Struan Farm

Spuds, the Latest

Yes, you will want to know the latest on the spuds and Spud from Struan Farm, I'm sure!

In the past week the spuds have all sprouted in our special bed, so are looking good:

And then there's the other Spud, the one who continues to sprout as well. His latest trick is feeding during the day around the Homestead tractor shed, Cottage, or pond. So in the evenings when it's time for his bottle I call him up from the fence at the new house. He barrels up along the farm track, following the sound of my voice. When he gets to me I escort him through a gate and across the new lawn. He then jumps down over the retaining wall into his proper feeding paddock, rewarded with his bottle.

Fortunately for me John has taken on the early morning duties. He's lucky since Spud tends to hang out outside our bedroom window, where he gives us a 6:30 wake up call, within calling distance from the back fence. 

 

Wisteria Means Welcome

Things happen from one day to the next in the gardens at Struan Farm, particularly at this time of the year. In this instance, the wisteria growing above the Perfect Pergola at the Homestead have just popped into bloom. Happy to see that "White Silk"  and "Pink Ice" are settling in. Originally I went a wee bit overboard (as I am wont to do), and planted three of each variety. Fortunately early on I realised one of each would be more than enough and dug out the others, since they are almost impossible to get rid of once established. 

And while I didn't know this when I planted them, I was interested to learn from my Flower Dictionary that wisteria means "welcome" in Victorian flower parlance. Somewhat special that we have signs of welcome hanging over the Perfect Pergola at Struan Farm!

 

 

Making Way for Solar

A bit of action to report down at the river at Struan Farm related to additional amenities for Jim's Hut. 

John had to fell a big poplar tree that Rik, our architect from the Otamatea Eco-Village, indicated was in the line of the sun; we are needing to have a straight line of sight north for efficient solar energy (this is the southern hemisphere, it would be south in the northern). I stood by with camera in hand to document the event, ready to ring emergency services if anything went wrong. John is careful, but you never know with big trees. Fortunately all went according to plan.

 

 

Let the clean up begin!

Koru Wake Up Call

It's funny what one notices or doesn't notice. I was weeding away on Hydrangea Hill at Struan Farm, basically head down and bum up. Hyperventilating somewhat at the sheer volume of weeds this time of year.

At one point I looked up and noticed that another one of the purple irises had started to bloom, along with the columbine and lilac. It shouldn't have been too hard to see the brilliant purple amidst all that green, hello Karen?

And then I looked around at the ponga/tree fern nearby and saw these:

 

Amazing koru, really. Symbolic of the circle of life. Reminding me not to be so focused on my work that I don't pay attention to the beauty that surrounds me, quite the wake up call.

Hanging Out the Shingle

We're close, really close to an official opening of Struan Farm farmstay, full time. The sign at the front gate is now up, although the "No Vacancy" tag is hanging below until we're completely good to go.

The Homestead and Cottage got cleaned throughly and beds made up this weekend. Now I only need training on how to use the EFTPOS/credit card machine! Ten, nine, eight, seven...... p.s. you can make your advance bookings now!

Shadow Play

Now that all those leaves are gone, it's amazing to see the beautiful shadows the oak and walnut trees cast below the Cottage at Struan Farm:

Maiden Garden

No, not talking about the Garden of Eden, but rather our first garden up at the new house at Struan Farm. We've sprayed off the grass, and sister-in-law Anna and I are getting ready to lay out plants we've purchased (at least the first round), as well as some dahlias, hydrangea, and iris I've been stashing from the Homestead gardens down below.

Our strategy is to plant and then fill in as required. We'll then top off with leaves/mulch.

The good news is that John has released another section to us for planting. He's not a control freak, really... 

Now It's Spuds + Spud

John dug our first potato patch two weeks ago, and we planted seed potatoes the following week. Good to see some sprouts from the first early "Jersey Bennes" start to come up. We also planted "Agria," which should be a bit later. 

 

This is my first attempt at growing potatoes, except for those that crop up on an ad hoc basis in the compost bin. I've read that rabbits don't eat potatoes, so we haven't fenced the patch. The aim is to have new potatoes with Christmas dinner.

And Spud, yes, of course he's watching everything through the fence, keeping an eye on those spuds!

Piopio Calf Club Day

Yesterday Piopio Primary School held its annual "Calf Club Day." I haven't been in Piopio during the week previously to be able to attend, so was really looking forward to seeing what went on. It's an annual opportunity in this small rural community for kids to bring their farm pets to school. All sorts of other interesting class projects are on display with prizes awarded for creativity/execution.

There were more lambs than calves in attendance, along with goats and horses too. Baking categories included cakes, cupcakes, Maori bread, plain scones, plain and iced gingerbread, and pikelets (pancakes). Crafts included "Aqua Jars" (flowers suspended upside down in water filled jars, might need to try this with Ella and Livvy..), "Vegetable Characters," and "Sand Saucers" and other types of floral arrangements. 

As you might expect, I spent most of my time watching the pet lamb contests. High cute and chaos quotient. They were judged in pens by the ages of the owners, starting with pre-schoolers. Categories included leading, coming when called and following. It was actually pretty easy to see which were true pets vs. those recruited for the day, and those owners with real bonds with their animals. The judges had their hands full keeping everyone on track, did a great job wrangling kids and animals.

Here are some photos from the morning:

What a great rural experience and tradition--long may it continue!



