Struan Farm

Moving House

While I was on holiday Clifford and his house were moved. He had been based at the entrance to the orchard at Struan Farm, on the edge of the drive near the workshop. It was a good spot for security purposes, and convenient for feeding, but a bit messy. While normally he runs free during the day, when chained up he would dig up gravel/metal when bored, spraying it all over. So John decided we should move his house up the hill into the orchard proper.

 

He now looks down on us, King of the Hill and Lord of the Orchard. He is able to see directly into both the kitchen and the living room still, so seems happy with this new location. There's some discussion of a concrete pad, but I'm not so sure about that in my orchard. We'll see if he starts digging into the dirt. We're both complex individuals, Clifford and me.

Preparing for Pets

It's almost lambing time. This past week Mike helped me set up the pet lamb pen in the backyard at the house here at Struan Farm. I've bought a stash of new bottles, powdered milk and colostrum. So I'm ready and waiting for the abandoned lambs to land. Both Farmer John and the neighbours know I'm keen for ewe pet lambs in particular. Rosie has been enlisted to be the Queen Mum, offering support and guidance. But we both know that I'll be mum, really.

Going to Seed

I arrived home to Struan Farm from holiday to find seed catalogs waiting for me. It's time to start ordering flower and veggie seeds, hooray! Tomatoes get started in August, so we're really not that far away. Orders have been posted off.

The list includes: beans, beets, lettuce/mesclun, pumpkin, corn, zucchini, chiles, carrots, dill, basil, tarragon, italian parsley, tomatoes, zinnias, nigella, cornflower, echinacea, scabiosa and I can't remember what else! I've got more heirloom tomato seeds from Mr. V. in Dargaville again, plus some I saved from last year's crop. I also found an interesting NZ website that sells heirloom tomato varieties, Bristol Plants and Seeds. I've ordered a few different types from them too. Yes, going over the cliff on tomatoes again. Hopefully the season will cooperate with my plan.

Jumping the Gun?

The first daffodil in the orchard here at Struan Farm has decided it's time. John thinks it's jumping the gun a wee bit, it's only July after all. But as someone who is always early (if I arrive somewhere on time I feel like I'm late), I understand entirely. We're optimists, we're ready for spring even though we haven't had much of a winter to date. And this may be an early variety, so could be entirely appropriate!

 

Hello Mister Chips

I returned home to Struan Farm after my holiday away to find this:

The road crew had taken out five listing poplar trees on our roadside bank, and left us the mulched wood chips to use in the gardens. Only problem now is that I need to weed the steep bank of natives we've planted near the new house where all of this will be deployed. Minor detail, it's time to get back to work!

On the Winter Weekend Menu

This was my first full weekend home at Struan Farm following my recent holiday. And of course it rained! But John and I found projects to do. I'd brought a cedar plank back with me so that we could try roasting salmon on the BBQ, something people in the Northwest and Western USA do quite a bit of. I coated the salmon with a chile lime dust. The board is soaked in water (or wine or fruit juice) for at least an hour before it's deployed. The fish is then set on the wet board over indirect heat with the BBQ lid closed. The aromatic smoke infuses the fish--seriously good! My plan was to expose John to this technique so we could then test it out with native NZ manuka/tea tree wood.

The next night I made "Spiced Parsnip & Kumara Soup," served with (leftover) salmon salad. The soup is topped with parsnip crisps coated with sea salt flakes and sumac, the crunchy bits really make the dish! Parsnips and red kumara are first roasted with garlic, onion and cumin seeds after tossing in olive oil. The roasted veggies are put into a pot with green curry and vegetable stock, everything is then pureed with an immersion blender. Cream is added before the mixture is heated and served.

While I do miss the sunshine and heat, it's definitely good to be back home and cooking in my kitchen!

Off in Search of Avocados (aka Blogging Break)

I've headed off to warmer climes for a short winter break. Need to go find some avocados given the prices for them here in New Zealand, I'm craving them! Nephew Mike is holding down the fort at Struan Farm, feeding Clifford, watering glasshouse, etc. Will be back on deck sometime the week of July 18th.

My First Cheeky Experiment

I tackled the first instalment of the lamb cheeks a few nights ago here at Struan Farm, making the lamb cheek taco recipe I'd found online.

Just a few observations on the front end: Lamb cheeks coming directly from an abattoir need to be trimmed, and this takes time. Some might say it's a little tedious, but that wouldn't be me.  Clifford also appreciated the trimmings. The "Aji amarillo" chiles called for in this recipe aren't readily available here in NZ. I checked out substitutions, which were serranos or habaneros, but finding those fresh or dried is also challenging here. I ended up using one tinned serrano chile plus some habanero salsa to give the dish a bit of heat. But I understand the aji amarillo chiles have a distinctive fruity flavour that might have been missing.

Be that as it may, the lamb cheeks were trimmed and browned in oil in the roasting pan on the stove top, after which the stock, onion, celery, carrot, oranges, cinnamon, cumin, chipotle, serrano/habanero, and garlic were tossed in. This is then brought to a boil before being covered with aluminium foil and put into the oven for three hours to braise. It smelled wonderfully fragrant going in:

After three hours, everything is strained to remove the meat, which is shredded. The recipe says to reduce the sauce, which is quite thin (and doesn't taste all that fabulous, so we didn't use it). I served the shredded meat over basmati rice with roasted brussel sprouts.

Observations on the back end: The meat was good, but the dish really needed a sauce, especially with rice. I could see the meat tasting great in a taco with salsa and guacamole, but that is a lot of work for tacos! I would also use either a large lidded, oven proof saute pan, or my La Creuset casserole dish. The roasting pan full of liquid with aluminium foil is cumbersome.

