Day-dreams

Weekdurige karweien als alternatief voor Santa Monica vakantie

2011-12-01T21:03:00.001+01:00

Wegens omstandigheden werd de jaarlijkse najaarsvakantie in Santa Monica uitgesteld tot onbepaalde datum. Daardoor konden een aantal karweitjes uitgevoerd worden in alle rust. Vreemd genoeg werd telkens gedurende een volle week per karwei gespendeerd. Het waren volgende taken:
1. Opvijzelen van ons verzonken serre.
2. Renovatie van het kippenhok.
3. Extra isolering van de zolder.
4. Aanpassing tuinfreesje tot sneeuwschuiver.

Alle zijn het geen hoogdringende taken, maar de optimalisering van het huis en omgeving zullen er toch wel bij varen.

De serre staat al ongeveer 30 jaar in de tuin op dezelfde plaats en ze werd er geplaatst door de bedienden van de firma Filclair. Gedurende deze periode is de serre heel stilaan maar zeker dieper en dieper weggezonken waardoor ze lager is komen te liggen dan de directe omgeving. De aangebrachte fundamenten waren dus onvoldoende stevig om het wegzinken te voorkomen. De weggezonken situatie heeft het nadeel dat tijdens de vochtige winterperiode er dikwijls water komt in de serre te staan wat weinig aantrekkelijk is voor de meeste gewone planten. Daarom heb ik reeds een tijdje het plan opgevat de serre op te liften. Na contactname met de firma Filclair die voor een dergelijke taak 45 euro per uuur vragen, exclusief verplaatsingskosten, had ik eerst gedacht het glas te verwijderen om dan het aluminium gebinte op te heffen en het glas dan terug te plaatsen. Dit is een hele boel werk en in zekere zin gevaarlijk voor glasbreuk en kwetsuren en op een stoutmoedige morgen ben ik gaan testen of het traagjes liften, centimeter per centimeter mogelijk was en dit bleek mogelijk te zijn. Een hele collectie plankjes van diverse diktes werden bij elkaar gezocht of aangemaakt en de fundamentenonderdelen van 1,5 m werden op de uiteinden ondergraven en met twee dommekrachten werd dan cm per cm in een 15-tal ronden de ganse constructie omhooggedraaid op een tiental plaatsen per ronde. Dit is een werkje van lange adem en heeft zeker een drietal dagen geduurd maar uiteindelijk was er voldoende ruimte tussen de aanwezige fundamentsteen en de onderzijde van de serre om een betonblok van 14x14x28 cm te plaatsen. Het geheel is blijkbaar stevig op de nieuwe tussenstenen komen te staan en is 14 cm hoger gesitueerd dan voordien. Bijkomende problemen werden veroorzaakt door de druivelaarstam die naar binnen komt onderaan de serre in het fondament maar in alle voorzichtigheid werden er geen kwetsuren aan de stam gemaakt en is er goede hoop dat er volgend jaar opnieuw lekkere muskaatdruiven in overvloed zullen beschikbaar zijn. Deze druiven luiden de start van het druivenseizoen in vanaf juli dat doorloopt met een paar buitenrassen tot in oktober.
Kleine verdere aanpassingen betroffen de aflopen en natuurlijk het aanpassen van de omgevende paden. Hiervoor heb ik grove houtsnippers gebruikt die gehaald werden op het containerpark te Merelbeke. Deze zijn gratis beschikbaar en voelen soepel aan om op te lopen. De paden zijn ook heel poreus en geleidelijk aan verteert het hout tot humus wat hopelijks gunstig zou kunnen zijn voor de druivelaars.
Binnenin de serre werd verse aarde aangebracht en het stenen pad werd opnieuw gelegd op het gepaste niveau.
Alles bij elkaar een volle week werk, maar met zichtbaar resultaat en hopelijks volgend jaar met lekkere druiven en veel tomaten.

Winterzicht met vorstgevoelige planten

Winterzicht van de groententuin

Het kippenhok is gelocaliseerd in een deel van het tuinhuis en was eerder primitief en op een goedkope manier afgewerkt. Daarom werd besloten de binnenzijde te vernieuwen met nieuwe planken en een verbeterd deuropeningsmechanisme.
Er werden wat planken gehaald in de Makro en nadat al het oude houtwerk werd verwijderd werd een nieuw hokje gemaakt, erg vergelijkbaar met het originele ontwerp. De kippen hebben nog geen commentaar gegeven, maar ze leggen toch op regelmatige basis hun eieren en ze zitten op tijd en stond op hun stokken.

