God Jul

 "Now it's Christmas. Can you feel it too? The smell of baking day hangs around all the houses and farms, and the Christmas dough ferments over the dishes and the Christmas loaves lie like shiny eels"

Stot Anders Andersson (1865-1889)

I lug baskets full of branches in for the annual Christmas baking day. The wet footprints form a trail from the outside door to the wood box. Another basket.... Slide, slide, down the muddy path past the barn.

Over the past few days, Sander has been working hard on the new kitchen so that it can be used on this day. It's not quite finished yet, but now at least the top is ready for use since last night. It's going to be so beautiful! Until recently it was a pile of planks in the shed and now a beautiful kitchen unit is slowly emerging. It has had some headaches because the house is not completely square and straight, or rather a kind of skewed ..... Here you have no use for tools such as a carpenter square or a level tool, no, Sander is making it by sight. After all, the eye must also see it in the end :) With a handsaw, a screwdriver, a hoof rasp and toeing knife (farrier for sure ;)) and a hammer he makes the most beautiful things!

In the living room there is already a dough for white bread and a Christmas stollen rising in the heat and a batter for waffles. A "rån" waffle is a sweet, thin, hard waffle that is traditionally baked and eaten around the turn of the year, and I believe it originated in Norway. We'll see what happens because the last time I baked these wafers it was kind of a failure... They baked kind of into the waffle iron and could only get them crumbled off, luckily the crumbs were very tasty.. ..

The days are so short now and the light fades before you know it, with the sunrise around 8:30 am and the sunset 7 hours later at 4:30 am On a dark day it sometimes seems dim all day although in the Netherlands this was somtimes also the case.

The scent of cinnamon, cardamom, cloves mingle with that of the freshly grated lemon and orange. I slide one baking tin after the other into the oven to finish baking. I squeeze a little juice from a lemon over the bowl with almond mass and add one of the freshly laid eggs. My mouth is watering at the idea of ​​the freshly baked Christmas stollen with almond paste, mmm.

While the loaves are baking in the oven, it's time to bake the waffles. It is definitely better than last time... They are now a kind of chunks instead of crumbs... But this will require some practice in the coming time to make a few presentable wafers.

It is well after sunset before I have finished all baking and we can sit down to try the first cookies with a cup of tea.

And so we arrive on Christmas Eve. The morning was immediately bright and clear. The woolly ponies happily frolic along to graze on the rear pasture for a few hours. After that, the house and barn are cleaned up for the upcoming festivities. Wintergreen wreaths decorated with red bows are hung on the doors and at the entrance. In the afternoon we surprise a few friends with a visit and a basket full of cookies and sandwiches. Where we get surprised with coffee, tea and cake on the veranda. A cozy get-together, full of catching up and laughter. It's getting cold by the time we head home. The red sky in the west forecasts a cold night into Christmas Day.

The pleasant warmth in the house forms a stark contrast when you come from outside. Together we decorate our Christmas tree. Rocking horses made of fabric and hearts, woven straw pendants and angels decorate the tree, but I like my wooden Christmas bells best, they get their place of honor in the tree. Then I have to go to the shed, with my eyes closed, Sander guides me to the spot. In between all the chores he made me a beautiful writing table, which is strong enough to carry my knitting machine. Together we carry it home and make a nice place for it. Then it's my turn to give my present. Looks stylish doesn't it, this new jacket :)

And thus also this joyful day comes to an end.

Winter is on it´s way

 I felt it right this morning. There was something. I couldn't put my finger on it.... It seemed so light in the bedroom, had we overslept!? I shot off  the bed and shudder, brrr it's cold! I peek out through the curtains. Snow! It snowed last night! The sky is clear blue and in the east the red glow betrays the rising of the sun. What a change after the last few weeks when it was dark and sad.

The chickens continue to turn in the doorway, crestfallen. They don't like snow, even if it's just a little. Resolutely they turn around and step back into the sleeping loft. I break the layer of ice on their water bowl and lure them out with a little food. They don't like it at all and are loudly complaining. But the ponies and the dog, on the other hand, love it, just like us.

If I want to use the outside toilet I need a hammer to release the latch. Frozen! That's what happens when it rains one day and freezes the next... Ice flowers had grown all over the window last night. I find it fascinating that different ice crystals form on the windows under certain temperatures and conditions. This time it wasn't so spectacular with just star-shaped crystals but other times... Reminds me of our little house in Germany. In the kitchen we also had single glass and we cooked on a gas stove and we did not have an extractor hood. In the winter it became very damp in the kitchen and when it froze new shapes grew on the windows. One winter it was so cold that the ice layer was up to a centimeter thick. So on the inside, huh! Then you no longer saw flowers, but it had become a kind of frosted glass. After the temperatures rose again above freezing point, I was happy with our tiled floor, everything was wet....

