Struan Farm

Cape Gooseberries: Coming Full Circle

I planted a Cape Gooseberry (Physalis peruviana) bush in the backyard at Struan Farm this past spring. It was a bit of a mistake on my part. John always talks about the gooseberries in the garden growing up, and I thought this plant was what his parents had. Nope. It was another type of gooseberry entirely, oops!

Be that as it may, the Cape Gooseberry got planted, and is doing well. It has fruited for the first time, although the berries are still ripening:

 

The berries are protected by beautiful green paper lanterns, which turn brown as they ripen.

When I saw the paper lanterns encasing the berries, I remembered that these were the very same berries I ate in my grandmother's garden on Red Gate Road (New Vernon, NJ, USA) as a little girl, with another friend. Panic ensued, no one was sure if they were edible or poisonous. We were given a stern lecture: NEVER EAT ANYTHING FROM THE GARDEN UNLESS APPROVED BY AN ADULT. The other girl was just along for the ride, I was the instigator, so you know who really was in trouble, don't you? 

So Cape Gooseberries and I have a history.  I'm glad to have them here at Struan Farm, where little girls (and boys) can pick and eat them, under close supervision of course!

 

 

 

Sounds of Summer

We're into the real summer heat now here at Struan Farm. John and I noticed a few days ago that the cicadas had started their annual courtship period, buzzing away. So off I went in search of their casings/shells on tree trunks around the farm, and found some straight away:

Cicadas incubate underground in autumn, winter and spring, rising up in summer to abandon their protective shells and buzzing to attract mates. Bizarre but interesting. We find the casings on certain types of large trees but not others, not sure why.

 

In Hospital

Our beloved vintage David Brown tractor has developed some sort of problem with a "bearing." So a short while ago it was picked up at Struan Farm by flatbed truck and delivered to the specialist repair shop in Te Kuiti. At the time we realised that it had never been off the farm further than Piopio village, 10k away.

When there wasn't quite as much speeding traffic on the main road John or his dad Maurie would drive it into Piopio, with someone behind them in a car with emergency flashers, but those days are long gone.

Rather a big trip for the old boy--we want and need him home soon, feeling better!

Thinking About Love

 

John and I went to a wedding recently, which has prompted me to think about love. Right now I'm too tired to garden.

I haven't loved all that many people in my lifetime, really, truly, deeply (we're talking adults here, kids and animals have their own special categories). But I am exceedingly grateful for having the love I do have and have had in my life.

Love often gets muddled up with other things. People sometimes expect you to love them by virtue of a relationship, regardless of how they behave or treat you.  I've never been someone who could love just because. That's created complications with people who expected me to love them and do certain things just because. It seemed to be more about their wants and needs. I might have cared a lot, but it wasn't love, it was obligation and sacrifice. My experience is that guilt doesn't make people love you and vice versa. Sometimes people hold on too tightly. Life is busy, people get overwhelmed by the day-to-day stuff, the need to make a living, their own desires and ambitions.

For me love is about being known, understood, and accepted. Warts and all, riding through the times when you and they are grumpy and not the best. Being able to show those parts of yourself that you don't let others see, because you're not all too sure about yourself sometimes. Being able to share, somewhat grudgingly but safely, that maybe you're not always a good person and could do better. Much of this is experienced in a good friendship, but love is different. Love is still standing when a friend might walk away. It gets tested and strengthens over time.

Love is special and rare. It could mean something entirely different for you, and that's fine with me. But if you have it in your life, cherish and protect it.  And yes, I do need some rest!

 

 

Ella's Nigella

A few months ago granddaughters Ella, Livvy and Emma planted trays of various flower seeds in the glasshouse at Struan Farm. We christened them "Ella's Nigella," "Livvy's Lobelia," and "Emma's Echinacea." All have been planted out in the gardens, but "Ella's Nigella" has been the first to flower, appropriately enough for the eldest child:

I also use their furry heads and green seed pods in flower arrangements for texture.

Summer Flowers

The roses in the gardens at Struan Farm are having another major bloom, hooray. Even those I've grown from cuttings in the new garden at the new(ish) house, hip hip hooray. So considerable choice for the flower arrangements right now.

Still in a bit of a rut with pink and orange dahlias and roses, but it's a good one I think.

Piling It On

It's fun to watch the lambs that have just arrived at Struan Farm find their way around the place.  There's been lots of baas, and massive runs from one end of the paddock to the next.