Om s'nachts muizen en ratten uit het hok te houden was al een automatisch openend deurtje aangemaakt dat eenvoudig gestuurd werd met twee timers. Het nadeel was dat de kippen niet gaan slapen als hun TV programma's afgelopen zijn, maar als het donker wordt. Dit moment van de dag varieert continu over het ganse jaar en is heel verschillend s'zomers en s'winters (varierend tussen 17.00 en 23.00). Om aanpassingen aan het systeem te beperken werd een schema uitgewerkt waarbij een lichtsensor ingebouwd werd. Deze lichtsensor werkt behoorlijk goed, maar soms lopen er nog enkele kippen buiten bij schemerlicht en was het nodig een vertraging voor het sluiten in te bouwen. Hiervoor werd een ietwat complexere timer aangekocht ( Gotron: H3DE-M1,0,1S-120h, 24 tot 230Vac/dc) met afzonderlijke sturing werd een vertraging ingebouwd van 1 uur op het moment van de signalisatie van de lichtsensor. Het elektrisch schema werkt nu al verschillende maanden zonder problemen en is hieronder zichtbaar. Het is belangrijk hiervoor mechanische timers te nemen omdat zij vrijwel nooi in de fout gaan. De digitale timers vallen na verloop van tijd zonder batterij, ook al is ze oplaadbaar. De relais die in deze digitale timers aanwezig zijn, zijn ook minder betrouwbaar. Verder is het zo dat de schakeling gebeurt op de stroomdraad en dat de nulfase altijd aan blijft. Wie meer info hierover nodig zou hebben kan me altijd contacteren.

Bijkomend werd nog een LED lampje aangebracht boven de eetbak dat ook een uurtje brand bij het vallen van de duisternis wat een bijkomende stimulans zou kunnen zijn nvoor de kippen om in hun hok te komen slapen. Het is bekend dat ze s' zomers ook wel eens graag in de bomen gaan slapen, het blijven immers toch nog altijd vogels.

Een derde, recent weekdurig karwei was de bijkomende isolering van de bovenzolder. De bovenzolder bevindt zich juist onder de nok van het dak en was tot hiertoe enkel van de buitenwereld afgesloten door de pannen en een laagje onderdak (menuiserite in mooi Vlaams). Tijdens de winter was het er behoorlijk koud, winderig en heel wat vuil stof kwam toch nog binnen. Zelfs zaden van berkenbomen uit de buurt konden er overvloedig teruggevonden worden.
Omdat het de bedoeling is ons huis duidelijk in de LEW (laag-energie-woning) categorie te brengen werd besloten de bovenzolder ook te isoleren tussen de gebinten met rotswol. Meteen zou alles toch behoorlijk winddicht moeten worden waardoor vuil niet meer zou binnen raken waardoor de bruikbaarheid van deze zolderruimte zou verbeteren, bvb. om lege dozen van aangekochte apparatuur te stockeren. Dit laatste kan vooral nuttig zijn aangezien er meer online aankopen gebeuren die meestal vragen bij defecten de toestellen terug te sturen in hun originele verpakking.
Een bijkomende maatregel om de winddichtheid te verhogen was het dicht lijmen van de naden van de menuiserietplaten met siliconenlijm gekocht tegen heel gunstige voorwaarden in de Aldi.