After lunch I go out for a walk with the dog, who has not seen such long walks in recent days. In the forest it is still white, but when we get a little further on the plain, all the snow has already melted away. The dog is looking forward to it and keeps up the pace. After days of sitting with my sewing, it's great to go for a walk. When we go home again, the sun is slowly setting. You can really notice that we are steering on the dark days before Christmas. When we are back home the dripping of the trees has stopped and there are small ice pearls hanging from the branches. What will the weather bring tomorrow?

haying when the sun shines

How many times did I climb the old ladder today? I have lost count by now. Slowly trickles the sweat from my face down my neck. With the pitchfork, Sander throws the hay up the hayloft. I insert the pitchfork into the hay and slide over the old plank floor to the back, then quickly down the ladder to get the next load. We walk back to the meadow with each a wheelbarrow. Why did the old cart have to be broken just now? Misery never seems to come alone. I set my mind to zero, it´s only to continue now. Hey! Did I feel a drop!? I look up and see that even though I am standing in the burning sun, thick clouds are starting to gather. We increase the work rate and quickly fill up the carts and bring the next load to the barn. Phew, it is sweltering today and even the breath of wind that arises cannot bring the comfort we so long for.

The week started so well. The grass was long and herbs were in full bloom.
The scythes sang while the fragrant grass was cut rhythmically. When I stretch my back I see the rows of cut grass behind me. How thick it is this year! I take the whetstone out of the holder to sharpen the scythe. While we each continue in our own rhythm of mowing and whetting, after a little more than 3 hours we have half the meadow ready.
After a hearty breakfast, it's time to spread out all the grass so that the sun and wind can do their job of drying it.

In recent years we have let it dry on "hässjor" every time, but this year we want to try drying it on the field and so we can drive it right in. Now that we have so much hay left of last year, we can afford to experiment a bit with different techniques.

After so many hours of mowing and whetting, it is time for the scythes to be sharpened with the peening anvil. A rhythmic hammer sounds when Sander has placed the peening anvil in the ground in front of him and carefully knocks the cutting edge of the scythe blade.

The next day we mow the 2nd half of the field and shake the grass well again. The weather forecast is looking good and now all we have to do is let it dry before we can put it on the hayloft.

The grass dries nicely in the sun and crunches so beautifully when we shake it. We drop into one of the windrows and enjoy a cold bottle of water, mmm. A few sheep clouds float by. In the distance, a few cows roar and you can hear the soft tinkling of the cowbell. The idyll of country life seems to have become reality ....

Until this morning. The weather forecasts are changing hourly. A large front with thunderstorms and extreme rainfall is slowly moving this way. Now the hay has to go in! It was also time, but with this on the horizon we are walking our feet out from under our bodies, taking the heat of the day for granted. I grab the handles of the overloaded wheelbarrow and drag it behind me. Over the bumps and through the holes. It almost tilts when I trip over a stone, but luckily I keep it upright. The cloud cover is getting darker and darker and gusts of wind and windlessness follow each other. Come on, go on! One more time I climb the ladder. I have no eye for that the hayloft fills up nicely. Another load ready. Down again. There is a deep rumble in the distance and the sky turns a deep purple. I look at the field, we are almost done. Shall we make it?

Bang, Sander closes the hayloft door with a bang. Successful! The hay is in! The first drops start to fall. First one and then another one. The wind picks up slowly. The beautiful weather is now long gone. We run to the house when the rain breaks loose. A thick lightning bolt and a big bang almost simultaneously. The glasses vibrate in the frames. We look at each other. That was close! We look through the windows in terror. Fortunately not the barn! When I look through the small window of the door, there I see it. The bottom half of the trunk of a large tree has the crack completely cut off. Even from here, I see the pieces. Phew, that was close by, at most 30 meters. But it all went well. We are safely inside and the hay is in the barn. This was a laborious week!

You can't have it all.

Chop, clap! Chop, clap! I hear when I walk to the chicken coop to collect eggs. In the barn I see Sander putting the pieces of wood on the chopping block and with a hard blow, he splits them into pieces with the axe. Chop, clap! Chop, clap! Block by block is chopped into small pieces for the stove.

Yesterday we ate all the bread so now it is high time to bake new again. I walk to the house with a basket full of split firewood. Mmm, what do these smell nice. It is spruce wood and they smell wonderfully of resin and a little of Christmas. When I put a few pieces on the fire, it crackles and splatters nicely.

In the large earthenware bowl, I mix the flour with the salt and the yeast. With the kettle, I pour warm water on it and start kneading. While I am working on this, my thoughts drift away to how I could explain our philosophy of life.

