© The Cedar Journal, 2022, all rights reserved.
Tag: gardening
Wordless Wednesday- Keukenhof 2022
💙💛🙏☮️
© The Cedar Journal, 2022, all rights reserved.
Keukenhof & Dutch Flower Fields Spring 2022
The Keukenhof Bulb Garden opened for the first time in two years on Thursday 24 March, and for the first time since I stopped working at the gardens in 2015 I visited with my friend Kathy from Minnesota.
Winter still has a grip on Northern Minnesota, it was more like summer here in The Netherlands. Tulips here are popping out of the ground fast! The Daffodils and Hyacinths are in full bloom! It was perfect weather to tour the gardens.
We arrived early (my advice to anyone coming to visit the Keukenhof is to get there before 10 am). The park was instantly an eye full of color as we walked in the gate. Since I worked at the garden for five years I was happy to see the new changes made since 2015. A new entrance gate, new wide pathways in some areas of the park that previously were under used by the masses of tourists. It was also good to see some things hadn’t changed within the park and I enjoyed showing my long time friend (we concluded that we have been friends for near 40 years!) all the cool places within the park. Some of my old co-workers at the William Alexander Pavilion are still working at the coffee cafe booth, hugs and smiles were exchanged. Something that just a few months ago would have been unheard of due to COVID rules.
The best way to see the park is to take a nice leisurely walk, peek into the different pavilions and see the surprises the garden designers have created. No trip is complete without trying one of the many “Dutch” treats. On our visit we ate poffertjes, small pancakes with a dab of butter and topped with a generous helping of powered sugar.
On Thursday we spent about three hours at the park. Noting that it was getting busier and busier by the minute.
Today, Sunday, I hopped on my bike and rode to Hillegom and then on through the fields towards Lisse. Once again, I passed the Keukenhof and noted that the warm weather brought out the tourists. Although not the numbers that have blessed the park in the pre-COVID years but still better than in the last two years when the park was closed.
If any of my readers will be visiting in the coming weeks, my advice again is to arrive early at the Keukenhof, take a bike ride in the local community, eat at our restaurants, and enjoy an European pace.
I am enjoying the freedom of Democracy! Please continue remember and support those in the Ukraine who are still fighting to protect their countrymen and the democracy. Our thoughts for peace are with the Ukraine people! 💙💛☮️🌷
© The Cedar Journal, 2022, all rights reserved.
Spring in Europe
Spring here is usually a time of joy. Flowers start to peek out of the warming soil. Tourists fill the restaurants and our roadways. People make money and enjoy life.
For the last two years, the flowers still peeked out of the soil even when we were in COVID lockdown. we could enjoy the spots of color in the natural World. Life continued although altered in masks, vaccines, bogged down with protests and conspiracy theories. But, life as we experience it still remained.
Now in the last eleven days the reality of life as we know it has come into sharp focus. There is a thin line between life and death. What we do each day will determine how we view the next day or the day after next or next year or the years of our children and grandchildren. Carpe Diem!
War is not anything new.
Horrific and brutal.
Destructive and violent.
The human race has never lived without war…but we could!
WE as collective of humans can each enjoy the Spring flowers, the fresh air, the smell of laundry coming off the clothesline without the fear of attack, without worry that our neighbor might shoot us. Without the need to have a weapon in order to “protect” our property. But, we must stand and say enough violence is enough!
I was so moved over the weekend when so many thousands of people marched to ask for NO MORE WAR! In support of the Ukranine people who have suffered from this brutal attack from the Russian President.
No matter what you feel about how the American or European leadership or NATO is responding to this situation we all should step back. Look at the human toll.
As a collective of humans should we allow this to continue?
My answer is NO! I feel (after three combat zones of experience) that as a human I want to let other humans experience peace! No more blanket bombs, weapons of any sort! What a nice friendly World that would be…
No, we won’t be able to change human nature of being pissed off when the chickens you have in the your yard make a bit more noise than necessary, or being pissed off at the guy on Sunday who runs a chainsaw thus destroying the peaceful day everyone was having but… we could move forward in a more peaceful way without weapons. Hard to accomplish, yup it sure is.
Are we there yet as a human race? My guess is that we are not, but I can sure try my best to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.
Spring will come no matter what to us here in Europe.
Flowers will bloom.
Tourists may or may not come.
I will survive and so will my will to be a better human through kindness. Carpe Diem.
© The Cedar Journal, 2021, all rights reserved.
How to keep busy…
Warning from the local Great Blue Heron should have been my first clue that we were heading towards another limited lockdown.
After my return from the United States I was finally starting to feel like we were returning to some pre-COVID normal here in The Netherlands.
I was off to my volunteer job at the Historic Gardens at Aalsmeer every Friday. Taking the bus from my house each time and pushing down some anxiety the bus was full of wall to wall people riding to and from their daily jobs. Masks were still mandatory in the public transport, and the Dutch (who don’t normally chat on public transport) seemed liberated after so long of being sequestered at home, passengers chatted with everyone. On once such bus ride I chatted with a lady who works at the airport who was going back to her sales job for the first time in a year and half. She told me she was nervous but happy that she still had a job. I felt the same way about my volunteer job!
Never a lack of work at the Historic Garden, I was put to work weeding, planting and separating plants for the next season. I always doubt my abilities of my work as I am surrounded by giants of the plant industry. Mostly men who owned and worked the soil of the Aalsmeer plant industry for years before retirement. Now volunteering their skill sets to the preservation of old horticultural skills. I look forward to learning so much each day I volunteer.
The thing I realize each time I volunteer is that work, hard manual work is how humans existed for centuries before the modern age. That those skills are being lost with each passing day when those skills are not learned by generations who have only grown up in the modern age, in front of a computer or TV.
Then COVID hit here once again knocking us all back into a limited lockdown. We are all strongly encouraged to work from home, limit our social contacts, wear a mask everywhere again.
I know that COVID has been hard for most people. The mental anguish for most people of not being able to gather with family and friends at any given moment is difficult.
But, maybe it was a message from Mother Earth that we all needed. That our 24/7/365 world is not sustainable.
What to do with all this time now that we have been given? Here it is three weeks. 3 December, if anyone is keeping exact track of the timeline for this current outbreak.
I am thankful in many ways of my agricultural roots I grew up with. In times of distress on a farm, you just pick up and keep going. Life and death is part of the farm cycle. The change of seasons and the hard work that continues. I never remember having much time to sit and worry about what was next. Heaven forbid if we as children uttered the “I am bored…” words as we instantly found ourselves not bored doing some really crappy task.
One of my Dutch friends thinks I grew up like Laura Ingalls Wilder, she isn’t far from the truth. No running indoor water or toilet with only wood heat for the house. The one thing Laura Ingalls didn’t have was over 100 head of sheep to care for during the year. The year long work even in the -40 temps of Northern Minnesota! Plus, I don’t ever remember Laura Ingalls being told to go clean the crap in the barn due to the fact that she was bored.
When the government announced our lockdown again due to the explosion of COVID cases I pulled out one of my old skill sets I learned as a young person, spinning. Filling my days with making wool yarn with the ancient drop spindle.
The result was something I can feel and see with my own hands. A sense of accomplishment in the world of COVID chaos.
Not a huge accomplishment. It won’t replace the joy I get in volunteering at the Historic Garden, but it is a good filler for the time I now have to stay at home.
I hope that each of my readers are also finding ways to move forward in all this chaos.
Stay safe and stay healthy.
© The Cedar Journal, 2021, all rights reserved.
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