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Tramp to Cone Creek

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A couple of years ago, our boys heard a rumor that a hut they had tramped to twice had burned down. They were rather unhappy with this news, since it was a pretty nice hut. Elijah decided he wanted to know for sure whether it had burned or was still standing, and planned a tramp awhile back to find out. Other things came up and the tramp had to be canceled; this happened at least once, if not a couple of times. Finally, sometime in December, he and his two younger brothers were able to go up there and find out. They did just an overnight tramp, leaving late one morning and returning the next afternoon. This first one is a fungus on a tree next to the creek–I’ve never seen such a thing!

A creek partway up the track.

A blue duck, an endangered native species. Both of the pair are in the second picture.

The hut is still standing!

The track to the Lake Morgan hut is up the scree slope in the middle of this picture.

The blue ducks again, this time when the boys were on the way out.

The younger boys made these signs from scraps they found at the hut and posted them at the junction of two tracks.

Returning to the main track from the hot pools, which were across the river.

November 2026 Photos

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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!

Garden Video–January 2026

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I took a little over ten minutes a couple of weeks ago to made a quick video of the garden. It’s amazing how much it has changed already in that two weeks! We’ve gotten a few tomatoes and the first several cucumbers by now, and the zucchinis are coming out our ears. I was thankful that ladies at church were happy to help us out with that problem today.

Spring Flowers

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One thing that I love about spring is the flowers! Our lemon tree, just outside the main door of the house, was covered in blossoms this spring. They smelled heavenly! I love it when the aroma of citrus blossoms wafts through the house.

Our one lonely peony, which has been moved several times in the last several years, put on its normal one bloom this year.

These columbines bloom every year in the bathtub in which we grow strawberries.

The flax plants have put up a record number of flower stalks, and we are enjoying seeing tuis, like this one, as well as bellbirds and wax eyes, sipping nectar.

I’m not sure how a lavender plant got into the strawberry barrel, but it adds a touch of color there.

One morning, Mom was going to take a walk with the girls, and I decided to drop what I was doing and go along. It was a beautiful morning!

A train came through while we were enjoying the flowers beside the tracks.

A few minutes later, we saw another train going the opposite direction!

We picked raspberries at a friend’s farm, and noticed lots of these flowering shrubs. I had an inkling they were a weed, so asked him. Sure enough, they are Himalayan Honeysuckle, and very invasive. They’re sure pretty, though!

Baptisms

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We had the joy yesterday of seeing two of our children baptized! Both Mr. Imagination and Little Miss made that decision on the same day not long ago. Gayle led the service; we sang four songs, he gave a message about baptism, then the children each shared a brief testimony, and he baptized them. After they came out of the water, Gayle invited everyone to gather around and pray for them. Afterward, a person who was coming down to swim came up to us and offered to send us some pictures she took. That gave us a brief opportunity to talk to her about the Lord!

Here is a video I got of the baptism. The sun was so bright I couldn’t see the screen of my phone, so it isn’t the best, but you can hear a lot of it anyway.

October 2025 Photos

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Here are the rest of the photos from October. Can you tell that Miss Joy loves the cat?

Reepicheep

We had visitors for a couple of days, and the little children spent an hour or so reading the Magic School Bus books.

The girls on a moa in Waikari.

When we went to Dunedin, there had been snow earlier in the week, and this ball was still left on top of the hill.

Base 10 blocks are great for building castles!

Is she protecting the hatching chicks…or dreaming of chicken dinner?

See box? Get in box.

Getting ready to do a science lesson. We have the audio book, and he is supposed to follow along while he listens.

I picked up a book at the Bookarama that a friend recommended, and gave it to Elijah for his birthday. It turned out to be just the type of book he loves!

The little girls made this flax basket for my birthday present! Sadly, it fell apart as it dried. It was sure beautiful when it was new, though.

One day after church, James was sitting on a chair talking to a man. The man decided to sit down, so pulled up a soft chair. Not to be outdone, Simon grabbed a couch and pulled it over, so he could lounge while they talked!

Clouds as we traveled somewhere–I can’t remember where.

Mr. Imagination went through a phase of making bows.

Out and About in September 2025

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The girls love to stop along the road in the spring to pick some daffodils–and their daddy loves to oblige them. So, we did that.

This is a lake along the road going over Arthurs Pass to Christchurch. It was actually much bluer than this picture shows–it’s breathtaking at times!

One thing I love about going to a homeschool mother’s retreat every September is the views from the hill, looking over Lyttleton Harbour. Such a gorgeous view!

