Almost. The Night Owl is the latest new offering in the ever expanding Fat Pigeon empire in Piopio, which currently includes The Fat Pigeon Cafe, The Crafty Pigeon (gifts and crafts), and The Owl's Nest Motel. It is due to open on Easter or thereabouts for dinner seven days each week, although there have been a few events held there pre-opening. Very cool interior, with rustic corregated iron, shabby chic decor. The sign (above) gives you some idea.
We can't wait!
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Hooray, Piopio Berry Orchard is now open for the season and the strawberries are coming on!
January will be jam making at Struan Farm for sure, by then the blueberries will be available too.
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I managed to talk John into a quick visit to Piopio Primary School's Country Fair this past Saturday, after being intrigued by this poster advertising the event:
I especially wanted to get there in time to see the possums brought in by kids for weighing (there was also a prize for the most caught), and the rural country kid events. We weren't disappointed!
While anyone in New Zealand knows this already, I should emphasize here for the benefit of overseas readers, particularly anyone troubled by this, that possums are a non-native species. They have become a terrible pest, destroying native bush and birdlife. The Department of Conservation and Regional Councils have eradication programmes underway across the country in an effort to control numbers, no one realistically thinks they will ever be eliminated entirely but we can only hope. With assistance from Waikato Regional Council's programme and our own trapping, we have reduced possum numbers significantly at Struan Farm, but I was interested to see by this that they're still around in significant numbers.
Our two favorite activities for kids at the fair included a sled type ride, where kids sat on a wool sack and held onto a rope while being towed by quad bike:
And another where the participant was put into a safety harness, and hung in the air by a digger while they tried to stack as many boxes as they could before toppling over:
It was great to see the ingenuity of these improvised events, and everyone having heaps of fun. We didn't stay around to hear who won the possum prizes, and we also missed the Wearable Arts fashion show of clothing crafted from recycled materials, but suspect we'll read about it in the next issue of Piopio's "Bird Talk" newsletter.
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In my "spare" time, I've started a little research project into the history of the area south of Piopio where Struan Farm is located, which is called Paemako.
Here's a teaser:
From what I've been able to read so far from newspapers articles in the National Library archive Papers Past, the area was opened to European settlement in 1896 under the "Improved Farm Settlement Scheme." A block of approximately 1400 acres was subdivided into twelve holdings ranging from 100-200 acres each. Every section was taken up and resided upon by owners in the midst of thousands of acres of protected (the article in 1911 referred to these as "locked up") Maori lands. Settlers had no means of communication, and most worked on the formation work of the main Te Kuiti-Awakino Road (now SH3) in addition to farming, at least until dairying grew in the district. Paemako settlers were the main supporters of the construction of the Piopio Dairy Factory when it was built in 1911.
The little school above, long abandoned, pre-dated that built in Piopio, which still operates. It was eventually amalgamated into Piopio in 1924 along with a number of other smaller area schools as part of a national consolidation effort (school consolidations continue here in New Zealand, and were as controversial then as they are now!).
I've been having fun reading through news articles in the archives about settler socials, school fund raisers and various community events and issues. It's interesting to see that some issues today (roading and rural broadband) were far bigger issues then (neither roads nor telephones existed initially, this area was isolated for years).
Will share more once I know more.
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John and I stopped by the official opening of Piopio's Crafty Pigeon gift and houseware shop this past weekend. They had a soft opening a few weeks ago, but last Friday it was a proper celebration, with the shop now decorated for Christmas.
As for me, I scored a few of these fun tea towels with all the place names in the Piopio area for Christmas presents for friends:
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Another adventure this past weekend was going off to visit a commercial dairy goat farm not far from Struan Farm in Piopio. It's a relatively new operation, part of a co-operative that produces goat's milk for infant formula, amongst other food uses.
It was interesting to see the set up, but more fun to see the kids interacting with the kids, and to see the kids finding out that kids will nibble just about anything!
Kids really just want to play with other kids.
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Very exciting to see The Crafty Pigeon open its doors in Piopio recently. The shop is stocking crafts produced by local artisans as well as high end housewares and gifts. Something much needed in our little country village!
