Struan Farm

Both Sides Now

I came inside a few days ago after a cold, damp but sunny day in the gardens here at Struan Farm. The time before sunset is probably our collective favourite time of the day. Often John and I will go outside and walk around, hands in pockets, talking and dreaming about the next project(s). The new(ish) house looks out over trees, across hills, and off into the sunsets.  It's a time for reflection and recovery from the day's effort.

This particular day the clouds and light were amazing. On one side of the sky a silver sliver of crescent moon was on the rise, while on the opposite side a plane was streaking across and leaving a contrail. I grabbed my camera and got carried away. Normally clouds don't cooperate but for some reason these did.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down and still somehow

It's clouds illusions I recall

I really don't know clouds at all. 

                                --Joni Mitchell

Weekend Flowers

It was a busy weekend in Piopio because of the annual WOMAD world music festival in nearby New Plymouth. Struan Farm's farmstay was no exception, we had people staying with us enroute south to New Plymouth, and then on the way home. We're 1 1/2hours from New Plymouth, after quite a stretch of windy, scenic road.

I pretty much dropped the ball on flowers for our table this weekend as a result, but here are the guests' flowers: 

It's a transitional time in the gardens. Roses are pretty much done, except for orange "Frilly Jilly," so I'm working with dahlias, daisies, hydrangea, and the last of the sweet peas, filling in with other "bits and pieces."

 

Next Nellie

After finishing up Dita's eyelet baby blanket I felt the need to knit an adult project before tackling yet another baby project. Next in that queue will be Mel Clark's "Papoose" from her new book "Knitting Gifts for Baby" for daughter Sarah's new little girl, due any day now.

So it was a pleasure to whip off another version of Lisa Cruse's "Nellie Crush," my favorite of her wonderful hat designs, in Cascade 220 Heathers (color 4010). The only problem I had with this was on the photography front, since at this time of year it's dark when I leave for work and dark when I get home, at least inside! One late afternoon this week I managed to get home in time to run outside to our front yard, where there was enough fading daylight to get a decent shot of the knitted hat before it's fulled.

I'll fire up the washing machine this weekend. Hoping Lisa's lesson on how to shape this hat once fulled has stuck with me, I do remember which bowl I need to use, that's a start. I'll report back once "Next Nellie" is felted/fulled, also with some initial embellishment ideas.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden?

 

Not sure if you remember this song by Lynn Anderson, but I've embedded the video to refresh your memory.

In this case there's good news, because I have indeed promised you a rose garden, and it's on the way at Struan Farm:

You may recall that this is being created from the skeleton of our old swimming pool, that we decided to "repurpose." We've used recycled bricks for the bottom walls and topsoil from farm track gradings underway currently. We're not sure if we're the only ones to wax lyrical about the beautiful color of our lush topsoil, but aren't you jealous?

Next John will build the pergola overhead. During winter I will transplant roses I've grown from cuttings into the beds. These are roses that have been in the gardens at Struan Farm for years, several of which grew beside the swimming pool! We're undecided at this point whether it will be wisteria, grapes or roses on the pergola overhead, those are all options at this point.