Out-n-About

First of all, it's my turn again at Vision & Verb where I talk about What We Collect. If you go there, you'll see why this image fits into two of my collectibles. Lucky me. Two for the price of one.

We saw that weathervane, by the way, on our way home from Wageningen two Saturdays ago (last post)...as we did this delightful nature reserve called De Blauwe Kamer ( = The Blue Room) on the banks of the River Rhine. We had heard about it and decided to check it out:

Before entering the reserve, just as you are driving by, you first of all see the impressive chimney of the factory where bricks were produced until 1975 and from which the reserve gets its name. Then you walk in down a long path through the woods and Voilà!, there it is...all the nature you could ask for with surrounding marsh: a sanctuary for Konik horses and Galloway cattle, wildflowers, a windmill, and enough different species of birds to shake a stick at.

That Saturday we saw several groups of field-trippers. It's a well-known reserve in Holland. The blue observation tower out in the field gives a vantage point for birdwatching, with posters hung on the walls for identification. Well worth the visit, even though we didn't have our binoculars.

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That was Saturday two weeks ago. The very next day, Sunday, the weather was glorious, so we decided to take a short ride outside town to see the apple and pear orchards. Seriously. They aren't what I'm used to.

This is how they grow their fruit orchards here. They start out with rows of stick trees with the apples climbing poles. The mature trees after a few years are kept low and thin so that workers can walk around them and pick the fruit without using ladders. After 15 years the trees are cut down and a new batch is planted.

BTW, in case you don't know, the Elstar apple (above) was first cultivated here in The Netherlands in the 1950s by crossing a Golden Delicious apple with an Ingrid Marie apple. It's a crisp, crunchy apple...the kind I like and which I buy when in season, which is now. Did I tell you how much I love autumn!




The same with the pears.
Do you know how tempting it was to reach out and pick one to eat on the spot!

Even Granny Towanda was dying to try an apple or two...for all her horse power, you know!

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That was two weeks ago.

We stayed home the next Saturday, a week ago, in order to take advantage of the Open Monument Day here in Gorinchem, Netherlands. Every year, on the second Saturday of September, "approximately 3000 monuments across the Netherlands, normally closed or only partly open to visitors, open their doors to the public free of charge." We could have taken this offer more seriously and packed the day solid, but instead, we visited only two churches that we always wondered about, both within a short walk from our apartment:

The first church is the relatively new Rehoboth Church that was built in 1909 and houses the Christian Society. The gate to the courtyard off the street is usually closed so you can't get a good shot of the church front except from above, as we did awhile back while up on the fire-engine ladder (above bottom-left). You can see the back of the church from a nearby alleyway (bottom-right). But to finally go inside the courtyard and get these angles was a real treat. For the last 9 months I had only seen the spire hovering over Gorinchem.


Inside the Rehoboth church you face the simple altar and the above words (translated):
"Who has the Son has life." (I John 5:12)
It's a bright, simple, wide-open meeting room, more than a santuary, but with wonderful side windows and a fabulous ceiling. Well worth the visit.

From there we walked the couple blocks to the "hidden church" from 1669....an Evangelical Lutheran church:

See why this is called the "Hidden Church!" I didn't even know it was there till Astrid told me about it one day. The gate is always closed and the sign is inside. If you don't pay attention, you never see this little gem down in the back of the side buildings.
"A great Fortress is our God" is the translated sign over the doorway.


This was the real treat of the day, just a tiny, narrow church with hardly enough room to turn around in. Quaint. Cozy. So "old country." It made me wonder what the congregation looks like each Sunday at 10 a.m.

And that was that! So as you see, beetje bij beetje (little by little), stap voor stap (step by step), we are seeing even what's here in our own backyard.

Which reminds me:

This paint can hangs over a paint shop just two blocks down the street from us. I've wanted you to see it since forever. The middle-right art (above) is on one of our storefront buildings nearby. And the statue at bottom-right sits out in the grass at one of the intersections not far from town.

All in a day's wander from here and there while out-n-about where we live in The Netherlands!

Next post I'll show you the before and after of our new dining set, which Astrid has already refinished. She is sick right now, however, with a sinus infection and maybe even the flu, out from work since last Thursday. No fun. We'll organize the dining area once she gets back on her feet.

In the meantime, don't forget my turn again at Vision & Verb where I talk about What We Collect.