Dennis Oland was juggling the routine demands of parenthood on the day his father was beaten to death, texting his kids about basketball games and dental braces.

There were discussions about kayaking, going to the beach and a mechanical problem with the sailboat his second wife, Lisa, co-owned with a friend.

"Typical day?" defence lawyer Michael Lacy asked on Thursday as Oland testified at his trial for the second-degree murder of his father, Richard, on July 6, 2011.

"Yeah," Oland answered. "Four kids are a lot of work."

The quiet-spoken investment adviser was also at work that day, at CIBC Wood Gundy in Saint John. He had asked the company to help him get through a "cash crunch" caused largely by spousal and child support payments, and a monthly instalment he was struggling to pay his father for an earlier, $500,000 loan.

The prosecution has suggested Dennis Oland bludgeoned his father to death in a fit of rage triggered by his personal money problems.

Oland acknowledged in court he was carrying a lot of debt, but he calmly insisted it was never a big concern.

"The ongoing accumulation of debt, was it a concern for you?" Lacy asked after going over several, expensive international trips Dennis and Lisa took in the months prior to the killing.

"No," Oland answered, adding it was the way he and his wife lived. "It's stuff we always did and it was a continuation of that."

Later on July 6, 2011, Oland dropped by his father's nearby office to discuss an interest shared by father and son: the genealogy and history of the Oland family, a well-known Maritime business family that has its roots in England.

His father was a former executive of the family owned Moosehead Breweries Ltd., Canada's oldest independent brewery.

Dennis Oland had recently returned from a lengthy trip to England and he told the court he wanted to discuss his family history findings with his father.

His late afternoon visit marked the last known time Richard Oland was seen alive. His beaten body was found lying in a pool of blood on the floor of his office the next morning.

Dennis Oland said he did not know that his cheque for his July loan payment to his father had bounced the day before due to insufficient funds. He said if he had known in advance, he would have asked his father's secretary to hold off on cashing the cheque for a few days.

It was "not at all" an issue, he said.

Dennis Oland was charged with second degree murder in 2013.

He began his testimony on Wednesday, saying it was his decision to testify in his own defence because he wanted people to hear, in his own words, that he did not kill his father.

As usual, members of the Oland family were in court to show their support, including his mother, Connie, and his uncle, Derek Oland, executive chairman of Moosehead.

They have stood by him from the start, including his first trial in 2015, which ended in his conviction for second-degree murder. The verdict was set aside on appeal in 2016 and the new trial ordered.

Oland is expected to be on the stand into Friday.