Next in terms of cheeky experiments: I will try the lamb cheeks with the Donna Hay beef cheek recipe, which has a delicious sauce. I'm also thinking cheeks would make a very good lamb curry....

What's in a Name?

Struan Farm. "Struan" is a Scottish word for the eldest son of the Robertson clan, derived from "sruthan," a word meaning "small stream." It is also a place on the Isle of Skye. While John's grandfather, Sir Carrick Robertson, came from Glasgow, we aren't aware that his family had any connections to the Isle of Skye. And neither Maurie nor John were the eldest sons of their respective Robertson clans. So we don't really know how the farm came to be called "Struan Farm" by John's parents. It's one of those things that might be lost to the sands of time.

"Struan" is pronounced "Stroo-in" or "Strew-in." Not "Strawn" or "Stron." A Scot may beg to differ, and if so I will listen.

Old time Piopio locals can be forgiven for some confusion, since a family named Straun lived across the road from the Robertsons for many years. Perhaps they think our farm was part of theirs. In fact, it was the other way around-- Maurie sold off the block across the road to the Strauns in one of his down-sizing periods. 

We get invoices with misspellings of Struan Farm all the time. It's not something that you can spell check on the computer, for those reliant on artificial intelligence. And several times a year I receive emails from frustrated people who say they've sent emails to which I have not responded. Since I respond to everything except obvious spam (particularly farmstay accommodation inquiries), my suspicion is that they've misspelled our name and thus the email address. But you can't exactly tell people that, can you? Instead I apologise and blame things on the vagaries of the internet, whatever they might be!

So just to clear the air, it's "STRUAN FARM." Pronounced "Stroo-in" or "Strew-in," with a wee Scottish lilt if you like. I know I can't do anything about those people who can't spell, but then I've been trying to deal with them most of my adult life and will do my best to continue to do so.

 

Going Native

A few days ago I grabbed some of my recycled pots and dug into our small mountain of potting soil to pot up the native flax seedlings that I've managed to germinate in the glasshouse here at Struan Farm. I also decided to pot one tray of the kahikateas (native white pine). I've left one tray still growing to see if when I pot them affects the trees either way.

 

About 159 flaxes and 25 kahikateas in all, so a good number! Now they just need to grow.

Soggy Pets, In Protest

The pet lambs here at Struan Farm have their own ways of expressing unhappiness with all the rainy weather we've been having of late. Do you remember a form of protest called a "Sit In?" It was a form of non-violent peaceful protest used in the 1960's, most recently I think was used by some US legislators in Congress to protest the lack of progress on bans on assault weapons in the aftermath of the Orlando shootings.

Nothing so dramatic here at Struan Farm, although Rosie has staged her own "sit in" over the rain:

She may also be on a temporary hunger strike, but I don't see that lasting too long!

Pepper, on the other hand, takes a more in your face approach. She is a hard line activist, believing that destruction of property, in this case my new garden plantings, is justified under certain situations.

I know, Pepper has always been my antisocial, problem child, but you gotta love her persistence!

Slipping, continued

Well, we woke up the next morning after the digger did its thing to the sound of roadwork once again below the roadside bank here at Struan Farm. Guess what? That section of bank that was cracking fell off onto the road, with a smallish tree. We'd raised it as an issue, and it became one.

Suspect this situation is going to be a work in process for awhile.

The Big Dig

Further on the bank slipping onto the road here at Struan Farm: the digger came, the digger worked, and the digger went. My fruit trees survived, phew. The driver did an amazing job threading his way between them, no fruit trees were harmed in the process. John did dig up and move three quince trees.  Hopefully they will be happier in their new spots.

John also moved several golden totara, a miro and kaiwaka, while the digger uplifted a few other native shrubs that we replanted.  Landscaping along this end will need to be reconsidered, since there's quite a cavity with which to contend. The bank was meant to be at a 45 degree angle after the work was finished, but it sure looks steeper than that to us. We also think there will now be further slips on at least one side, where a tree is leaning over the road. The soil is already starting to crack. So we don't think this is the end of it, rather we've just got through the latest instalment. They have told us they are coming back this next week to remove 3-5 poplars that are starting to list. The trees are over thirty years old, at the point where they start to cause problems. The good news on this is that we will have a pile of mulch chip to use in the gardens.

Yea, I know, it's a big, ugly hole, isn't it? Not sure I'm going to be the one climbing down there to do the planting!

The Cheeks Have Made it to Piopio!

Good news, the lamb cheeks I'd recently ordered from Taylor Preston have arrived in Piopio. They had a somewhat interesting journey from Wellington, since the big refrigerated truck originally scheduled for delivery wasn't going to make it up the drive here at Struan Farm. Plan B entailed delivery care of Piopio's Fat Pigeon Cafe, lucky for me we can do this sort of thing in a small town! 

I've tracked down an interesting recipe for "Lamb Cheek Tacos" that I'm going to use as my base. Not sure at this point whether I'll serve the resulting slow cooked meat mixture with rice, pasta or mash of some sort, so watch this space. But I've got plenty more to experiment with regardless, now that the cheeks have made it to Piopio.

The only real challenge was that they were meant to come in 2 kg packets, and came instead in one huge frozen 15 kg block. John got out the cleaver and everything is now sorted, phew!

Early Hellebores

A wet tour of Struan Farm's wooded gardens indicates the hellebores are starting to happen, just. They tell me I'm being a bit too keen, and to be patient. They're shy types.

But you know me, don't you?