We've started to thin out the macrocarpa grove below the new(ish) house. It's started to restrict our view of the hills beyond the Mangaotaki River, and will eventually do so entirely if left to grow. John has wanted to take the trees down for awhile now, but I love their feathery texture. Our compromise is to leave clusters of trees but open up the view by taking some down. Surplus firewood indefinitely!

One came down this weekend, with the firewood taken away by a family friend. The rubbish has been left in a pile, to become a burn pile once seasonal burn restrictions are removed, usually in March. We're also dumping garden rubbish that doesn't go into compost here for now too.

And guess what? The pile has been discovered by the lambs, pets and otherwise. Lots of nibbling going on.

  

Perhaps they're playing "King of the Hill?"

Out the Back Door

I like to mix flowers and companion plants with the vegetables in our veggie gardens at Struan Farm, mostly to attract bees, but also to repel pests. This week things are flowering away, and I found myself drawn to the Lemon Bergamot, Hyssop, and seeding Dill, they're looking beautiful!

The Lemon Bergamot looks like a tiered wedding cake. It's also called Mondarda citriodora or "Lemon Bee Balm." Bees love the flowers, and a tea can be made from its leaves. I'd also read somewhere that it helps the flavour of tomatoes too, so have planted it in one of my beds of tomato plants.

Bees, hummingbirds and butterflies love Hyssop. It's flowers and leaves are edible, can be used in salads and soups.

I can never manage to use all of the Dill before it flowers and goes to seed, but it's hard to find fresh here in NZ when you need it for salmon. I'll save the seeds from these heads for next year....

 

 

 

Full of Beans

Beans, beans are good for your heart. We don't need to finish that schoolroom ditty, do we?!

I managed to get reacquainted with my veggie gardens over the weekend. We've been so busy with the farmstay over the past few weeks here at Struan Farm that my interaction with the veggie gardens has been mostly a quick sprint out the back door to cut lettuce and herbs for salads. (Okay, I did take a few glances at the ever expanding zucchinis, also at the multitudes of green tomatoes.) But nothing of a work nature happened at all, there was no time for that.

So I was happy to have the time to re-engage and assess the job(s) at hand. After picking zucchinis (lots of zoodles and zucchini bread in our immediate future) I tackled the beans:

The ones that weren't past it have been trimmed, blanched and put into ziplock bags in the freezer. As they say in NZ: beans for Africa!

 

 

Blueberry Jamming

I've made a few more batches of strawberry jam since blogging about making the first batch of the season at Struan Farm last week.

While my homemade strawberry jam is the favourite by far with both our farmstay guests and grandchildren (I've had guests request a spare jar to take home), I actually prefer my blueberry jam--it's not quite as sweet. It takes a bit more time and effort to make, since the recipe calls for both finely diced apples and lemon juice in addition to blueberries and sugar. It also only makes three jars vs. five with the strawberry.

 

But it's definitely worth the effort! One more batch to make of this (John and I aren't big toast eaters) and then I'm back to making more strawberry to meet the demand.

Weekend Baking

We've had a decent first harvest of blackcurrants this year at Struan Farm. I'd intended to make jam with them, but stumbled upon Nigel Slater's Blackcurrant Almond Tart recipe and couldn't get past that. (Note: he spells blackcurrant as one word, so I'm doing the same.) Since John and I have been eating nothing but Piopio Berry Orchard strawberries, blueberries and raspberries for the past two months, it was nice to have a wee change for a weekend dessert, if only briefly!

The sweet pastry dough was quite crumbly, I ended up pressing it into the tart pan since I was unable to roll it out. (This may be due to the heat right now, not sure. But I don't usually have a problem rolling out pastry, scout's honour!) And while he said there was no need to weigh it down with beans or pie weights while pre-baking the pie shell if the pastry had been chilled, I found mine did rise more than I would have liked despite being chilled for the time specified. So I would recommend you weigh it down if you're making the recipe. I might actually try making the pastry in the food processor next time, which is how I usually do it, rather than by hand, to see if that helps.

There's a glorious aroma in the kitchen when this comes out of the oven, reason alone to try it if you can get your hands on some blackcurrants. And like most things Nigel Slater, the tart is delicious, served warm with a bit of whipped cream or yogurt.

Carved in Stone

I ran south to New Plymouth for a haircut and day of errands a day or so ago (truth be told it may have been an attempt on my part to escape the accumulated piles of farmstay bed linens in the aftermath of the recent wedding?!).