Een eerste test werd uitgevoerd met een paar isolatierollen aangekocht bij de Makro en na deze testfase werd het gros van de rollen aangekocht bij de firma Van De Cauter in Schelderode. Ook werd heel nuttig advies bij deze firma bekomen. De gebinten zijn niet op regelmatige basis aangebracht door de toenmalige schrijnwerkers en daardoor moet soms wat bijpassing gebeuren omdat de rollen enkel beschikbaar zijn in 35, 45 of 60 cm breedte. Een bijkomende maat van 50 cm zou heel nuttig geweest zijn, maar dat deze lijkt niet beschikbaar. Hiervoor werden op suggestie van Van De Cauter PUR platen gebruikt.
De flensen werden allemaal verknipt op de gepaste lengtemaat en tuseen de gebinten geniet met een eenvoudig nietjesmachien. Een vuil werkje dat meerdere dagen heeft geduurd maar het finaal resultaat lijkt goed en geeft vertrouwen. Tocht wordt niet meer gevoeld en door deze ingreep komt het plafonddeel van de bovenverdieping in passiefhuiscondities te zitten. Gezamenlijk zit er dus 36 cm rotswol en nog wat bijkomend gyproc/vezelplaat/tapijt ingewerkt. Veel meer dan dat kan er m.i. niet gebeuren en het effect van deze ingreep op het globale verwarmingsverbruik zal zeker niet erg groot zijn daar we maar 600 m3 gas (ongeveer 6000 Kwu) meer verbruikten de voorbije winter. Toch wordt gehoopt een 10% winst te maken. De uiteindelijk kost van de ingreep zal iets meer zijn dan 200 euro, na aftrok van de Eandis premie.
Laat koning winter maar komen. Om het comfort van de bovenverdieping te verhogen werden de twee oude Veluxen ook ook vervangen door driedebbelglasveluxen en werd wat meer zorg besteed om het geheel meer winddicht te maken door Stef De Medts van Houtcreaties.

De winter van 2010-2011 bracht veel sneeuw en geregeld werd de straatveger gebruikt om de paden begaanbaar te maken. Ook de oprit vangt heel wat sneeuw en wordt best wat sneeuwvrij gemaakt alvorens met de wagen de weg op te gaan. Om wat beter voorbereid te zijn op komende sneeuw, vooruitziende als we altijd zijn, werd het plan in werking gesteld om een sneeuwruimer/schuiver te bouwen. Het plan dwarrelde al een tijdje in het hoofd en zou nu concrete invulling krijgen. De eerste opdracht was sneeuwkettingen te voorzien op de wielen van het freesje. Daar de wielen eerder klein zijn en zeker veel kleiner dan courante autowielen was het mij niet mogelijk aangepaste kettingen te vinden in de handel, evenmin als op www.kapaza.be. Toch werd er wat inspiratie gevonden om de kettingen zelf te construeren. Ik zal dit niet in detail beschrijven, maar al wat gebruikt werd kon vlot in de doe-het-zelf winkel gevonden worden en het finaal product is goed zichtbaar op het filmje (zie lager voor de link).

De kettingen doen het heel goed op het grasperk en geven heel goede trekkracht wat ook nuttig is als met de aanhangwagentjes moet gemaneuvreerd worden.

Een trekbol was al aanwezig om de aanhangwagentjes aan te koppelen en deze werd gebruikt om de sneeuwschuifplank op te bevestigen. Wat oud ijzer, een paar sterke vijzen, moeren en wat laswerk en de schuifplank kon in een eenvoudige beweging vooraan op het freesje gemonteerd worden op een richtbare wijze: links afschuiven, rechtdoorduwend of rechtsafschuivend.

Het geheel kan bewonderd worden op youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg32PGVyqFk

De kostprijs voor deze constructie was bijzonder laag: 7 euro voor 2,5 meter bijkomende ketting. De rest was beschikbaar ergens in een of ander hok of hobbyruimte.
Van een hoop oude spullen iets bruikbaars maken lijkt me een zinvolle bezigheid!!!

Pruimentaart - Plum cake in July 2011- Clafouti aux pruneaux

2011-07-12T21:29:00.002+02:00

Dit jaar was een eerste succes voor onze pruimenboom Queen victoria. Talrijke pruimen kwamen in een mooi paarse kleur duidelijk voor hun normale rijpingstijd. Niemand was daar rouwig om en nadat er overvloedig gesmuld werd en de buren een pruimengeschenk werd aangeboden, werd besloten een pruimentaart te bakken.
Dit allemaal op zondag 3 juli.

Het resultaat mag gezien worden en de verdienste van de tuinman bestond er enkel in de pruimen van de boom te halen en te ontpitten. Ook was wel enige aanmoediging nodig om "de chef" aan de slag te krijgen.

Het recept zal later medegedeeld worden of kan bekomen worden op volgend adres: Matthijs.Godelieve@gmail.com

De bovenstaand fotos spreken voor zichzelf.

This Summer, our plum tree has been very productive. After distributing plums to the neighbors and a lot of tasting of the fruits it was decided to make a plum cake (in French: Clafouti aux pruneaux). The gardener (Roland) was only active for collecting the plums and removing the internal stone. Lieve did the rest and the photos higher in this message say more than hundreds of words. The tasting, however, was only for me and I can witness that the cake was very delicious.
For those interested in the recepy, contact Matthijs.Godelieve@gmail.com

Tenerife 2010: vacation on the "Teide" volcanic slopes.

