Pictures from Week One!

A photo I took while leaving Deventer and heading to Hof van Twello for the first time

The greenhouses on the farm, in the photo you can see a signpost which points to the barefoot trail (a tourist attraction which is exactly what it sounds like), the farmshop, and the cafe

A shot of the vineyard at Hof van Twello

My worst enemy, stinging nettle. I hate this plant so much and it is all over the farm; each time I brush into it, I am let with a burning sensation and a gnarly rash

The bed that Camille 1 and I weeded and then planted with cabbage, fennel, and lettuce

A picture I took Monday morning during my stroll through the farm. Hof van Twello has a garden system where they rent out plots of land for no charge to gardeners in exchange that half of their produce is donated to the farmshop.

The cabbage patch we weeded Thursday afternoon

A picture of a zucchini plant from the bed I was harvesting

The leeks we planted

Green beans I had the opportunity to harvest

The original cabbage patch that we spent Tuesday and Wednesday doing. This thing was really a mess when we started

One of the more surprising things I found wondering around the farm, sure to belong to a rogue gardener

On Saturday morning, this bed was full of wood chips by Monday morning when I took this photo, it was not

On Friday, Chiel and I tied knots around the pepper plants in the greenhouse to make sure the healthiest branches are growing upwards

A picture of a tastefully angular cornfield I saw on the walk to Deventer

A photo of one of the many farms in the region, it has been disorienting living in a farming community that is not isolated from the city and seems uniquely European

A picture of Deventer on my way there Sunday

A picture of Europe's largest book market, from above

A photo of Europe's largest book market and a confused old man, from the ground

A Dutch pancake from Ot & Sien, THE pannenkoenen of Deventer

A skeptical turtle I liked

The way the sunlight pierces the clouds made me feel things

A shot I really liked from a very enjoyable walk home Sunday

The sun setting on that same cornfield

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Itinerary

After six long weeks in New York, I set out for the Netherlands today, July 27th. First, I'll be spending a weekend in Amsterdam with my mother (because who wouldn't want to visit Amsterdam with their mother) but the real fun begins on August 1st. That is when I will be traveling to Hof van Twello ( see website ), the first farm on which I'll be working. I don't know exactly what I'll be doing yet, but on its 32 acres of land lay an organic farm (which grows "forgotten" vegetables, wild edible plants, flowers, and wine grapes in addition to traditional vegetables, herbs, and fruits), a cafe, a farm shop, an education department (which maintains a barefoot nature trail), and a food processing department. I'll be there for a month, and hopefully will get to engage in an assortment of tasks focusing, of course, on farming. Though I'll be working five days a week, I'm hoping to take advantage of its central location on the weekends. If I...

Amsterdamn. (The Odyssey)

Amsterdamn ( The Odyssey ) These past three days in Amsterdam were... difficult. Though I had a terrific time exploring the city/ spending quality time with my mom, some events occurred not even delicious beer could get the bad taste out of my mouth. Ultimately, the words Athena said to Telemachus at the beginning of Homer's Odyssey kept my spirits up; upon hearing his lamentations about his destined trek she remarked "Childishness no longer beseems your years: you must put it away." Many times over this weekend, my childishness came to bear but in each instance, maybe after a moment of wallowing, I put it away and enjoyed my journey. It's easiest to tell my epic weekend in chronological order: Day Een: Have you ever flown economy class for eight hours? If you have, you realize that no matter how skinny your neighbor is or how decent the meals are, its a rough time (and if you haven't, you're lucky). But the part of the flight I most dread occ...

Pictures from Month One!

Mostly Nature Pictures from Walking Around ™ The view of our house from the barefoot trail on the farm, stinging nettle in the foreground A flower on the side of the barefoot trail Reflections of a scummy pond on the barefoot trail (blote voeten pad in Dutch) Bamboo forest on the you guessed it The fields of "some type of gluten, oh I forget it in English" -Gert Jan The unpicked potato fields, over the course of the week following this photo, Chiel, Camille 1, another WWOOFer named Jan, and I harvest this entire field by hand (it's not all pictured) The farm cat that Camille 1 insists on calling Sydney though her name is something in Dutch Sunlight through the leaves on a walk to Deventer Cotton candy skies with cows in the foreground Two ducks swimming inn the IJssel Pictures from Camille 2 & my trip to Amsterdam, 9/14 A view of the Rijksmuseum from the Museumpromenade A Van Gogh drawing from late...

From the Farm

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