Another Tradition

Finding Spring...
Well, we have started on one of our other “rituals.” Finding spring. I was done with the need for more snow, by Christmas. Yet it take another 3 or more months for even the first promise of spring, here in the Heartland of the USA. (When we lived in the Dakotas it took until May, usually.) So, after we retired and spend winter at home, we use an early opportunity to go a bit farther South. We look for Red buds, Dog woods, and Forsythias, even a Dandelion gives me great hope for the coming warming period. This usually goes coupled with a Mission Support trip to CEF in Warrenton, MO. On the way and during our weekends there, we visit with Rick and Jena. Often there is some project for which an extra hand comes in handy; so we get to work together while we visit. By the pictures you can see, that we were successful in finding Spring. We are at Rick and Jena’s house in Saint James and even though it is rainy and cold outside, we see the huge forsythia blooming. This weekend in the later part of March is our start of our enraptured enjoyment of the budding of the trees and other wild vegetation this year. Missouri is a great place to find spring. At least until Saturday night, winter tried to get back in, with about 1 ½ inches of snow. It was a wimpy show, fortunately. On Sunday the sun was back to melt it all away. Keep coming spring!

Fietsen (2)

I am overdue for my blog update. Sorry, but the weather was so great that we have gone for a bike ride last Wednesday (February 25) and also yesterday, March 4. Beautiful weather and 20 miles of gorgeous trails along the Des Moines river and surrounding areas. I forgot the camera, so no pictures of this trip. I have a picture or two to share, however. On I found on the web, and it shows a standard type of bak-fiets, which you can use to move just about anything that can fit in the “bak” The other one is a cut out from the picture in the previous blog, and it shows a bak-fiets with only two wheels, which is more difficult to balance, but seems to steer easier, with the single wheel up front. When I grew up in Appingedam, I helped deliver bread and other baked goods on Saturdays. We had a large, heavy, and covered bak-fiets; like the one with the kids in it, except much longer. Also the milkman had a large open bak-fiets which usually had two or more milk cans with a tap on the bottom, as well as a variety of other dairy products. He usually had a house-to-house route, which he completed every day.

If you look at the other picture (which I resubmitted here form last time), Corrie is holding an older type of ladies bike, the curved, low “bar” allows a lady to “step through” to get on the saddle, which is really handy if you wear a skirt. For you younger ones: it was very uncommon to see a middle aged or older lady in slacks, until the seventies, or later. This style bike is now affectionately known as a :granny-bike.” Also note the covers of part of the wheels in the back; this would prevent your skirt from getting dirty by rubbing on the tire or the spokes. Most bikes in Holland have splash-guards to keep the rain from dirtying your shoes or your back-side, like happens here when you go through a puddle... Remember that a bike is the primary local transport for very many people and it rains a lot in the Netherlands, so you can see the need. Also the chain is usually totally enclosed in a chain guard on Dutch bikes. I remember the difficulty of replacing the chain, if it would come of the gears. You’d have to remove the chain guard to do anything. Good preventive maintenance is a must. The other bike which Corrie is holding, (mine) has an open chain-guard, so it was an import, – German I think.

Traditions (7)

"Fietsen."

Fietsen is the Dutch verb for riding a bicycle, (the word for bicycle is fiets.) Unless you have visited this beautiful country in Western Europe, you really don’t know how important it is to the Dutch to be able to ride a bicycle. In the United States biking has become much more popular recently, there are even some who would ride a bike to work and back, but this makes the news... We ride primarily for recreation, fun, or sport. Even though bicycle events like “RAGBRAI” (the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa) attract many thousands of bicycle riders and supporters, it still is primarily an “event.”

(RAGBRAI 2007)




Even my bride and I now ride primarily for our enjoyment, not to go to the store or the post office. In the Netherlands, however, riding a bicycle is like driving a car in the US. The fiets is a primary means of getting from here to there. In any city, it is usually easier and often much quicker, to get around on a bike, every thoroughfare has a bike-lane as well. Even special traffic lights exist for these specially marked lanes for the safe flow of all the traffic. Foreign pedestrians should take very special care not to walk on these bike paths, because he might get hit by a handle-bar. Usually a bel-ring warns unsuspecting walkers that a bike is about to pass them; you are expected to clear the way. There are probably more paved bicycle paths and roads dedicated to cycling than for automobiles. Although bicycle riders are expected to obey all regular traffic rules and have the right of the road, where a bike path is msiising, they also have special protection. In the event of an accident between a car and a cyclist, the car driver is usually considered “at fault.”

There are many more specific bike experiences, like holding hands, or “carrying” your sweetheart along, which I could share but I’ll save that for another time.


Bicycle "storage" (Amsterdam)

Tradition (6 in a series)

I have been encouraged to continue to write about “Celebrating Traditions.”
Now there are a lot of traditions in our lives, yet not all of them are celebrated per sé; some may even be barely tolerable. Yet we treasure them, particularly when they bring the comfort of the familiar, when they sustain our heritage, or when they poignantly bring specific events to recall.

I guess a very non-threatening tradition we have is the one of “stampot” This is also spelled (correctly) “stamppot.” This is a conjunction of “stamp” and “pot.” This term is descriptive of a Dutch dish, which is usually served in the cooler months of the year. In the United States there are many casserole dishes, which are prepared as a mix of foods which are blended in cooking in an oven. I believe that stampot is a variant on this, albeit without the use of an oven.