2011-02-20T14:55:00.004+01:00

Tenerife is a very popular Canaric vacation island for many European citizens: Italians, Britons, Germans, Dutchman, Belgians, etc. The island is flooded with tourists enjoying the sun and mild temperatures while in the home-countries king Winter is ruling the weather. A real vacation atmosphere is present at the borders of the sea and the tourists are spoiled with all kinds of pleasant events and food.

Beste wensen............Best wishes......

2010-12-15T21:26:00.010+01:00

We vonden deze supermarktkarrenkerstboom in het EDGEMAR kunstencentrum op Main street, Santa Monica, Californie, USA. Staat deze boom symbool voor de totale vercommercialisering van religieuse en geestelijke waarden in onze maatschappij?

We found this supermarkettrolly christmas tree at the Edgemar Center for the Arts, Main street, Santa Monica, California, USA. Is this tree symbol for the total commercialization of religious and spiritual values in our society?

Een zicht op de prachtige tuin van het Getty Center te Los Angeles. Dit merkwaardig centrum heeft een prachtige kunstcollectie met wisselende tentoonstellingen (o.a. ook over Vlaamse en Nederlandse oude kunsten) en is volledig gratis toegankelijk. Ook het meesterwerk van James Ensor, de intrede van Christus in Brussel, is er te bekijken. Het is een mooi aspect van een kapitalistisch systeem.

A view on the beautiful garden of the Getty Center in Los Angeles. This remarkable center has a wonderful art collection with temporary exhibitions (e.g. about Flemish and Dutch historical arts) and is entirely free for the public. The master piece of the Flemish artist James Ensor is also there. It is a nice aspect linked to a capitalistic system.

Met onze beste wensen voor een prettig eindejaar (voor romantische zielen).

Santa Monica 2010, everything free

2010-11-20T19:33:00.085+01:00

This year, it was our third consecutive year to stay in Santa Monica for a month. No need to say that we start to know the local community, at least in the neighborhood of the Euclid street. In 2006, we visited Los Angeles only for a short period and stayed in West-Hollywood close to Sunset Boulevard and the Hollywood strip.

Santa Monica has a population of 95.000 souls and it is a place where the former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger used to have his office. It is clear for me that the streets of Santa Monica are the cleanest streets I have ever seen. They are cleaned and vacuumed every week. They have mostly wide side-walks and a green border with grass and palm trees. It is a real pleasure to walk those streets and also to ride the bicycle.

This year we were rapidly impressed by all the things which can be obtained in Santa Monica fro free. We like our almost daily walks over third street, not so much for shopping, but for the attractions. Every time we walk there, some dance, singing or acrobacy is performed. These performancies are all for free and only a small contribution is requested on a very deliberate basis. Furthermore, this street has free internet, free massage at the Brookstone shop, free journals and books to read at the book store Noble and Barnes. A very specialized Apple shop contains all the toys to play with one can dream of: iPADs, iphones, notebooks, iPODs, and more. Many shop assistants are always available for explanations and help with the toys. The shop breathes the atmosphere of a consumption-society at its uppermost level. Many youngsters predict an immense increase in iPAD sales and the temptation is high to buy such a "machine". However, other toys such as a more advanced PDA or an iphone and a beamer have higher priority.

This year, we discovered for the first time the very extensive activity package of the Santa Monica library. Not only books and journals are available to the public, the collection is presented in a weekly schedule in the entrance hall in different themes. For us, with a limited amount of free time, the secondary, more cultural activities were a more interesting part: films, musical concerts, etc. The films are played during the afternoon in the auditorium starting at 15.00 AM and there is a reasonable interest from the public. The selection of the films is somewhat special, but apparently well appreciated by the viewers. Indeed, there is a lot of reaction from the public, including loud laughing, clear vocal reaction on some situations on the screen, suggestions for further texts, singing, etc. It appears to me that this public would be an interesting test-public for prediction of the commercial future of a new film. It was also noticed that many film viewers bring a back-pack along and come very often as single persons. I speculate that a high fraction of the public are home-less persons seeking also some comfort during the winter time. Anyway, the setup to bring a regular, totally free film to the Santa Monica public is a successful cultural activity bringing pleasure and distraction in the life of the less-wealthy SantaMonicans.
During our short time in SM, we participated also in musical concerts organised by the library. A flute concert was brought by the

Remarkable was also a lady, clearly homeless, who was reading books every time we passed by in the pre-entrance.
Final remark: it appears that the library in SM is at the same time both a library and a cultural center. This is a totally different way these activities in Flanders are organised: we have, as far as I know, always separated organisations/buildings for the library and cultural centers.