Independence is one of our keywords. In other words, control everything yourself.
Why don't we have running water, a washing machine, a dishwasher, a chainsaw etc. etc.? Of course it is wonderful that these time-saving things were invented. But everything comes at a certain price. With the arrival of electricity and facilities, the bills will also come. It is a vicious circle. To be able to pay the bills you need more money, more money means more work, more work means less time to do something yourself, less time to do it yourself is buying more, buying more is more money. You can't come out of it. We turned it around. With fewer bills, we have lower costs, we need less money and we have more time to do it ourselves. Where others get their sense of security from a permanent contract and wages, we get that from making it ourself and low costs.

This gives us a lot of freedom to organize our own time and do what we love and find satisfaction in, but this way of life is not for everyone. It also has another side. Anyone who likes to travel, go out, shop, gets tangled with our way of life. Life is all about prioritizing, and the only one who can make the choices in your life is you.

I like to sing during my household chores and one of my favourite songs is the Dolly Parton song "coat of many colours" and especially the following piece:
They didn´t understand it, I tried to make them see
That one is only poor, only if they choose to be
it´s true we had no money, but I was as rich as I could be ......

The dough is now completely soft and smoothly kneaded. I make a nice ball of the dough and with a damp tea towel over it, I let it rise. With a book, I settle on a chair and move to another time and world.

Early spring

 Today was such a lovely spring day. You can feel the energy flowing through your body. That you just keep busy and don't go inside. That you forget that you also have to eat, and keep thinking, just finish this job, it's still so nice outside....

Twilight is now slowly setting in. The last rays of the sun turn the treetops golden yellow. In the distance 3 deer are grazing on the field. Every evening they emerge from the forest edge on their way to the lake. The birds sing their evening song, the sound of children playing further up the road, the neighbor going out for a while with his hunting dogs.

We are making good progress in clearing the storm tree. With the axe, Sander first chopped off all the branches this week, so that today only the trunk was left. Because this is such a big trunk, it is easier to cut it with a "crosscut saw" or two-person pull saw. This is a sweaty job and requires good cooperation. Each stands on one side of the trunk, alternately, then one, then the other, pulling the saw toward him.

It takes a few strokes to get into the rhythm, but then it goes like the lightning. The sawdust flies in all directions. Deeper and deeper eats the saw its way down. Until it comes to an abrupt stop. The tension in the wood is too great and is jamming the saw blade. With one last tug, the saw comes loose. In this way we saw the whole trunk, until it will not go futher. Then it is time to turn the trunk half a turn with the felling lever and then saw all the blocks from the other side.

One by one fall the blocks to the ground and soon the sawing is done for today. Enough other chores for the rest of the day though.....

After the Storm

 After yesterday's wind it was wonderfully quiet this morning. High time to assess the damage from the storm. When I open the back door I see that it has started to rain again. Raindrops fall on the porch and turn the wood dark in color. I step back into the house to get my hat. The path squeaks when I walk over it.

As I look around, I see that in the meadow of the neighbors a tree has broken, but otherwise we got out of it quit well. Arriving at the end of the path lays the big tree that we had already noticed yesterday. Somehow we are glad that this tree has blown down. He had been bad, rotten for years, and whenever the wind blows you could see him balancing back and forth. We never had our ponies there when it was windy. We were far too afraid that one day it might fall, if one of our ponies was standing under it. It is very shady there in the summer. But now, that fear is over and he lies flat and fortunately has not caused any damage except for the fence.

The drizzly weather continues. Every now and then the sun seems to break through, but before I can put on my shoes, the rain is pouring down again. At noon we decide to brave the hard weather to go out with the dog. A farmer's meadow a little further up has also become very wet. The sheep wire just barely rises above the water. The water even runs over the road and has carved a whole track where it flows to the other side. We return refreshed and wet after the walk. The coats go straight to the stove and a little later the windows are fogged by the moisture.

When I look through the window a moment later, the snowflakes are whirling by. We got back just in time.

Stormy weather

 My skirt puffs up completely in the wind and the rain hits my face. The storm, named Laura, rages across the landscape. One of the trees along our path has snapped. In his fall he took another tree and the fence with him. The barn door is almost ripped out of my hands but I hold it and boom!, I close it behind me and put the hook on it. Pfff, out of the wind. The ponies doze in their stables and the cats have not gone out today either.

With the basket in my hands I climb up the steep ladder to the hayloft. I put the sweet scented hay in the basket to feed the ponies. It's been worth it, to make all the hay. We are already March and we still have almost half of the hay left. Long coarse stalks of grass, interspersed with all kinds of herbs and even some favorite of the ponies, thistles. Auts, my hands don't like those thistles! Carefully I remove the thorn from my finger, that something so small can feel so annoying! With the basket filled to the brim, I go down the ladder again. As soon as the ponies see me coming, they already stand on their feeding spot. . I lower myself onto a beam and listen to the ponies begin to nibble on their hay. Soon there are also 2 cats on our lap and we all enjoy the peace in the barn. With the next gust of wind, the windows ring in their frames and at the same time the light goes out. Yet another power outage this winter! I better get back inside soon before the weather gets even worse! Now! Before the next windpush! I quickly open the door and slip out. Sander has also waited until this moment and also rushes over with a basket of firewood. Fighting the wind, we make our way to the house.