Wanted to stop by the Te Kupenga Stone Sculpture Society's stone carving symposium, which is happening on the New Plymouth foreshore for several weeks near the iconic Len Lye "wind wand". Stone carvers from around New Zealand and overseas are onsite daily making sculptures in public, including brother-in-law Alan Axten. It was interesting to watch these artists at work, dust flying with saws, goggles and ear muffs! Pieces made over this period will be auctioned off at the end of the month. Check it out!

 

Pets in Peril

It's that time of the year in the rural calendar when stock are getting shipped off to the works and moved around given hotter weather and shorter feed supply. At Struan Farm, my agreement with Farmer John on this year's pet lambs is that he would take Spanky, the only ram pet lamb, and that the four ewe lambs, Rosie, Ruby, Pip and Pepper, would stay here, hopefully have lambs next season, and hopefully stay pets for as long as possible.

Sounds like a plan right? Well, drenching and movements were meant to happen a day or so ago. Hubby John decided that it would probably be a good idea for us to put Rosie's red collar back on her to avoid any identity issues. She looks the most like the other lambs on the farm, the brown faced lambs are obviously my pets. While the pets were in the yards waiting to be drenched with the other sheep I had a chat with them, told them everything would be fine. They believed me. I had a hard time looking Spanky in the eye, he was in another pen.

Yesterday morning I saw that there were lambs in the house paddock, new lambs that had been brought onto the property. I called out for the pets, and only Rosie came running. Hmmm. Awhile later I took a walk to try to find the other three, Pip, Pepper and Ruby, the brown faced lambs. They were nowhere to be found, so I rang Farmer John. There was some concern on this wife's part that they might have been loaded onto a truck heading to the works. OhnoOhnoOhnoOhno was the tape running in my head. Rosie and I had a talk, we decided not to get too upset just yet, crossing our fingers and hooves.

Fortunately this story has a happy ending: turns out Farmer John had put them in the yard next door with those he was moving elsewhere, and had forgotten them! They were rescued and reunited with Rosie. Bottles all around, phew!

 

 

Trout for Dinner

A few days ago we had a fly fisherman from Melbourne stay at Jim's Hut, down at the river at Struan Farm. He arrived in the evening, and went straight out to fish the Mangaotaki, catching two good sized rainbows that first night. He went out again in the morning, catching several more. Later in the day he went off to explore the nearby Awakino, returning again in the evening to fish here.

While he was a strict "catch and release" advocate, one of the trout he went to release died, so he delivered it up to us for dinner that night. We'd actually never eaten trout from the river before! I stuffed it with fresh herbs from the garden, lemon, a bit of butter and white wine, tying everything up and then wrapping it in foil and baking it on the BBQ.

 

Served with new potatoes from the veggie garden, it was rather special. Thanks Darren, hope to see you back again with family next time!

Adventures at the River

We're starting to see more kayakers come down the Mangaotaki River that borders Struan Farm. A day or so ago John came running up from the river, telling me to grab my camera and hop in the car. Apparently there was a more experienced group than we've seen come through in the past who were tackling the rapids--this we both wanted to see! Most people coming down the river tend to pick up their kayaks and walk around this spot....

 

 It was great to watch these intrepid spirits go for it!

 

Wedding Whirlwind

It was quite the week here last week at Struan Farm--we're still recovering!

Our farmstay accommodation had been booked out for over a year now for family and friends attending the Piopio/New Zealand wedding of local girl Gemma to her husband Jamal, with many guests travelling from overseas.

Arrangements had been made to have both the ceremony and reception at a remote rural airstrip on a private farm, sitting atop a cliff with 360 degree views of rather spectacular "Middle Earth" landscape. An amazing glass-walled marquee was to be erected, with guests ferried to the site by van.

Weather forecasts for the week started to look rather grim. One particularly bad day of high winds and heavy rain was predicted. A Plan B was required, and with family staying here the couple decided to have the wedding ceremony instead in the gardens at Struan Farm, with the reception at the original location.

Suffice it to say that everyone kicked into overdrive. I spent much of the week on my knees trimming and weeding, while John lived up to his reputation as the "Mad Mower." We wanted everything here to be beautiful for Gemma and Jamal and their guests.