Following lines need further exploration: Further examples of free events or utilities: library for music, film
nice coat in 3rd street
Beach showers, Free coffee on Tuesdays at Perrys beach cafe
Costco bicycles and food tasting

Santa Monica "mattentaarten" experiment (www.mattentaarten.be)

Mattentaarten are a cake species originating from the town Geraardsbergen in East-Flanders which is protected by a European Trade Mark. This town is close to Ghent which is much better known also because it played a role in the history of the USA. My father, who was a baker in Oudenaarde, was used to make these cakes on a weekly basis and during my childhood, often, I was helping him with the preparations.
Overview of the necessary ingredients and equipment to make "mattentaarten" which all can be found in the Santa Monica supermarkets . The recipy is designed for two larger cakes (about 10 inches diameter).
From left to right, we notice 2 puff pastry rolls ready for use from the freezer or fresh, four eggs, 235 gram sugar, 100 gram grinded almonds, the mixer of the chef, and the matten from 2,3 liter 1% fat milk prepared with 1 liter butter milk (see lower).

The first step is the preparation of the "matten". It is rather simple to do so. The 2.3 liter milk is brougt to cooking temperature under constant stirring and than the butter milk is added tothe boiling mix while the stirring is continued and the stove is at high level. The mixing continues till boiling is noticed again and than the heat is removed and the stirring is stopped. The flocculation of the milk proteins is noticed and very soft stirring is allowed to form larger clumps during 5-10 minutes. The warm mix is then filtered over a cheese cloth and allowed to cool in the refrigerator overnight.

The next day, the delicate mix is prepared. The large clump of the matten is brought in a larger container and the clump is broken in smaller pieces with a fork or a similar tool. The sugar and ground almonds are added and mixed with the "matten" to homogeneity without exageration. A little flavouring with vanilla extract can provide further strength to the taste. A limited help of a mixer of the type shown in the photos can be helpful.
The egg whites are carefully separated from the yolk and put in a separate, very clean container for stirring to a white firm mass, after addition of a snip of salt. The yolks are added and mixed very carefully with with the already prepared pasta. The egg whites mixing is done by hand with a wooden skoop and a lot of feeling.

The puff pastry is spread in the metal cake forms and holes are pinched in the sheet with a fork, about 30-40 per cake. The sides of the dough are then wet with a brush dipped in water and the pasta is applied in the cake container.

A cover sheet of pastry is folded over the filled forms and the sides are pressed softly to close the cup and the upper side is painted with wipped egg to obtain a yellow colour of the baked pie. Before entering the pies in the oven at 210 degrees Celsius for 25-30 minutes the upper pastry sheet is cut with a scissors to make small bird-wing-like openings for the steam to escape during the baking proces (about 20-30 cuts for each pie).

The final result for judgement of the specialists

The tasting of the pies follows after cooling to room temperature and goes best together with a nice cup of coffee.

Apple picking season 2010 is well underway

2010-10-20T10:35:00.005+02:00

This year is a fantastic year for the apple trees. The harvest is very generous and despite massive insect damage, there are plenty of tasteful apples. The crop is chemically pure and free of pesticides. This year the trees are much less infected by fungi, probably as a consequence of the severe winter. Insects, however, are still around in high numbers and wasps make severe damage only after one prick in the apple's skin.

All possible means are used to put the apples to good use: an announcement at our door, announcements on the web sites of Kapaza and the local village. The family, friends and neighbours are treated well.
A last action is drying the fruit. The apples are pealed, sliced and placed on screens over the openings of our air-driven heating system. After 24 hours the semi-dried slices are collected and further dried on sticks as can be seen on the photos below.

The photos are from 2008, but 2010 was an even more productive year.

