Taniwha: The Wonder of Spring Daffodils

Every spring, just a half hours drive from home, the Mabin family open their farm to the public for the season of the daffodil. All through September, through every daylight hour there is, people come in dribbles & droves, to pick bucket upon bucket of glorious, sunshiney daffodils.

A Taniwha in the garden.

Through the years the daffodils have been lifted & divided, lifted & divided & added to until they simply saturate the front fields of this wonderful park-like property.

The family built a tree house for their children, now shared with a vast array of visitors: young & old.

 It was quite scary up there you know!

Every second year the garden is scattered with sculpture. All available for sale.

I was so enthralled to find a pair of regal white swans.

I am not sure that I had ever noticed their nubile necks quite like this before.

And then the classic pose.

It is such an exhilarating feeling to wander & pick whatever takes your eye & your fancy.

So glad that we chose a perfect, sunny spring day.
(But I've got my mouth open said he...sorry my darling!)

This magical place is open to all for picnicking, picking, wandering & dreaming all the while the daffodils bloom..isn't that amazing!

There is so much beauty everywhere you look.

Weeping willow almost clothed in green.

The homestead is over 100 years old.

Always have to have angels, of course.

The bluebells arrive, a little tardy, toward the end of the season. We are apparently allowed to return & pick those too..I can scarcely believe the Mabins generosity. The daffodils cost $3.50 for 30 blooms & all proceeds are given to Central Hawke's Bay Plunket Society.

Taniwha & all the details you'll need to know to visit too (sadly, only if you're local) can be found here.

A lovely article about the Mabins & their magnificent property & lovely family can be seen here in the New Zealand House & Garden.

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Washing an Elephant...

As the days grow longer & the sky turns bluer, quite suddenly, there is an awful lot of cleaning to be done. Lucy was so grubby, poor girl. But I have discovered that she's not so very easy to wash. 

Quite a lot like washing an elephant, I should think.

The lilies have loved our very soggy spring.

So soggy, in fact, that this little slogan is entirely apt:

Funny old things lilies, they love boggy places in the valleys & they love winter- no valleys in my garden- but tucked in against our back wall seems to suit them very well.

It's so nice to have a profusion of flowers...enough to pick & some left in the garden to admire.

Lilies & white swans seem to go together in my mind. Perhaps it's their shared elegance.

White swans & bluebells...even better.

I came across this glorious old chocolate box on Trade Me sometime ago.
For a while there I feared that it might not make it to my door. The young man that sold it to me fell off his bike & ended up in hospital on the day of the sale. It was quite some time before he was able to bike the parcel to the Post Shop to send it on it's way. It certainly must have once contained a family box of chocolates in it's early life! The picture is a Vernon Ward, one I have never come across before.

Rob had some time off last week. It was so nice to be able to eat together each evening (he's normally at work 5 nights a week), catch up on some spring cleaning..

the front porch was covered in yellow pine pollen & dust, so it got a spruce up

& we took a little tour south to hunt down some daffodils...& a white swan or two.

We also watched "An unexpected Journey"

Which was mostly lots of fun, although I would have happily stayed on in the Elvin Kingdom myself.

We had a romantic rondezvous one evening in Lucy,

Lucky for the tiny heater & a rug.
It's still pretty chilly in the evenings.

And then on Father's Day we visited the markets & I made the boy's favourite date scone(s)

& an afternoon tea

in Lucy, of course!

So sorry I didn't manage to reply to many of you last post.

Thank you for your lovely comments..so very much appreciated.

I do wish you a very lovely week in the midst of these gentle seasons.

Thank you so much for visiting.

You can see all the gorgeous daffodils we found just here.

MUCH

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