I'd been getting a little nervous about how this year's saffron harvest would go. Apart from topping up the raised beds in mid-December (thanks to Margaret of Clan Davidson for spending an entire afternoon pushing barrows full of compost uphill) and doing the occasional bit of weeding, we didn't pay them much attention. Then we had six weeks of hot weather and no rain. Farmer Wan hooked up a sprinkler, gave the parched corms a drink and we waited.

Much to our surprise, our first flower popped up on 30 March, two days earlier than last year.

Everything's different to last year, this time around. Although we're not harvesting 500 flowers a day, as the guy we're growing for said we might, there are definitely more of them. Yesterday, I picked 344. On Wednesday, we processed 745. And yeah, I count them.

Last year, we had a lot more foliage appear before the flowers. This year, it's the other way around, which I suspect is how it's meant to be.

The red stigmas (the actual saffron bits) seem longer this year. There's a higher proportion of doubles, rather than the more desirable triplets. I'm not sure why.

I think the 2013 harvest may well be more drawn out. The corms were all planted on the same day last year and most of the plants came up at the same time. This year, we still have entire rows yet to break the surface.

We've got the processing side of things down pat now. It's fiddly work but satisfying, in its way. The most challenging part of the whole process is the drying. Last year, we under-dried. This year, we might have gone a little too far the other way. It's a nerve-wracking prospect because perfect product means top dollar. We won't know for sure until it's sent away and analysed. In the meantime, we'll do our best to get it spot-on.

And now, to prove there's a lot more to Farmer Wan than simply building chook houses, chopping firewood and constructing bunny-proof fences, feast your eyes on his gorgeous images of our exotic cash crop.

Posted by Farmer Nik

And I'm not talking about Game of Thrones here. 

We were blessed with 16 straight days of glorious weather during April; we had temperatures up to 26 degrees C and no rain. Of course it all had to come to an end. We now lose the sun over the hill at the back at around 4:00pm and the temperature plummets accordingly. This morning we awoke to an outside temperature of 5 degrees C with a wind chill which made it feel like -8 degrees C, there is a dusting of snow on the ranges and we've had the fire lit all day. Time to get all those winter jobs done (plus all of the summer ones that weren't completed!)

So what have we been doing in the month since we last posted?

Bounteous harvest (Plums, plums and more plums)
Last year the apple trees were loaded with fruit and the plum trees were virtually empty; this year we harvested maybe a dozen apples and several kilograms of plums, which Farmer Nik proceeded to turn into the most beautiful Plum & Lavender or Plum & Vanilla jams. Just as well really, because all of the French Apricot Jam made in Jan/Feb was finished off during Mum and Dad's visit in February. (Note to Farmers Nik & Wan: make more next year!). 

"Wee" Bonnie arrives
Early in the month we had a new arrival: Bonnie the Highland cow was delivered from nearby Tadmor Valley and settled in well with the rest of the herd. She is almost twice the size of our bull so we may have to build him a box to stand on when the time comes for him to do what bulls do best (only kidding!). She loves molasses spread on hay and will now take it from our hands. 

Easter Bunny pays a visit
Having family visit at Easter prompted an unexpected visit by the Easter Bunny. On Easter Sunday morning there were numerous bunny footprints around Muntanui. These were eagerly followed by the youngest of the party and led to various locations of hidden chocolate eggs (including amongst the real eggs), each discovered amidst squeals of delight.

During this Easter family visit we headed once more to the Hidden Cafe for lunch and a quiet afternoon in the sculpture garden, well worth a visit if you are in the area. 

Saffron harvest early
We had expected the saffron corms to flower in early May, so when they started popping up on the 1st April (see below) we were surprised. The harvest peaked just prior to the middle of the month, unfortunately coinciding with our four-day tramp to the Blue Lake. Fortunately, thanks to the generosity of friends from Wakefield, we were able to complete the tramp and they took care of Muntanui, all the animals and the saffron harvesting/processing whilst we were away. We have processed all of the harvest so far; and having peaked at 120 flowers in one day, we are now picking no more than a dozen each morning. (Note to Farmers Nik & Wan: don't go away in April!). 

The Blue Lake Tramp
The Reason: 
Farmer Nik pitched the idea for a story about the Blue Lake to NZ Geographic magazine, the original idea being to hitch a ride on a DoC chopper and then write the story. The DoC representative who Farmer Nik spoke with thought this a good idea but suggested the story might be better if Farmer Nik actually walked all the way to Blue Lake. She agreed.

The Preparation: 
Buying lots of gear (boots, jackets, gas cooker, freeze-dried meals). Climbing to the top of Beeby's Knob (1441m) one Saturday to make sure we were actually fit enough to attempt a four-day walk.

