Struan Farm

A Weekend with Everything, Even Trees

Apologies that blog posts will be a bit thin on the ground this week. John and I travelled down to Nelson for an extended long holiday weekend for Queen's Birthday here in New Zealand. It was a belated birthday and anniversary present for me, we'd needed to wait until the farmstay season at Struan Farm settled down to get away for a few days, and that had been extended even further by the contractors staying in the Cottage.

But we made it to Nelson, hooray! Lots to do down there with the arts, food, wine, wonderful Saturday market, and friends to visit. Friday night we had an amazing dinner at my favourite restaurant in NZ, Hopgoods, but since we were a wee bit early for our booking we went next door for a drink at the Cod & Lobster Brasserie, where John had this extraordinary gin and tonic to whet his appetite:

I love the huge vintage glass and embellishments (juniper berries, curl of lemon peel). It was served with a special Indian quinine tonic called "Fever Tree," chosen to compliment the gin John selected from three pages of options. (Who knew one could be quite so serious about gin, or tonic for that matter? Perhaps we don't get out enough...)

On Saturday after breakfast with John's cousin Ann and a quick tour of the Nelson Market we spent some time walking in the Queen's Gardens, which are located next to the recently modernised Suter Art Gallery, where we saw an interesting exhibition of kinetic sculpture by Andrew Drummond. Later that day John splurged on some garden sculpture by Nelson artists  Brendon & Jane Harley (I know, John bought art!), before we met our friend Glen out in nearby Mapua for dinner at the wharf.

On Sunday afternoon we caught the new NZ documentary film "Pecking Order," a quirky story about rivalries amongst members of a Christchurch poultry club, all of whom are rather obsessive about chooks, before an early dinner and fabulous Irish music concert at the Theatre Royal that was part of the annual Ceol Aneas Irish Music Festival. 

But back to the Gardens. They have a number of notable heritage trees, many types of which we have in the Pet Paddock at Struan Farm, including several Dawn Redwoods, Swamp Cypress, and a huge Cedrus atlantica glauca, which I was interested to learn is also called "Atlas Cedar" and originates from northern Morocco and the Atlas mountains of Algeria.

 

John was thrilled that our large Dawn Redwood is much bigger than the Queen's. It's a guy thing isn't it? My tree is bigger than yours....

Suffice it to say that our weekend away had everything: companionship, great food and wine/gin, art, music, film, perfect weather, and even TREES. The one thing we missed out on due to time was Evensong at the Cathedral, but really, what more could one want over two days for a weekend escape?

Short Queen's Birthday Break

We're taking an extended Queen's Birthday weekend on this end. I'll be back blogging Tuesday or Wednesday. Have a good long holiday weekend, I know I will!

Leaves Happen

Now that our contractor guests have departed and the farmstay is quieter I am back in a major outdoor work mode here at Struan Farm. At this time of the year this means LEAVES, and lots of them. As you will know we love our deciduous trees along, of course, with the natives. You may or may not know that leaves will kill grass if not raked or otherwise mulched with the mower, so it's important for us to get up whatever we can when we can.

I'm making a minor dent this week, starting at the Homestead entrance, drive and gardens, where the dogwood, maple, nyssa sylvatica, magnolia, etc. etc. drop everywhere. Next comes the roadside Pet Paddock near our Struan Farm sign, followed by the Pet Paddock oaks, the Cottage paddock, and last but not least, the pond banks. There are still leaves on these trees, so this is the first instalment of several weeks of work. Nephew Mike sees me coming with my rake and runs for cover, since he's on trailer duty!

At least I can say this is good exercise...