Struan Farm

Bee Paparazzi

The gardens at Struan Farm are abuzz. Bumblebees and honey bees are everywhere, it's great to see them working away. For some reason the other day the bumblebees were out in large numbers. I found myself following them around the flowers, camera in hand. Bee paparazzi, that would be me.

 

A Bad Case of Sunburn

I continue to learn lessons from my heirloom tomato plants in the veggie gardens here at Struan Farm. Every year they teach me something different, initiating me further into their world. This year I learned that they can get sunburnt, something I hadn't realised. Also that they tend to stop ripening in extreme heat.

Sunburnt tomatoes turn white, not red. They look like this:

I'd gotten tired of looking at and bushwhacking around the tomato jungle, and thought it might be time to start trimming some of the flowering branches hiding ripening fruit. Fortunately I didn't get too carried away, only 2-3 of our 30+ plants have suffered. But I feel terrible, this is a loss of simply beautiful fruit! Yes, tomatoes sometimes make one learn things the hard way. Hopefully now you won't make this same mistake.

Echinacea, Just Because

The Albatross that is Ironing

The image of an albatross weighing around one's neck comes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner." For some reason the phrase has stuck in my head since grade school, but not the fact that the Mariner was punished for shooting a friendly albatross by having to wear its weight around his neck for life.

Suffice it to say that ironing is also for life pretty much. And ironing has a bit of emotional baggage for me. It probably doesn't weigh me down quite as much as the albatross did the Mariner, but at this time of the year the pile can mount up here at Struan Farm during "peak farmstay." Along with the cleaning and laundry. We do have duplicate sets of bed linens and carefully crafted "efficiency systems," but at a certain point the rubber meets the road, Karen has to confront her dread and tackle the ironing. When I'd much rather be outside, weeding even. John threatens to help, at which point I'm prompted into action, sufficiently humiliated that I'm obviously not coping with my responsibilities. I can't have that.

I know well from where this emotional baggage comes. My mother spent hours holed up in our basement (it was called the "cellar") when I was growing up, surrounded by mountains of laundry and ironing. She'd stand at the ironing board, smoking and watching her shows on a small black and white portable TV, late into the night. For me it was an image of servitude, also of being trapped or perhaps overwhelmed. The house had a laundry chute from the top floor, so everything just went shooting down the hole for my mother to deal with below.

I never really talked about what I saw as this dreadful situation with my mother. For all I know it was her secret hiding place, an oasis of quiet far from the madding crowd. But for me it was claustrophobic, something to be escaped at all costs. At a certain point she tried to get my sister and me to do our respective laundry and ironing (but of course not our brother). My main problem with this directive was that I worked in a department store part-time after school, and my sister tended to steal borrow and wear my nicer clothes. Which she then didn't launder or iron. So I was forced to look after both hers (really mine) along with mine. 

Here at Struan Farm the ironing does get done, eventually. It did today. There is no cellar where it can be left to accumulate, I have nowhere to hide (okay, there is the garden!). Plus the guests need their freshly ironed bed linens and table cloths, we do have standards to maintain.

 

When An Artist Visits...

We like to think Struan Farm is a relaxing, peaceful place. That the trees and gardens are calming and speak to people, not just to us of course.

This past week we had return farmstay guests who've visited the farm on a regular basis on trips to New Plymouth. This may very well have been their sixth or seventh visit. The wife is a flower photographer and composer, and tells us she finds considerable inspiration from the gardens, trees, and just being here. She often sits looking out on the gardens and Pet Paddock trees, composing music. After this last visit she suggested we consider offering accommodations to an "artist in residence," an idea that immediately inspired John. He's thinking we might offer a special one week concessionary rate to artists who want to come here to create, think, work, be inspired. Painters, photographers, writers, composers. 

What do you think?