The Tramp: 
Thanks to the generosity of neighbours Chris and Jean, we were able to avoid the high cost of a water taxi to the head of Lake Rotoroa. Chris took us all of the way up the lake in his tinny and dropped us near the Sabine Hut at around 10:00am. This was the first time that either of us had had sizeable packs on our backs for many years and it took a bit of getting used to. The sign said “West Sabine Hut 5 hours”. No worries, we thought, these guide times are always on the generous side. Eight hours later, just as it was beginning to get dark, we arrived at the river crossing close to the hut. The swing bridge had been washed away the previous year, but a convenient log enabled a shaky crossing to the other side of the river. We were alone in the hut that evening and soon realised that the first item to be added to our “List of Things to Take Next Time” was candles. 

The next day dawned beautiful once more and after our (interesting) re-constituted freeze-dried cooked breakfast we set off to Blue Lake; according to the signs, a four-hour walk. Crossing several avalanche paths, we made our way further up the valley and then started the final climb up to the lake. This time we managed the four hour walk in five hours, but it was well worth it. The Blue Lake is the clearest recorded freshwater in the world and a very special place, surrounded as it is by an amphitheatre of mountains. To read more about it, look out for Farmer Nik's article, we'll post when it is published and where to find it. That evening we shared the Blue Lake Hut with three Kiwis, an Englishman and a lone Israeli tramper. 

In the morning we stayed long enough to see the sun once more on the lake before heading back down to West Sabine Hut. Going downhill has never been my favourite part of walking and doesn't do much for the knees. However, having neglected until now to use the walking poles we had been lent, we both decided this would be a good time to try them – good idea, wish we'd thought of it sooner. We both had this crazy idea that walking poles were related to walking sticks, i.e., for the infirm or old. No. Using one pole each was more like having a third leg, especially when it came to descending steep slopes or crossing streams, very useful and took some of the strain from the already weary legs. (Note to Farmers Wan & Nik: Buy walking poles before next tramp). The descent to West Sabine Hut signposted at 3 ½ hours took us only 4 ½. We were definitely getting better at this. 

We enjoyed more company in the Hut that evening with Diana the volunteer warden and Sandra and Markus from Switzerland all passing the night there before they headed up to Blue Lake and beyond. We were up early and crossing the river again by 07:30am. This time we had a deadline; we had arranged for Chris to pick us up at the head of Lake Rotoroa, (perhaps optimistically) at 2:00pm. We did the five-hour walk in six hours and arrived at the head of the lake just as Chris and Jean motored into view, bringing with them a very welcome flask of hot tea. We hadn't walked particularly far in four days (approx 40km) but it was one of the hardest walks we had both ever done, well worth the sore feet and knees.


The Swiss are coming
When we met Sandra and Markus during our last night on the tramp we had said to them, "Come and have hot showers and a meal and stay over", knowing they had four days more walking to do after we left them. We expected them to stay the night and head away the next day... how wrong we were! They arrived at our place mid-afternoon a few days after we got home and immediately offered to help with any work around the farm, so they were tasked with digging up the main crop spuds, a job they completed at a rate of knots. Next morning, they requested more work and we set about relocating the cattle yards in the front paddock, a job that took longer than expected. Their third day here was spent cutting firewood, building compost heaps and weeding in the vegetable garden, these guys are machines! We very much enjoyed their company and cannot thank them enough for all the work they did whilst here. As I have said to Farmer Nik on several occasions, I have never met a Swiss person I did not like and these two were certainly no exception.

So, a busy and most productive month and certainly the best and most settled weather we have experienced since arriving here. We have completed our first harvest of a saleable crop and look forward to finding out how much it is actually worth.

Finally, we were interviewed for the local free newspaper.  Please excuse the several mistakes in the article, don't believe everything you read...see here on Page 22. (The Leader Richmond-Waimea, 26 April 2012)

Here is a selection of photos of April fun:

This innocuous little autumn-flowering crocus produces saffron, the world’s most expensive spice.

Saffron is what you get when you detach the stigmas and dry them. (Stigmas are the sticky ends of a flower’s reproductive girly parts.) Harvesting takes place over a six week period in mid-late autumn. The flowers are picked early in the morning so they don’t get a chance to open and the stigmas stay protected.

Then, assuming your extremities haven’t turned black and gangrenous from that 15-degree frost you’ve just been working in for the last hour or so, you take the flowers inside, extract the tiny stigmas (keeping them attached to each other, naturally), dry them to the correct standard, weigh them and proudly admire your morning’s work: half a gram of finished product.

That’s why saffron’s so expensive.

Farmer Wan and I, being suckers for this sort of punishment, decided it was about time we took a crash course on a cash crop and so we recently acquired 1,000 C.sativus corms. We wanted to give them the best possible chance of producing highest-grade saffron, so we went to a fair bit of trouble to ensure they’d flourish.

After calculating that we’d need 20m2 of growing space, Farmer Wan knocked up eight raised beds from untreated eucalyptus. You can follow what we did next by viewing the slideshow below.