Struan Farm

A Bug in the House

Apologies, but we've had a wee bit of an intestinal bug in the house here at Struan Farm. Both John and I have succumbed. So blog posts will be a bit thin on the ground the next few days.

Ready for Action

There are some very pregnant sheep wandering the paddocks here at Struan Farm at the moment. I'm ready to start lambing beats in a week or two to help Farmer John. I'm also ready to look after anyone who gets abandoned.

Powdered colostrum and lamb's milk, tick, bottles and teats, tick, pet pen, tick. I've even saved cardboard boxes to run over to the neighbour's for pick up when/if I get the call. It does take a bit to get back into the groove, but it's like riding a bike; it comes back to you pretty quickly.

Of the pets (this year and last) Rosie, Ruby, Pip, Pepper, and Cookie are definitely pregnant, maybe Tootsie. I'm not sure about Minnie, we tried to keep her away from the ram since she was quite young as a late season lamb. I'm looking forward to seeing how the pets will go as mums. I know I'll be a great granny!

Bells, Not Drops

A few days ago the snowbells in the Cottage Paddock at Struan Farm started to bloom. A sure sign spring is on the way, hooray! For some reason the sheep don't eat these, they've grown in this paddock "forever."  

I'd always thought they were "snowdrops," but a knowledgeable blog follower contacted me last year to point out the difference between the two flowers. They're similar, but different. We definitely have bells, not drops.

Back on the Needles

There are only so many hours in the day, and too many needlepoint Christmas stockings still left to do. That's my story about why I haven't been knitting for awhile, and I'm sticking to it. The last thing I knit was a pink "Pussy Hat" to support the Women's March and denounce Trump. I knocked that off in one day in a state of righteous outrage. 

But when the word came out that one of our grandsons needed a new hand knit beanie, what's a knitting grandmother to do?

I blew the cobwebs off the entrance to my knitting stash here at Struan Farm and ventured in (you may remember, it's a walk-in closet). I've never been a big baby knitter, I've always preferred making things for adults. I did make some blankets in Blue Sky organic cotton for grandchildren that did get well used. I learned to make beanies in volume when sister knitters and I got going making baby beanies for the Otara Budgeting Service each winter. One winter ASB colleagues and I made and delivered 346 beanies for families in need.

Fortunately the stash delivered. It would have been a bit ridiculous to go out and buy yarn when I have a closet of gorgeous yarns sitting in plastic boxes waiting to be used, but then as a knitter I know that that does happen and happens often. In this instance I had enough leftover skeins of beautiful soft Sublime "baby cashmere merino silk dk" in little boy compatible colours. The pattern is Sublime's "Get Knotted Hat" from "The third little Sublime hand knit book." Quick and easy, one to two nights, depending on what's happening on MasterChef.

It's now back to Freya's stocking, but this was good to test that I still remember K, P, and the secret handshake.

Happy Bread News

A week or so ago I popped into a new Bin Inn in Takanini when I was up in Auckland. Guess what I found?

Our favourite Laucke Golden Wholemeal bread mix is back in the New Zealand market, and Bin Inn is carrying it! Struan Farm is now stocked up big time for the farmstay season. I've since found it at the Bin Inn in Waitara to the south and Te Awamutu to the north. Bin Inn Waitara will be my normal supply source.

You may or may not recall the back story on this. Since we opened the farmstay here at Struan Farm I made freshly baked wholemeal bread for our guests using Laucke Golden Wholemeal bread mix. I used the bread machine for kneading, but then proofed and baked it in a proper tin in the oven. I delivered it warm from the oven if possible, wrapped in a vintage linen tea towel. After two years of rave reviews with this bread, Countdown discontinued the mix, without any notice. I then went around buying up boxes to stockpile as much as I could for as long as I could. I got in touch with the NZ distributor, who'd said they would supply me directly, but when I went to do that they advised that the product had been discontinued. I got in touch with Laucke in Australia. They are a family owned business and were wonderful, but the cost of shipping relatively low volumes of the product directly to us in NZ was silly, it just wasn't going to work.

You know me. I then experimented with the various bread mixes available trying to find an acceptable and comparable replacement. Fortunately this was during winter, when the farmstay was relatively quiet. "Comparable" was the problem, there just aren't any retail wholemeal bread mixes, they're mostly whole grain, basically white bread with bits and pieces. I landed on Champion Wholemeal bread mix to fill the void, a product commercially available in 10 kg sacks through Davis Trading Company. Since we're a business and GST registered this was possible. I must say that Davis Trading is a great company. I now buy most if not all of our muesli ingredients from them in commercial quantities as a result.

It turns out Laucke's NZ distributor went out of business. A new distributorship arrangement has been put into place and all is now right with the world.  I emailed Laucke to express my happiness at finding their Golden Wholemeal bread mix once again here in NZ. Companies need to hear these things from their loyal customers. I received a very nice email back. The owner of Bin Inn Takanini has since a good laugh with John, he remembers my joyous celebration at discovering the mix in his shop. I made a point of putting a nice comment on his FB page, always a good thing these days in retail.

It's important to let people know when they make you happy. It seems they remember that and you.

p.s. Just so you know, I make the "medium style loaf" that's explained on the back of the bottom corner of the box. We prefer our wholemeal bread a bit less dense and it seems most if not all of our guests do too.  The European farmstay guests we've had have been particularly complimentary. Happy notes have been written in the guest book about our bread, Laucke's and mine. It's back!

Almost Nelsonian?

