Struan Farm

Starting to Deck the Halls

It's been a rainy week in Piopio this past week, and as you know I'll do almost anything to get out of doing the ironing here at Struan Farm! So out came the Christmas decorations. The tree is up but not decorated just yet. That will happen soon.

As you can tell we're pretty low key, but I do have things that I've made or collected over the years that I enjoy putting out each year. Perhaps no one else notices them but me. I've asked nephew Mike to get Rudolph out of the shed so we can get him dressed up as well. He might need a new pair of antlers, and some thought is being given to wrapping him in solar fairy lights. He may object to that as a bit over the top, we'll see.

Flowers, Upon Closer Examination

I got a bit lost in the leftover flower arrangements from this past weekend's farmstay guests here at Struan Farm. The late evening light was soft, and the closer I looked the more interesting they seemed, especially the nigella and astrantia.

Christmas Cake, Feeding Required

I'm about to start baking for our annual family Boxing Day gathering here at Struan Farm. Over 40 coming this year, hooray! I've ordered a huge ham on the bone and put in a special request to brother-in-law Carrick to make his special bread rolls (Mil's recipe, world famous in Piopio). I'll order a few salmon fillets and come up with side salads shortly. The dessert table is where I tend to spread my wings, both in terms of offering and presentation. And I'll get on to that shortly.

But this past week I found a Christmas cake recipe in the current issue of Dish magazine that I decided to make for Christmas Day. John and I usually have a very low key Christmas dinner given the family extravaganza the following day. We're preoccupied with lawns, gardens, archery equipment, food, tables, etc. etc.  Christmas for us is a major work day! But John loves Christmas cake and Christmas puddings, so I'm attempting to make the former this year for our Christmas dinner dessert. John's eyebrows raised a wee bit when I explained that it's not exactly a traditional recipe, rather a more modern take on the classic, but we'll get past that I'm sure.

"Rich Whiskey and Spiced Fruit Christmas Cake" is made with a bit of cocoa and lots of fragrant spices. The cooked fruit (figs, dates, apricots, prunes, apple) is processed to give the cake a non-traditional finish. It is whiskey infused, and gets fed every seven-ten days with a bit more whiskey to season it further. (When the cake is still hot from the oven it is pricked with a skewer or toothpick and infused, rather like the technique for making syrup cakes.)

So far, so good. The cake is now wrapped in fresh baking paper and a tea towel, stored in an air tight container. Next weekend it gets another feed of whisky and so on until Christmas. Before serving it will get iced and decorated with a ribbon around the side and festive toppings of some sort. The recipe calls for chocolate ganache, which I won't do given John isn't exactly a chocoholic. In fact, chocolate often makes him sneeze. He's already concerned it looks a bit chocolate-y due to the cocoa and dark spices, so I'm working to minimise those concerns. I'll come up with an alternative on the icing for the top. But I have edible gold stars and will get other bits and pieces (chocolate and non) to make it sufficiently festive and over the top.

My next holiday challenge with be Christmas pudding, subject to acquiring one of those special pots to cook it (steam it?). Next year, perhaps. There's the Boxing Day baking to do.

Once A Pet, Always A Pet

Or so it seems here at Struan Farm! This is Ruby, peering over the retaining wall up into our house, querying about the possibility for an apple treat. And yes, she and Rosie did get some. I have to feed one with each hand or Ruby gets a bit rough, pushing Rosie away. We can't have that.

John and I were laughing the other day about "former" pet lambs. There's quite a collection of former pet ewes still on the farm who have lambed now: Rosie, Ruby, Pip, Pepper and Cookie. Cookie hadn't engaged with us that much until recently, when she had some sort of flashback as I was feeding the lambs their bottles at the back gate and came running up for one too. She now comes up to say hello when we're out walking around the property.

Pepper, always the moody problem child, had triplets this season. She is a great mother. The only problem is that we now see her teaching her lambs how to jump up on the garden fence and eat my flowers! First she looks to make sure we're watching.  It's hard to believe, I know, but it's seriously true. 

The dahlias, her favourites, aren't in bloom just yet. But she settles for the coreopsis, nigella, roses and poppies. I'm careful what I plant along the fence lines. And we can hoot and clap from the house to try to get her to stop but she won't. I can march down there, shouting her name to try to get her to stop but she won't. It's what Pepper does to annoy Mum, pure and simple.

This past week Jam and Jelly decided to go visit some farmstay guests at the Cottage who helped us one night with their bottles. They'd left the Cottage gate open so J&J decided to knock over the bench, poo on the sidewalk, and make their presence known by peering in the french doors and baa-ing loudly for people to come out and play.

Yes, the lambs stories continue.

Nursery Rhymes Under the Tawas

John and nephew Mike have just a few balls in the air at the moment here at Struan Farm. Their latest involves setting up a proper nursery for the native plants we're growing from seed or self-seeding trees found around the property. First and foremost, the 1,000 totara seedling trees John dug up and we've potted. At the moment they are sitting on the sidewalks and surrounds of "Veggie World" in the backyard, not exactly my idea of an optimal location. Yes, okay, you can call me territorial.

A plan started to take shape using spare timber from the felling and milling of our macrocarpas, along with the mountain of untreated sawdust sitting in the Bull Paddock. John designed, and Mike constructed, several tiered boxes out of the macrocarpa in an area by the back fence, under the tawas, filling them with sawdust to keep weeds down and pots moist. A tap has been set up on the fence. 

I suspect this is stage one, that more boxes will be needed and constructed once the plants we already have get relocated over the next week.  But it's good to have a dedicated area now for the natives we grow and want to grow.