 

Limed

We finally managed to get some fertiliser/lime spread on the paddocks at Struan Farm. This is done by truck rather than airplane given our relatively small remaining acreage (60). The original farm was much larger. The only problem now is that there's only one man in the area who does this sort of thing on a smallish, hilly property like ours, and he is getting rather elderly. Not sure what we're going to do when he decides to retire!

 

It's the first time in over ten years that we've had this done, and the paddocks have been crying out for it. This is usually seen in the type of weeds that crop up, like foxglove. Hoping that will now disappear!

I was at home the evening that he finished up, and watched this cloud of white powder roll up to engulf the house. Fortunately we've had rain since to wash it in and off everything...

 

Progress: New Gate

The stone masons have been working away the past two weeks at Struan Farm, in between rainy days. Our front gate at the new house is finally finished!

  

After I took these pics John took down the ratty farm gate that we've used in the meantime, as well as the old farm fence. This extends the wooded garden area under the redwoods to the hedge of griselinia I've planted across the yard. So next autumn I'll be planting more bulbs and hellebores in this area too. The rhodos and camellias are already in.

Woo, woo! Starting to almost look ship shape, aren't we?

Signposts

John has been doing really, really well with his "to do list." Much better than me! He's been busy digging post holes and putting up posts for our Struan Farm farmstay "Reception" and "River Track" signs that I've painted.

I actually hadn't watched the whole process before, but I now know what a "rammer" is used for:

 

 

The rammer John uses was his dad's, and is carved, made of a hardwood with metal over the end. While it's more or less an antique implement, it works really well. 

p.s. I have told John that he can't tick this off the list until the signs are actually up!....

And the Winner Is.....

The Struan Farm heirloom iris, of course! Once it heard there was a contest, it popped open with three blooms. No one else is close to opening. 

Happenings in the Backyard

We're still a construction site at the new house at Struan Farm. Right now it's the backyard, where the builders have been constructing a rather large firewood shed, and laying out boxing for the concrete paths to my veggie garden beds:

Do you remember the TV show "I Dream of Jeannie?" Now if only I could wiggle my nose, bob my head and move this mountain of firewood magically from Point A to Point B!

Thinking about it, maybe the nose wiggle was "Bewitched?"

All Decked Out

Here's Jim's Hut at Struan Farm with its new deck, along with its fantastic views overlooking the Mangaotaki River:

Now all it needs are some steps!

A Bloomin' Contest

The irises are next to bloom in the gardens at Struan Farm, and I've been keeping my eye on them. Right now there are two main contenders for the first to bloom:

At the top is one I purchased from Richmond Irises and planted this past season, so it will be interesting to see it bloom for the first time, while the one below is one of our "heirloom" purple irises. So of course my money is on the Struan Farm heirloom to win this bloomin' contest!

Weekend Dining

Over the past two weekends I've been testing out recipes from Annabel Langbein's latest cookbook, "The Free Range Cook: through the seasons." A week ago I made "Farmhouse Chicken Pie," "Satay Chicken Salad," and "Avocado Salsa Timbales," to rave reviews.

This past weekend I switched to seafood, and made "Seafood Risotto with Fennel," and my first curry ever, "Fragrant Fish Curry," served with "Coconut and Cardamon Rice" and topped with "Crispy Shallots." I used monkfish and prawns for the curry, and here it is, ta da!

On our table this weekend we had an arrangement of Michelia yunnanensis, which is related to camellia. It was imported originally from China, and does have that Asian aesthetic, doesn't it?

Although we're still working like crazy around the property, I feel like we're getting back into a more settled groove for our weekend dinners, which I've always used to experiment and test out new recipes. 

Stuffy Forages for Fungi

I had to break it to Stuffy, one of our garden gnomes at Struan Farm, that no, he can't eat these toadstools. "Scarlet flycap" aka Amanita muscaria are poisonous! Yes, they're quite pretty, so he can keep them to look at, but no nibbles.

Signs of the Times

Just finished painting signs to guide first time farmstay guests from Struan Farm's main entrance via our farm track up to the new house, aka "Reception."

John decided we should leave nothing to chance, make the route completely obvious. The drive goes over two cattle stops, which could be confusing to people who haven't seen or driven over them before. He's asked for signs, lots of signs, so he's got them. Last week I did the lettering over two rainy days, and this past weekend I painted directional arrows now that we've decided where the posts will be (and which way the arrows need to point).

Also did one for the River Track to help guide walkers around the property. I'll be escorting guests upon arrival to their self contained accommodation at the Homestead, Cottage, and/or Jim's Hut, so nothing needed for those right now (and thinking this might be too much of a good thing).

They turned out reasonably well for something to be viewed at a distance (colour matches our logo), just don't look too closely! Now it's over to John to put up the posts.

Spud, continued

I rarely, if ever, write two posts in one day. However something rare happened today.

Today was my day to go into town to food shop and run errands. As a result, I was a little late feeding Spud his lunchtime bottle. When I got home, I discovered that he'd moved out of the house paddock and wandered off with the mob. So I made a bottle and went off to find him.

Clifford and I found him down at the pond, on the opposite side. I walked along the track, trying to get him to walk parallel to us. But instead, once he saw that bottle he jumped into the pond! My heart sank, I realised that if he went down and started drowning that I'd need to jump into the mucky water and save him. But guess what?

SPUD CAN SWIM! Spud it seems is Super Lamb. I'm just not sure how long he's going to stay a pet lamb if he's behaving like this. We'll see if he stays near the house for bottles, or not, because I can't hunt him down three times a day. He may be ready to run with the mob. Stay tuned.