the cliff–see the last several seconds of the second video. I’m glad I wasn’t there. They pulled the truck back up, and turned around to go home. They got here just before dark!

Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: Big River, Four Wheel Driving, West Coast

Photos by Elijah

July 12, 2026 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

Elijah’s phone takes very good pictures! I enjoy seeing what he has come up with.

He found this little frog in the garden one evening and brought it in to show us.

He spent a week in June working in Fox Glacier. The scenery there is stunning!

One morning before they started work, his boss took him out to Lake Matheson to enjoy the beauty and take pictures. His boss is an accomplished photographer, and gave Elijah some good tips for composition.

Filed Under: Away From Home Tagged With: Elijah, Fox Glacier, West Coast

May 2026 Photos

July 5, 2026 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

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.

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: Ahaura, Random Photos, West Coast

New Floor!

June 28, 2026 by NZ Filbruns Leave a Comment

One day in early May, Esther went into our shipping container to find something that was stored in there. She was horrified to find evidence of mice. We had never had mice find their way in there before, but sure enough, when I went in, it smelled strongly of them. That was on Saturday. We helped someone move on Monday, so Tuesday was our first chance to get into the container. We decided to pull everything out of the area under the shelves and see if we could find where the mice were getting in. We found it! See the hole in the corner and the pile of bits of wood around it? We also found that this corner of the floor was quite damp. After some consultation with the builder and the floor layer in the family, the decision was made to tear up the old particle-board floor, which was water-damaged in many places, and replace it with new, treated plywood, covered with commercial vinyl offcuts that Elijah was able to get for free.

We were surprised, when we pulled up the floor, to find this underneath! The container was a reefer, which explains the channels.

James got the new floor laid that evening (what a blessing that Elijah can bring plywood home in his work van), and Elijah got started laying the vinyl.

That weekend, he finished the job, and on Monday we moved back in! The floor has three different colors, but it is sweepable and washable and we are delighted. And, no mice can get in. The hole through which they were entering has been found and plugged (a plug blew out when someone was using a power washer a few months ago). The cats still want in, but that is because they like the beds that are often in there.

Filed Under: Activities at Home Tagged With: Ahaura, House Renovation, West Coast

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The Family:


Dad and Mom (Gayle and Emma)

Girl #1, Esther, my right hand

Boy #1, Seth (Mr. Handyman)

Boy #2, Simon (Mr. Inventor)

Boy #3, Mr. Intellectual

Boy #4, Mr. Diligence

Boy #5, Mr. Sweetie

Boy #6, Mr. Imagination

Girl #2, Little Miss

Girl #3, Miss Joy

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