The rest of the day we will stay inside. At the sewing machine, I lower myself into a chair and continue with the project I was working on. The sewing machine ticks away. Row after row, I sew the cords between the fabric. Life here takes its mundane way, no power outage can affect us. It's almost time to prepare dinner. From the stock I get some potatoes, carrots and onions. The last jar of pickles goes along and a jar of stewed pears. That will be great feast tonight!

Wheels of change, a victorian velocipede suit.

With the start of a new decade, we did take the time to look back on the past years. Are we on the right way, where are points we can make some modifications?
On the most are we content with how our lives goes on, though some small changes we want to make.

By living in the countryside, in these modern times, it´s completely understandable to drive the car to town to do the shopping. We do that also, nevertheless I do not take the slightest pleasure from it. Although I do have a drivers license and I can drive very well, it´s just not a thing that I can enjoy. However, what do you do? It´s more than 25km to the nearest town and it´s too far to cycle there, isn´t it?
Anyway, this tiny doubt that made us wonder... Maybe we can´t cycle there every time, but maybe it will go in the warmer months?... Maybe we could do that?
When I lived in the Netherlands, I did cycle a lot! I did cycle everywhere! Every day! But that´s 12 years ago, and unfortunately, I have to say, I have not cycled much since then.... I walked, worked in the garden, enjoy a very active life, but just cycling... That needs to be trained the coming time :).

This change makes a very good opportunity to make some new clothes ( who wouldn´t take that as an excuse to sew something new ;) ;))
After a bit of research, I came up with the following idea

On the homepage of bikes and bloomers http://bikesandbloomers.com/patterns/ I did find a pattern for bloomers and a cape/skirt thing.
To go with that, I´m going to make a black wool waistcoat, a pair of gaiters from either wool or leather (I haven´t decided yet), long stockings in red and cream, made on my vintage sock knitter, but more of that anon :)
So I hope you like to follow along!
Next time The Viktoria sock knitting machine

A day without rain

What a lovely day! After days of dark and dreary weather, the sun was shining clear and bright today. Although there was a brisk wind coming from the west, it was far too delightfull to stay inside.
With my cozy winter coat, shawl, and mittens on, I put on my shoes and went outside.
I fetched up my shovel and rake and started working in the garden. After a short while, it seemed not that cold any longer and soon my mittens and shawl were hanging over the fence. The first pair of garden beds were now cleaned up, after the neglect of the late summer. The rich black soil, now freshly racked, is lying ready for the growing season yet to come.

Pleased with the work of this morning, I made a large cup of cocoa, to both my husband and me and we had a piece of apple pie to go with it. 
    

New year and 2019 in pictures and a silly movie

“To a bright New Year and a fond farewell to the old; to the things that are yet to come, and to the memories that we hold.” “May you have a prosperous New Year.” “Wishing you a happy, healthy New Year.” “May the new year bless you with health, wealth and happiness.”

12th night gone by, it´s the end of the Christmas season. All decoration is taken away and the house is cleaned up. We had a delightful time, got many Christmascards and some surprising gifts. 

A whole new year lies ahead of us, many new ideas to try and continuing on our path to self-sufficiency. 

We are halfway through the winter now and the loft is still full of hay, the pantry filled with many cans of canned food, and in the root storage is also enough left. Maybe it´s not as diverse as we should like, because of some crop failures of last year, but we can eat our stomachs full of delicious meals.  I like to search through wartime ration meal recipes from the UK. They use often the vegetables I have available, like potatoes, carrots, onions, and are healthy and very filling. Although eggs were on ration at that time, no egg ration for us. With only 4 laying hens, almost every day 1 egg and sometimes 2! It´s the first year that we have eggs in the winter. Very useful if you like vanilla pudding... ;) 

These photos are my 2019 in a glance 

 January, just finished my new woolen winter coat in time before the cold arrived

Baking small homegrown cornbread on the stove

 In April it was lovely weather for a bicycle tour with a picnic

In May we started on renovating the south wall from our house and had lots of rhubarb and eggs

 It´s on the 6th of June! A national holiday!

Because we are renovating our house we had, unfortunately, no time to dance with our folk dance society on this big day. But because we love to dance, we made our own dance party in the backyard.

Reading a book in our garden, the old rose variety smells lovely 

In June, haying, haying and more haying

First time for our little pony to draw the haywagon

In September we celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary 

and the year ends with the same it started, snow! 

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