You may recall on our not-so-recent weekend away in Nelson John sampled an amazing gin & tonic cocktail at the Cod & Lobster Brasserie. 

He chose both gin and tonic from an extensive/overwhelming array of options, but we were perhaps most impressed by the presentation, in a huge vintage cut glass goblet, sprinkled with lemon zest and juniper berries:

Now you might say we don't get out enough, and that would be true! But he enjoyed the drink sufficiently that I decided to try to recreate the experience at home at Struan Farm.

The perfect glass is still a work-in-process. (The one above may actually be a fruit compote rather than a glass? Or maybe a water goblet?) But I found a large inexpensive glass goblet at an "op shop" in nearby Te Awamutu that met the brief sufficiently for a first attempt. I picked up a boutique gin made in Taranaki (New Zealand) called "Juno," along with "Fever Tree" and "East Imperial" Old World Tonic. I had the fresh organic lemons and juniper berries on hand, although I did have to buy an old style lemon zester having progressed to micro-planers for most of my zesting requirements these days. My technique with lemon peel also needs some work, no corkscrew effect....

Not bad for my first effort if I do say so myself, and it seems I am needing to do so. Do you think we can characterise it as "almost Nelsonian?" 

John wasn't quite as enthusiastic as I'd hoped he'd be. To be fair, this probably says more about Karen and her "joie de vivre," which can be a wee bit overpowering when she gets going. He did enjoy the drink, or at least he said he did. (Let's just say that John has adopted the mantra "happy wife, happy life." He's a wise man in most respects.)

But my quest for the proper goblet continues. I promise it won't be turned into the stuff of Arthurian legend, but I do know the locations of a fair few antique, collectible, and "op" shops around the traps and I prefer that retro cut glass look. We'll try some other "boutique" or "artisanal" gins too, having learned there are a fair few out there to sample.

Winter Roses for the Table

I finally had time to go out to the wooded gardens and pick a big bunch of hellebores for the table arrangement this week here at Struan Farm. They don't last long, dropping and drooping, but I love their delicate beauty. It's also a joy to have flowers on the table at this time of year!

 

 

Grounded.

Sometimes someone needs to lay down the law here at Struan Farm, and that someone is usually me.

I normally leave Clifford untied during the day. He stays by the house and more often than not naps in the sun. But a day or so ago he disappeared and I had to go off to find him. I thought he'd followed nephew Mike down to the Homestead where he's working on the new garden shed. Turns out Clifford was down at the Homestead, but not with Mike. He was running around in an agitated "hunt" mode, a state that I've come to recognise. He loses all awareness of his surroundings when he gets like this.  One could say he is "in the zone." The last time this happened was chasing turkeys, and he blew out a ligament in his back leg.

Suffice it to say he was lectured sternly about wandering off and brought back up to his coop. At the time I thought it was a one off thing. I also wasn't sure what he was hunting.

But no, it wasn't a one off. He slipped off again two days later.  I found him down at the Homestead again. This time he came crawling out from UNDER the Homestead. Now John and I know that rabbits nest pretty regularly under there, we see them run for cover when they're startled on the lawn. I'm sure Clifford was on the prowl for rabbits, something he views as his primary responsibility here at the farm. But the problem is that poison has been tossed under the Homestead, both rabbit and rat. So I can't have Clifford going under there much as he'd like to.

Time for tough love: he's grounded indefinitely.

 

Now no one jump to his defence, please! I definitely don't like tying Clifford up during the day, but really don't have a choice when he gets sneaky like this. It's for his own good. I don't want him eating poison and dying...We're also coming into lambing season, the time of the year when he's on a very short leash since we don't want him stressing the ewes and new lambs.

New Winter Sides

Over the past week I've tested out two new winter veggie recipes from Mike McEnearney's new cookbook "Real Food," previewed in the current issue of "MindFood" magazine. Both dishes were amazing and are definitely worth trying.

Here's "Roast Sweet Potato with Maple Syrup and Cinnamon:"

Roast orange kumara on an oven tray in their skins until soft, about an hour, then split open and top with a dusting of cinnamon, fresh coriander, pomegranate "arils" (found some on a recent trip to Papakura in Countdown, hooray!), and a good dollop of yogurt. The recipe calls for coconut yogurt, which I didn't have on hand, but low fat greek yogurt worked well too. A dressing made of tamarind paste, cinnamon, maple syrup, soy sauce, olive oil, and lime juice is drizzled on top before serving. It was absolutely delicious, the tart yogurt and pomegranate work well to offset the sweetness of the kumara.

The second dish was "Roast (Brussels) Sprouts, Buttermilk & Chickpeas." I know, it sounds unusual, but this too was "rather exceptional." Brussels sprouts are halved and sauteed in olive oil for 5 minutes with a pinch or two of salt, then roasted in the oven. After they've been in for five minutes they are dusted with smoked paprika before five minutes more. Toss with a tin of drained chickpeas, olive oil, lime juice, fresh mint and the dressing, which consists of buttermilk, olive oil, dijon mustard, salt and pepper. Another absolute winner--quick, easy, and delicious.

We'll be eating these two dishes regularly for awhile. Either one of them could be an entirely satisfying vegetarian meal, at least for me. I've already pre-ordered Mike's book, since his style of cooking and ingredients are just what we like to eat. If you can't wait for the book to test these out, grab the current issue of MindFood; somewhat confusing but the winter food issue is on the reverse side of the magazine, which has a different cover. And oops, excuse my crooked photo!