This is the new house in front of ours. James got hurt while working on this house, so he didn’t get to help finish it. Joe did, though! (Joe was formerly called Mr. Sweetie on this blog; he’s over 16 now, so I’ll use his name.) He works two days a week with James and his crew; here he is talking to their boss and doing some work on the house.

The day we went to the Bookarama, we had a picnic out by the beach. There is an enormous structure built of driftwood above the high-tide line, and we had some fun exploring it.

Around Home in September 2025

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We brought a few jump ropes home from America, ones that were made from strips of t-shirts braided together. The girls loved them–the boys decided they were too small and light for them.

I had never seen a rainbow as low to the horizon as this one! It was incredibly bright.

Mr. Imagination still has the right name! We were given a boxful of citrus fruits, and he carefully crafted these teeth from a rind, to wear over his own teeth.

Tui like kowhai blossoms!

Miss Joy and her cats! Sometimes when she’s bored I hand her my phone and tell her to photograph the cats. This time, she obviously decided to feed them so they would all be in the same picture.

And, another picture of a cat!

The fad for a few days was building houses of cards.

This is Mr Imagination, tossing a piece of food in the air and trying to catch it in his mouth. He and Simon, who also stayed home from Bible Study one evening, did this as long as the pineapple pieces held out!

I think one of the girls took this picture–not sure which one. The flowers are in one of their playhouses.

Little Miss got to raise two calves this year. Our cow Maple had the brown one the end of July. We were delighted to have an A2A2 heifer calf from her! We needed a companion for Maggie when we brought her home from where the two were boarding while we were in America, so we asked some dairy farmer friends for a beef cross, and they gave us the white one, a Charolais-cross that we named Misty. We’re quite happy that both calves are quiet and calm.

For several days, the fad was taking pictures of Reepicheep sitting on a phone.

James dislocated and fractured his shoulder the day we traveled home from America, so he was off work for six weeks. Because he can’t stand to do nothing, he found all sorts of projects that could be done one-handed. One of those jobs was collecting all the buckets around the place and water blasting them. Here they are, stacked up to dry. I could hardly believe the size of the stack.

This was another job–a tool rack for the front of the chicken coop, which is in the middle of the garden. He got one of his two-handed brothers to pound the pipes in to make the holders for the tools. We are delighted to have this rack; because it is handy, and easy to use, we actually put our tools away instead of leaving them around the garden. Now, the spot where the tool rack was has hooks for raincoats, and boots can sit on the floor of the carport under them. Perfect!

Spring flowers!

School time!

The base-10 blocks are much more fun for building with than for counting with!

Wild Weather!

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The weather this week has been wild! On Tuesday, it started raining around midnight -1:00. I lay awake for an hour or so because the rain and wind were so loud. By about 8:00, we had received 96 mm of rain here (about 4 inches). All the ditches were full, and the corner creek in our paddock down the hill was overflowing. The cows were up here, so they were all right, and both pens of chickens happened to be on high enough ground that they were fine. About 10:00, a neighbor from down the hill stopped in to let us know that the paddock was flooding, in case we didn’t know already. He told us that the main creek down there was still rising. Mr. Imagination and I walked down to make sure the chickens were still all right. By then, the sun was shining brightly. This is what we saw. The first picture is our paddock, with water pouring into the corner creek (to the right) from the main creek from two directions: under the road, and beside the milking shed. There are normally two drainage ditches through the paddock, the one curving in the middle of this picture and the one to the left, but on this day, there was water everywhere it could be. The other two pictures show the neighbor’s paddocks across the road, where the floodwater from Orwell Creek was covering everything.

Here’s a video of what we were seeing.

After we returned to the house, Esther took the girls down to the river to see the flood there. There were trees down in the Domain. The second picture shows the Ahaura River, about as full as we’ve ever seen it. Then, they walked the other way, down in the direction of the confluence of the Grey and Ahaura Rivers. Obviously, there was no way to get close! The entire valley was under water.

After that, they walked down to our paddock. The water had dropped a bit, but was still pretty impressive!

The next day, Mr. Imagination took these video clips in the paddock. They’re not very easy to watch, but the footage of him petting an eel is pretty amazing!

Two days later, another storm came through. This one “only” gave us 60 mm (2 1/2 inches), but the wind! It was the worst wind we’ve experienced here. The children were doing school in the kitchen, and looked out just in time to see a huge tree across the road fall down! We were immediately thankful that our cattle were not there. They often graze there, and in fact, they’ll be there tomorrow! They would have been sheltering under the tree, and the entire herd would have been destroyed. It’s a little hard to see here, but the tree is laying on its side behind the electric pole.

This is the size of the rootball!

This is the kind of view we have had out our window many days this month!