Kort verblijf in het ziekenhuis UZ

2010-09-13T13:33:00.002+02:00

Na een paar dagen ongemak in de onderbuik, een echografie en een X-stralenonderzoek werd de diagnose gemaakt van een dikkedarmontsteking. Wegens het acuut karakter van de situatie werd een spoedopname geregeld op het UZ op donderdagavond. Snelle antibioticabehandeling was nodig en was blijkbaar ook effectief zodat op maandag 13 september 2010 al ontslag uit het ziekenhuis kon gebeuren.
Het verblijf in het UZ was best aangenaam maar toch ben ik erg blij naar huis te mogen. Ook heb ik mijn gepland bezoek aan de beurs "Passivehouse 2010" gemist.

Tasks lists and ToDos

2010-08-22T11:19:00.002+02:00

Because my memory is slowing down, I make lists with tasks and todos. I have a task list on each of my 2 PDAs, a list on my gmail account, on iGoogle, on Outlook and possibly even a few more.

Bird control spikes on the roof

2010-08-20T19:08:00.006+02:00

Around our house, many birds are living, but mainly pigeons choose our roof as a landing place. The ridge is their favourite spot and they prefer the very ends of it. Frequent visits result often in excretables on the light in the front of the house and the terrace in the back. Given the size of these excretables, it is far from pleasant to do the cleaning afterwards.
Other birds landing more recently on the chimney are crows. They travel between our neighbours roof and our chimney and because of their destructive behaviour they are not wanted here. They attack the plastic parts of the double-walled chimney and make a lot of noise.
The initiative was taken to make bird control spikes from some plexi (PMMA) lying around from the construction of my hobby room and some steel wire from our neighbour. The construction proces is documented in the next series of photos.

The plexi glass is very handy to work with and the elements are glued on the roof with silicone glue from the Aldi supermarket.
The pictures from the 65 year old acrobat on the roof fixing the spikes will not be shown so far.

Circling slider

2010-08-18T20:06:00.006+02:00

Further attempts are made to make a better slider and progress is reached. A report will be published later. However, a new slider (?) was quickly constructed from an old motor. I used it to film a recent model of a wooden hammer that fuctions very well. It was used several times to hammer wooden poles in the ground. The home-made wooden hammer is fully constructed from garden-grown wooden pieces: maple tree for the hammer and hazelnut for the stem. The iron rings were a gift of my brother Martin. A good trick to protect the upper part of the pole is to add temporarely a "press band".
Anyway, the hammer is enjoying its short role as a film actor very much.

The circling slider is shown below in a few photographs. It is based on an old motor from a Bauknecht washing machine. An aluminum bar was bought and fixed on the wheel of the heavy motor. The driving force is a very small motor from Conrad.

Grapes in bags

2010-08-18T19:51:00.001+02:00

In august, our grapes start ripening. The colours of the grapes are changing and they get much softer and sweeter. This is also discovered by flies, bees and to lesser extent by birds who start eating the grape berries.

To prevent those attacks we started to make small bags in which the thrushes are protected. This bag does not only protect against insects and birds, but creates a micro-environment for tasteful ripening of the grapes.

The fabric used for sewing the bags was bought from AVEVE. It is normally used to protect crops such as leeks and carrots from insects. It is not expensive and handled well in a normal sawing machine, we used a Toyota model. After the season, the bags are washed and dried for the next year to kill the fungi and other potential infectants.

Enjoy your grapes!!

Isofloc insulation of the roof

2010-08-15T21:15:00.004+02:00

As explained elsewhere, the house is further insulated to obtain a low-energy degree. After the outside wall cavities were filled with poly-urethane by the company Isotrie, a next step was taken to improve the insulation of the roof. Major parts of the roof were filled with Isofloc which is a recycled cellulose from old, non-read, newspapers. The job was carried out by Stef Demedts from the company "Houtcreaties" (www.houtcreaties.be). Stef and his companion Guy injected more than 90 bags of Isofloc in well-choosen empty spaces of the attic and the roof to prevent heat-loss and wind penetration. The effect of this operation will be difficult to measure, as it was implied at the same time as the PUR injection.
Anyway, a reduction of 30-40% in heat costs is expected from the combined action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHVQBz4lRUA

Potato harvest 2010

2010-08-10T15:31:00.004+02:00

The sunny weather from last July is not longer seen in August and next week is forcasted to be a rainy week. Therefore, and on advice of our neighbour Renaat, our "Exempla" potatoes were harvested today. It was feared that the rain following a long dry period would cause the tubers to make shoots, more or less like in the spring. No risk was taken and the harvest was excellent, about 100 kilogram from 1 kilogram planted potatoes. A multiplication of 100 seems very good to me. All this was realised on 15 square meter garden surface what calculates to about 60.000 kg/hectar.
The early poatoes only produced half as much, so on average a yield was obtained of 50 tons per hectar.
All this is for a large part the result of extensive fertilisation with manure from Roger's small farm in Destelbergen.

