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Spud, Clifford, Karen & John, and all the Gnomes wish you a very Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from Struan Farm. Have a great celebration with your loved ones.
I'll be taking a wee break from blogging over the holidays, most likely back on deck early January.
p.s. Spud preferred the reindeer antlers over the Santa hat when we did the photo shoot, while Ringo opted for the hat....
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Another gnome showed up at Struan Farm this past week, hitching a ride with John from Dargaville (where these gnomes originate, courtesy of artist Robyn Mitchell). He says he's here for Emma, a new member of our extended family, and ready to join the others in the tawa grove. (We won't say anything about his colour choices if you don't, perhaps he's colour blind, or just into the holiday season?)
Okay folks, so this means another "Name the Gnome" contest! Given the Christmas holiday and a pending blogging break on my part, we'll make the deadline for suggestions January 3rd, and the judges will make a decision shortly thereafter. Remember that he'll need to mingle with Ringo, Tico, Stuffy and Doc, so no "frou frou" names!
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Yippee, the summer gardens are kicking in at Struan Farm, and I'm spoilt for choice on my flower options. Here is our weekend table arrangement:
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Was very excited to make my first harvest from the new veggie gardens at Struan Farm this week:
Beautiful "Amethyst" and "Cabernet" radishes, they went straight into a salad for dinner!
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Actually it's for our annual family gathering for Boxing Day at Struan Farm, but I realised that I needed to get a move on. One batch of cream cheese Christmas cookies down!
These are really easy to make: 8 oz. room temperature cream cheese, 8 oz. softened butter, 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract. Cream then add 2/3 cup sugar, then 2 cups flour.
Use a cookie press. I've had bad experiences with plastic cookie presses, especially in NZ's summer heat, but have landed on the Kuhn Rikon Clear Cookie Press. This has metal shapes rather than plastic, and works well. (If it's a hot day I put both the dough and the press in the fridge as needed.) I have thrown out at least two others that were entirely plastic and too frustrating to use. My mother's was all metal, and I would love to find one of those somewhere, someday!
Once the cookies are pressed out, use various decorations. Bake at 180 C for 10-12 minutes, until slightly brown at the base.
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Got myself into quite a berry state given Piopio Berry Orchard's amazing peak season strawberries and blueberries!
I decided to test out a recipe from the latest issue of Dish Magazine, "Free Form Fresh Strawberry Tart." Really pretty quick and easy, it uses frozen puff pastry, fresh fruit, pistachios, and a cream mixture of cream cheese, sour cream (I used lite), lemon curd and a wee bit of icing sugar. The only fiddly part is that the pastry is baked and then turned over for baking on the other side.
I dusted icing sugar on top before serving to pretty it up. And the good news is that we've still got heaps of fresh berries in the fridge.
Note to self: blueberry jam.
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We have a family tradition of pancake breakfasts at Struan Farm on Sundays when the kids and their kids visit. John cracks out "Uncle Earl's Secret Pancake Recipe," and with help from a sous chef or two delivers delicious pancakes with real maple syrup, lots of butter for several serious butter fiends in the group <ahem, Livvy and John>, and fresh berries in season. After I have my coffee I hover in the background trying to keep everyone and -thing on the rails. Sometimes I add value.
This past weekend we had a pancake turn out in the shape of a Piopio, the extinct native thrush after which our village is named:
Pretty cool, eh? And of course we had to have it nibbling on some Piopio Berry Orchard blueberries!
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This is our first Christmas in the new house at Struan Farm, and also the first Christmas in years we won't be shuttling between Auckland and Piopio. So a proper Christmas tree is clearly in order.
The only dilemma is that fresh Christmas trees in NZ are typically radiata pines, seriously "wonky" trees. They make Charlie Brown's spindly little tree look rather okay! John and I checked out a number of pine trees around the property, and decided upon the least wonky candidate growing wild along our roadside.
Over the weekend he and his helpers chopped it down and brought it up to the house.
See what I mean by "wonky?" This is not a tree begging to be decorated festively, evoking loud choruses of "O Tannenbaum," is it?
For this year, it is what it is. But I don't think we will do this again. While we won't resort to an artificial tree, it might be better to get a live potted blue spruce or douglas fir, however small, use it as a Christmas tree, and then plant it out on the property after the holiday. So maybe the next generation will have a proper Christmas tree in 10-20 years!
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So technically last week Struan Farm's resident pet lamb Spud was weaned, right? However he's still getting "at least" a small bottle a day so that he doesn't go feral and run off with the mob before Christmas.
Daniel, Clare and the girls were down over the weekend, and everyone took turns feeding Spud.
Okay, maybe even overfeeding Spud, since we also had some visitors from Malaysia who had to take a crack at it too!
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The blueberries landed at Piopio Berry Orchard this week, and they're huge and delicious!
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Clifford and I returned from a short trip to Auckland yesterday to find that yes, the concrete truck and its related "product specialists" had appeared at Struan Farm as scheduled, and yes, the first pour of the driveway at the new house had happened!