We wish them well. Think the challenge will be keeping enough stock given a very successful opening week!
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About two years ago The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey filmed for a week in Piopio, taking over a local family farm up the Mangaotaki River Valley from Struan Farm and along with that the entire village.
Scenes shot on this location feature in the Trollshaws Forest, where Gandalf and this party battle the trolls and Bilbo pulls "Sting" from its sheath, amongst other things.
So it's very exciting to hear that the Denize family are opening a tourism venture on their farm this late spring/summer called "Hairy Feet Waitomo," offering organized tours over the property and specific filming locations.
Details to follow, but Struan Farm is just down the river and not far by car! If you're going to Hobbiton in Matamata, best not to miss Piopio either.....
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Unfortunately none at Struan Farm just yet, but up the road on the north end of Piopio there are lambs happening. There's a farmer who always seems to lamb earlier than anyone else in the area. So I was very excited to see lambs in his paddocks, since it means ours are almost here.
And look closely--triplets!
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Great to see the new "Owl's Nest Motel" officially open in Piopio Village. Overseen by Melanie Simpson, owner of Piopio's award winning Fat Pigeon Cafe, and part of her expanding empire, it's modern, clean and almost always fully booked!
Can't wait for the adjacent restaurant to open. In the meantime motel patrons are catered to from The Fat Pigeon, but it will be great to have a restaurant serving dinner in town every night.
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Hooray, Piopio Orchard is now officially open! This past weekend we had the first strawberries of the season.
If you're in the area definitely stop in for freshly picked berries, fruit ice creams/frozen yogurts, smoothies or coffee. Right now there are strawberries with blueberries and raspberries to come.
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Bit of a sad day, yesterday. Piopio Orchard closed for the season. I picked up my last stash of fresh blueberries for this year from Angela and Mike, getting some for the freezer as well.
The seasonal transition was even more apparent at Struan Farm this week:
John and I have fingers and toes crossed that the colors will last for our event on May 12th celebrating the launch of Mel Clark's new book "Knitting Everyday Finery." We think we can count on the dogwoods and the NYSSA sylvatica, but the oaks, walnuts and liquid ambers could pike out on us depending on wind and rain in the interim.
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Our fate rests in the hands of Mother Nature. Surely she's a knitter?!
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I will be taking a working holiday at Struan Farm (and break from blogging) from today, returning January 9. The annual Piopio Santa Parade is tonight, the official start of the Christmas holiday for us.
With thanks and attribution to Piopio local Ellie Voyce, who designed this card, have a happy and healthy Christmas. I'll be back in the New Year with lots of news and stories from the farm I'm sure!
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National elections were held this past Saturday, so John and I went off to the local polling place in Piopio to do our civic duty.
The polling place was our local primary school, which in Piopio continues to be one of those traditional, rather iconic, NZ schools. I guess this helps us keep the next generation in mind as we go off to tick the boxes.
When I looked more closely at the wooden figures along the front fence and realized they were distinctly different, I also saw that each had a name painted on the feet--the children had painted self portraits for this display at the school entrance.
And of course, this is New Zealand, there always has to be an All Black in the mix:
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It's one of my favorite "seasonal moments" to drive into Piopio and see the banners flying at Piopio Orchard, announcing they're open for the season and the berries are ripe:
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I would be remiss if I didn't mention a certain little rugby tournament that has taken over New Zealand. The Rugby World Cup 2011 opened this past Friday night to grand fanfare, with games running until the final at the end of October. The New Zealand All Blacks beat Tonga in the opening match.
This is a huge event for New Zealand. What's especially great is that there are games all over the country. Provincial towns are hosting the various overseas teams, have rolled out the welcome mat and decorated themselves accordingly.
In Piopio the town has put up black and white buntings, flags from the countries participating, "Go All Blacks" signs, and even painted the public toilet with a silver fern!
It's amazing to see the convoys of camper vans on the roads, hope they remember to stay on the left! I may need to get some flags for the Pet Paddock fence.
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