Bovenmeent

Sunny day in midwinter without snow and ice... Bovenmeent Hilversum, near the Naardermeer.

lichens in winter

Even when the weather is not as good as you wish, you can find out there a lot of nature to wonder of.

During a short "new years strawl" from a LinkedIn contact I took the time to shoot some mosses and lichens and a yearround toadstool. I'm not shure but I think it's Deadalea quercina (doolhofzwam in Dutch)

Made in National Park Drents-Friese Wold in the SBB part near Appelscha.

windmills

Yust looking for beautiful winterscenery, but not found.. not what I espected. As riding around I thought I could make some more windmill images. I've got about 250 different mills, but there are a lot more here. These are made in the surroundings of Groesbeek and Kleve in Germany (a few kilometers on the other side of the border) These were rather special at least, the first one is new rebuild I presume, south of Lottum, on Google-maps there is no mill to find on that spot..., and it was not on the road map. The second is a normal Belt-mill standig between Heijen and Afferden, the third (Groesbeek) has a special wingsystem, the fourth, standing in Donsbrüggen near Kleve has a very special pair of wings and has a self setting mechanism to put the wings in the wind. And the last one in Keeken, on the other side of the border near Millingen aan de Rijn has a house underneath it in the "belt" or hill.

The precise place I can find since three days because I've attached a GPS module to the camera which writes the data in the EXIF. Its a Geomet'r from Macsense. Simple, but it works (only on professional Nikon body's) Just under 100 euro.

Haarlem, Elswout

Family visit to Haarlem, Overveen and a walk through the parc Elswout. Famous garden architecture from Zocher and Petzold (first design in 1834 and redesign in 1882)

Ice and -skating at Kinderdijk

Kinderdijk is the worldfamous place where a lot of ancient windmills are grouped and saved. In winter its a fantastic place to ice-skate but in the Netherlands most years its impossible to do because of the warm winters. This year is different :-).

Some strange ice-fun too. Someone has rebuilt his litlle brother's skelter with "skates" and mounted a prop on it... its said he can reach about 100km/h with it (but he didn't..too many skaters) And a very old slaigh.. just as it was when the windmills had to pump the water out of the polder behind. (1600-1800 and later but then steam- and later diesel- or gaspumps did the work)

Frost!

At last winter has come to the Netherlands. Several images from Monnickendam with ice-sailing with modern and ancient boats. Last time it was possible it was 1993...

And several images of skating and ice in the neighbourhood where we live, Kortenhoef, Ankeveen and Nederhorst den Berg