Most of these dishes are simple to make with available supplies in the winter time. Potatoes keep well in a cellar, kale tastes better after a frost, cut beans are preserved with salt, carrots, turnips, or beets keep well in the cellar also. Apples and wax beans can be dried or canned. Various cabbages can obviously be used as well. There is a Wikipedia site for your perusal as well: (click here)

The reference to “hutspot” is interesting, and dates the use of stampot back to at least the 16th century.

Even today we still enjoy the heartiness of this meal, which is usually cooked with the meat on top. The meat is left on top so it can be removed before the mashing of the boiled potato and vegetable mix, this allows the meat juices to permeate the mashed pot of food adding to the flavor. A variety of meats can be used, but primarily a slab of bacon, or some form of sausage is used.

Celebrating Traditions (5)

Canals in the Netherlands no longer freeze every winter, so the chance to ice skate outdoors created a frenzy in Kinderdijk and elsewhere in the south. (Michael Kooren/Reuters)




For the first time in 12 years, the Netherlands' canals froze this month. Which brought the Dutch out onto the ice in a heady mix of pandemonium and euphoria. Thousands of skaters, their cheeks as red as apples in the freezing temperatures, took to the ice, and hospital wards were filled with dozens of people with broken arms and legs as well as sprained ankles. In the 19th century, during the days of Hans Brinker, the hero of the novel in which he tries to win a pair of silver skates, the canals froze almost every year. But water pollution and climate change have made this rare today. With an influx of immigrants, the country has been struggling to maintain what it considers its Dutch soul, one of many here who thought the skating experience enabled the Dutch to reconnect with their identity. Water is our friend, a lot of our area is water.










Above: My skates...

Right "it is just not the same on a skating Rink"




From days of old, people could skate to each other in different villages. Others spent a lot of time just skating meditatively alone, leaning slightly forward, arms crossed on the back. A 6-year-old was on the ice pushing a chair to avoid falling, the traditional Dutch way for a child to learn to skate. Later, the rain and clouds of the usual Dutch winter came back. Weather experts said that the cold snap that brought the ice earlier in the month had been caused by cold air that came rolling in from the east, across Germany and into the Netherlands. Oddly, though, the cold swept across only the southern Netherlands and not the north. This mattered because this year is the 100th anniversary of the first race across frozen canals through 11 cities in Friesland, the “Elf-Steden Tocht; and this race has been held every year in the past century when there has been adequate ice.
(Freely borrowed from the “International Herald Tribune” edited by me.)

Celebrating Traditions 4

It is the third day of 2009.
Our grandchildren woke us up on new years day: “Wake up, wake up, and enjoy the first day of the new year.” We have a tradition with them: the may come in at seven thirty, or later, to wake us and crawl under the covers with us for a while. I can tell you that it never is “later...”

As I eluded to in my previous blog, we celebrate family gift giving and “stockings” during the time we spend together at the new years’ celebration. This is a tradition we started as a very young family during our first year in Ettlingen, Germany.
Because back in the sixties it was still customary in most of Western Europe to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ during the time of the winter solstice, Christmas was celebrated as a high-holiday, at least two days. First Christmas day was like any Sunday, a day of rest, attending church and having family quiet time. Second Christmas day was more for celebrating with family and acquaintances. Still we focused on the birth of the Savior. In contrast, especially in Germany, it was a grand celebration to let go of the old year and to bring in the new year with a bang, – literally.


We kept this European tradition to celebrate the passing of the old to the new year by gathering family and friends in out home to reflect, play games, and snack on many of the goodies prepared for this celebration. In the Netherlands where we grew up, we always had olie-bollen on new year’s eve (oude jaars dag). We still do, at our house, on new year’s eve. Our children now participate in the annual family tradition of baking this delicacy, which used to be know as “the Dad duty.”


As is our custom, we have a toast at the hour of midnight, after which we pray to our God for a blessing over the coming year. Then it is hugs all around! We dispense with the “bang.” The neighbors, as well as local law enforcement officers, would frown on the use of fireworks primary the very loud explosive kind...

Celebration Traditions (3)

Here we are, Christmas day has passed. Corrie and I watched the entire extended version of “the Lord of the Rings” on Christmas day. It was just the two of us. Traditionally we celebrate the gift exchange family gathering, commonly called “doing Christmas,” during the year end celebration. This leaves our children free to visit with their respective in-laws for Christmas.

We did attend Christmas eve services and were blessed with the real reason for the season.
The birth of the Son of God as the Son of Man.
The first step to the resurrection from the dead.
To provide propitiation. To be God in the Flesh, God with skin on...
Look at Rick's blog to get another view of the reality of Christmas.
Look at “Operation Christmas Child” to experience life changing gift sharing.
“God gave His one and only (only begotten) Son to be God with skin on, to be like us in every way, except sin; so that He could be propitiation.

Who is the Christmas Child?

In chemistry, he turned water to wine.
In biology, he was born without the normal conception;
In physics, he disproved the law of gravity when he ascended into heaven;

In economics, he disproved the law of diminishing return
by feeding 5000 men with two fishes & 5 loaves of bread;

In medicine, he cured the sick and the blind without administering a single dose of drugs,
In history, he is the beginning and the end;
In government, he was be called wonderful counselor, prince of peace;
In religion, he said that no one comes to God, the Father, except through him;
So, who is he?

He is Jesus,
Son of God,
Son of man.

Join me and let's celebrate Him; let’s celebrate CHRIST-MAS