Tropical summer, painting and cherry picking

2010-07-01T21:10:00.004+02:00

Today, it was the third and final day for painting all the outside windows, doors and garage ports. The need for a bit of paint was high and the house looks much better after cleaning and painting with Herbol nuttree paint. All is open now for the paint to dry, but by evening time the windows and doors will be closed to prevent the mosquitos from entering the sleeping department.
A little time was found for picking the remaining cherries in the garden. The birds were all around the tree despite precautions with a random ringing door bell and a radio in the tree. Furthermore there was a scare crow and two ladders. So, picking before the birds was the only option. A second bucket was filled and the cherrystones were removed, cherry after cherry. I felt like a monk. More than three kilograms will be froozen in small fractions for use with ice cream and jam. The summer has hardly begun and we are already preparing for the winter time: old-fashioned people here?

Strawberry harvest today

2010-06-11T20:43:00.004+02:00

A very productive day in the strawberry field. The expectations were high considering the special technique to tie the fruits as explained in my previous blog message. Today, more than 4,5 kilogramss were harvested while yesterday and the days before good harvests were already taken. Worth noting is the low fraction of rotten berries while very little chemical treatment was applied. Only a single sulphur dusting treatment was provided during the flowering period. I speculate that the decision to tie the bushes together preventing contact of the berries with the soil is a positive element to protect them from infection with fungi and bacteria.
The fruits are very delicious and as there are too many some are frozen for later use in strawberry jam and perhaps for a pie.

A second harvest taken today are the sugar peas (in Dutch sluimererwten). They are special as they are taken very early, in fact before the peas are formed with the intention to eat the covers in wok dishes. As they are taken so early the harvest was limited, but considering the destructive actions of pigeons during early spring it was still worthwhile to plant them. The prepareed dishes were delicious.

Spouwmuurisolatie voltooid: bijna massiefpassief

2010-06-01T18:39:00.009+02:00

Het is de bedoeling het energieverbruik van ons huis te reduceren tot een lage waarde, minstens lage-energiewoning of als het zou kunnen een massiefpassief situatie. Bij de lage-energiewoning ligt het energieverbruik (enkel verwarming en airco) lager dan 30 Kwu per vierkante meter verwarmde oppervlakte, terwijl deze waarde minder dan 15 euro bedraagt bij massiefpassief.
Gedurende de voorbije drie jaren hadden we een gemiddeld verbruik van ongeveer 12.000 Kwu per jaar voor een 200 vierkante meter verwarmde oppervlakte, of m.a.w 60 Kwu per m2. Om de quotering lage-energie te halen wordt het dus nog halveren van het gasverbruik, uiteraard zonder aan comfort in te boeten. Verleden winter werd toevallig vastgesteld dat heel wat koude wind aanwezig was in de spouw en werd wat gezocht op internet om spouwisolatie aan te brengen. Een element dat de beslissing positief beinvloedde was de lectuur van een ingenieursthesis die het probleem beschreef en en een behoorlijk positief besluit formuleerde. Deze thesis was aanwezig op de website van de firma Pluimers, een ervaren firma voor polyurethaanisolatie van de spouw. Na wat prospectie werd uiteindelijk besloten te werken met de firma Isotrie uit Drongen, dichtbij Gent. Ik had hen opgemerkt op een renovatiebeurs in Antwerpen en zij hebben een heel correcte, mature follow-up. Zij houden zich aan hun afspraken en maken een voorstudie met offerte, voorzien referenties die kunnen bezocht worden, doen een technische controle vlak voor de eigenlijke actie en zijn stipt op tijd als het grote moment daar is. Op anderhalve dag wordt 245 m2 spouw deskundig gevuld zonder grote ongelukken. Alhoewel het afwachten is wat er effectief met het verbruik zal gebeuren ben ik blij dat het initiatief voorbij is. Na correctie met de Eandis premie )(4 euro/m2) en de belastingsaftrek (40%) blijft nog ongeveer 1500 euro uit eigen zak te betalen wat toch na 7-8 jaar zou moeten terugverdiend zijn. Het toegenomen comfort en een groener geweten zijn dan gratis meegeleverd.
Indien een 25 % energiewinst zou optreden (voorspelling van de verkoper 25-30%) blijft not 9.000 Kwu over. Na aftrok van de groene 4.000 Kwu geproduceerd door mijn zonnepanelen blijft nog 5.000 Kwu over. Hierdoor belanden we bij 25 Kwu/m2 wat binnen de norm van laag-energie-woning valt.