I'm "over the moon" about all this, since this most likely means everything will be finished by Christmas, we might even get the garden at the side of the house filled with topsoil and planted.
Clifford, on the other hand, is somewhat disgusted about the situation. He's restricted to his house until everything dries, only allowed off for supervised walks on a leash. I've told him to get over it, but I keep hearing woofs, grunts, and bored sighs coming from the direction of his dog house.
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I'm guessing that you won't be quite as excited as we are to watch the grass growing in the backyard at the new house at Struan Farm? It's a fun time!
I raked the area and spread seed about two weeks ago after it was graded and topsoil spread. We've had a good mix of warm weather and light rain since then, basically ideal conditions for a new lawn, and here's the good news:
The veggies are taking off as well. The green beans, corn, cavolo nero/kale, radishes, broccoli, fennel, purple cauliflower, purple carrots, spring onions, beets, swiss chard, and various types of lettuces and spinach are sprouting, while the tomato and zucchini/cucumber/squash seedlings I planted are also happy.
Can't wait to be eating and cooking with just picked veggies from our gardens, watch this space!
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It's a somewhat bittersweet day at Struan Farm, time to wean our pet lamb Spud. I'm prepared for major wails outside the bedroom window when the bottles don't appear like clockwork at the back fence, this lamb knows how to tug at the heartstrings! We have gradually cut back his milk to get him to this point, so it won't be entirely cold turkey.
But it's time, he's a big boy now.
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I had a few rainy day jam making sessions at Struan Farm over the past week. With the farmstay open full time I will need more of a stash than ever, so I'm making batches of strawberry jam here and there when I can fit them in. The blueberries aren't available quite yet, so I've got plenty of time to gear up for blueberry jam, which is a bit more involved with lemon juice and apples.
I was reminded of a marathon jam making session many years ago now with my friend Marilyn Laktin, who has moved back to Canada with her family. We spent an entire day making strawberry and blueberry jam. I'd weighed out bowls of fruit and pre-measured sugar, and we cracked into it, completely exhausting ourselves in the process. Was the total count 60 jars Marilyn, do you remember?
With the apparent success of the farmstay I might need Marilyn to get on a plane when the blueberries are in....
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It was Happy Birthday John at Struan Farm over the weekend, with a few special dinners. So of course we needed some special flowers to grace the dining table. Roses without a doubt, but also hydrangea, poppy seed pods, nigella (love those delicate, whispy blooms), a few other bits and pieces from the gardens.
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At least if you're a kid that is. I finally got my act in gear this past weekend to design and print out "Certificates of Commendation" for the young family members who submitted suggestions for our recent "Name the New Gnome" contest at Struan Farm.
Signed by John, they look pretty official, don't they? Two have been posted off to the U.K., while the other three will be awarded at a ceremony in the next week or so.
But who are we kidding, it's really the jelly beans they'll be happy about!
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The gardens are popping at Struan Farm. The Perfect Pergola is, well, as advertised--perfect, brimming with blooming roses. Buds (and buds) promise more to come.
I did some rather aggressive pruning this past winter, which seems to have paid off, along with lots of sheep pellets, blood and bone, and rose food.
Dublin Bay and Crepuscule are obviously happy that I dug up and divided the mounds of dahlias sharing their beds.
I'd taken cuttings to grow new plants from the original orange rose above Maurie's Workshop, since we were worried it was getting quite old and might not survive. But look at it this year:
Masses of flowers, more than we've ever seen, thanks to the serious TLC. Just goes to show you that everyone can benefit from being looked after.
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The past few weeks I've noticed that Spud has been increasingly curious about Clifford, who lurks around me while I feed Spud. Earlier on he was afraid of him, but lately he's been wanting to engage. And now they do, Clifford licks the milk dribbles off Spud's face after he finishes his bottle.
When you think about it, they were both adopted into our family. Clifford came to us when his original family moved to Dubai, while Spud's mum abandoned him. So they've got shared experiences.
Or it could be they're just talking about rugby!
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Things have been happening at the new house at Struan Farm. Over the past week the builders got the boxing and groundwork done for the driveway:
The concrete is meant to be poured in two installments, this week, so watch this space! It will be so good to have this done before Christmas...
And meanwhile, out back, I've planted black currants, two citrus trees, and rosemary and lavender hedges around the troughs, with mulching bark on the respective beds. I also managed to get about 2/3 of the lawn area raked and grass seed spread. It's been raining intermittently, so important for us to get this done before the ground starts to dry out for summer.
We still need to grade and fill the bush side of this area, move the pile of recycled bricks, and landscape a bit around the edges, but we're getting there.
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Hooray, the summer flowers in the gardens at Struan Farm are blooming, big time. Here is our weekend table arrangement, my favorite old fashioned roses, sigh:
Yes, they even have scents!
Last autumn I noticed that the white hydrangea are the last to stop blooming for the year. This summer I've noticed that they're also the first to bloom:
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