It poured rain on Friday. Saturday was wedding day, and guess what? It was sunny and beautiful. Guests were brought from Piopio here by bus. The wedding ceremony was held beneath the flowering dogwood tree in the Homestead gardens, the symbol of "love undiminished by adversity." Following the ceremony Gemma and Jamal were whisked off by helicopter for photographs on the coast. A drone filmed around the farm during all this, can't wait to see the footage from that!

We will eventually have some professional photographs to share, and did not photograph during the actual ceremony. But below are some pics from the day, including the cliff top reception afterward. Piopio's Fat Pigeon Cafe catered drinks and nibbles at the farm and the reception dinner, Piopio Berry Orchard supplied ice cream cones, and Lee Alcock did the beautiful flowers. There were also quite a few adorable little girls running around in tutus!

It was a special day, and we were pleased to have been asked to share it. We wish them a long and happy life together.

 

Flower Fragments

I've been playing with some rather shocking colour combinations on my flower arrangements for farmstay guests recently at Struan Farm: bright pink and orange dahlias, orange and pink roses, blue and purple hydrangea, the random sweet pea. They're shocking, but they seem to work.

Fresh flowers seem to be appreciated by most guests, and I want them to be part of the experience of coming to Struan Farm. Plus, I love doing the arrangements, wandering the gardens to see what's out when. It's one of my happy times.

Welcome to My Veggie World

It's a pleasure (at least to me) to look out into the backyard at Struan Farm right now: veggies are growing pretty much everywhere, summer abundance. Visitors seem to be blown away when they turn the corner past the garage!

I'll let the photos speak for themselves, but we have heaps of lettuces, beets, flowering and green tomatoes, purple spotted Dali beans, nasturtium, herbs (dill, basil, parsley, coriander, chives, sage, thyme, mint), zucchini (been eating oodles of zoodles to use the surplus), black currants, and purple snow peas. The quinoa is starting to grow heads of what must turn into quinoa grain to harvest eventually, and the deep purple carrots have germinated. We're holding off a bit longer to dig the potatoes (no action on the Maori potatoes quite yet, but they've just been planted). Fortunately last year's completely neglected potato patch yielded enough for Christmas dinner and then some.

Pumpkins and spaghetti squash are growing everywhere in the back by the compost bins, although it looks like the spaghetti squash may be dominating that situation. I won't know until everything ripens since it's a contained universe to keep out both the dog and the rabbits. Hoping for some Musquee de Provence and Marina di Choggia pumpkins, fingers crossed.

Out near John's workshop there are more tomatoes, basil, marigolds and corn. 

 

 

 

Super Lamb

Rosie has been one rather special little pet lamb here at Struan Farm. She was the first to arrive on the scene this year, and has always enjoyed her Mother Superior position in the flock. I remember sitting with her on the garage floor, trying to get her to drink from a bottle, finally getting her to suck after sticking my finger down her throat. Early desperate times. 

This past week we had some farmstay visitors from Auckland and the USA here with two little boys, so decided that yes, the pet lambs would get an evening bottle. I prepared five bottles and had them sitting out on the table on our front deck. 

The guests arrived, and as I walked out to greet them, the lambs came running across the paddock toward the front yard. Rosie took a flying leap, and jumped up over the retaining wall (3+ feet?!) to land on the lawn, where she proceeded to come up on the deck. I watched with amazement!

 

Ruby tried too, but didn't make it. The others had more sense. I quickly grabbed the bottles and led Rosie to the gate by the fence, where I got her back out in the paddock with the others for a feed with the guests. She did nibble a few flowers on the way, but I'm hoping she didn't get a taste of the Garden of Eden above the retaining wall so that this becomes a regular thing, especially since she now knows she can do this.

Super Lamb?

The Last Supper

There comes a time when the pet lambs have to be weaned at Struan Farm. I don't like it, they don't like it. At a certain point it means our relationship grows apart, not something I particularly want after everything we've been through. To quote Peter Pan, we don't want to grow up.

But I know they need to move on and get out with the mob. Rosie, Ruby, Pepper and Pip will most likely be mothers here at Struan Farm next year themselves. Spanky, well that's up to Farmer John.

So on Boxing Day we had the kids come up and feed the lambs their "last supper." We also took off Rosie and Pip's red collars, since they won't need those out in the paddocks, in fact they could get caught on something.

They have had the odd bottle since then with farmstay visitors, but the regular daily feeds in the morning and evening are over. At the moment they still barrel into the house paddock in the evenings, baaing to herald their arrival.

They're sad, I'm sad. Weaning is a mutual thing.