Indien ik mijn 4.000 Kwu van de zonnepanelen zou gebruiken om een warmtepomp aan te drijven zou dit ongeveer 16.000 Kwu warmte genereren, wat een overschot zou betekenen van 4.000 Kwu op mijn verwarmingssituatie. Als wij dan geen groene jongens zijn, wie dan wel?

Is het mogelijk in onze bestaande woning nog meer te besparen op energieverbruik en de norm passiefmassief te halen? Alle suggesties zijn welkom.

Eerste aardbei. First strawberry.

2010-05-31T19:27:00.009+02:00

Gisteren werd de eerste aardbei geplukt van de lente 2010 en opgegeten door Lieve. Ze werd opgemerkt in de miniserretjes die blijkbaar toch een vervroeging van de rijping met zich brengen.

Yesterday, the first ripened strawberry from the 2010 garden season was harvested and it disappeared in Lieve's belly. It is clear that a faster ripening is noticed compared to the field in my garden without protection.

De miniserretjes worden gemaakt van plastiek zakken die afkomstig zijn van kippenvoeder of bouwzand. Ze worden rond een vierkante tralieconstructie gespannen en over enke struik gezet. Daardoor zijn bewerkingen in het aardbeienbed nog vlot mogelijk en is bewatering afkomsting van Sintepieter. Dese miniserretjes beschermen ook volledig tegen vogelvraat. De merels of duiven durven het absoluut niet aan de bessen te nemen als de bescherming er rond staat.
Verder beschermen ze de palnten tegen sterke wind terwijl het wel bekend is dat veel planten, en zeker aardbeiplanten niet graag "in de wind" staan.

The minigreenhouses are made from plastic bags that were used from chicken feed or sand for construction. They are applied around a bar and each strawbewrry plant gets its own cover. The upside remains open allowing rain to provide water for the plants. The minigreenhouses are also an absolute protection against the birds. No single bird dares to take a berry from such a protected environment.
It is also a side-effect of this type of protection that the plants are protected against the wind, while it is well known that most plants and certainly strawberry plants don't like strong wind at all.

The Metaboslider for photography and films

2010-05-26T18:00:00.013+02:00

Timelapse photography has become an advanced form of image processing. Real nice films are produced in this way. A nice example of a popular topic is a film made from the icelandic vulcano eruption (see http://vimeo.com/11673745). An other recent development in camera manipulation is the use of sliding instuments. Commercial equipment is available but real amateurs make their own instruments. Youtube contains mant films on this topic but real satisfactions comes from the use of a self-designed slider. So far, I believe, I succeeded in building such a slider from components lying around in the garage or hobbyroom.

The basis is a Metabo slider for a blade saw (Precision guide rail, Item number: 6.31250.00). With a little dexterity, my Sony camera was mounted on the black glider. A small piece of plexiglass, a few scews and two small weels bought in the local supermarket.

Manual movement of the camera is not very smooth and to make a smoother movement, a slow motor was installed (purchase from www.conrad.be : art. nr 222376 AANDRIJFMOTOR 385 3000:1 ). The movement speed is easily adjustable from a few cm per minute to a meter per minute by changing the voltage applied and the size of the driving wheels. Very simple is to make the movement with a turning system as shown in the pictures lower.

Now, it will be a piece of cake to show examples of nice film shots: wait and see.

Strawberry fields forever healthy

2010-05-26T09:02:00.009+02:00

Strawberries are very delicious, but sensitive fruits. They are often infected by fungi and they get dirty when they lay on the ground. Commercial growers use black plastic sheets to prevent contact of the berry with the ground. However, on very warm days this black plastic gets so hot that the berries are half cooked. Furthermore, the plastic prevents efficient watering and fertilisation.

Last year, I started a new (?) technique for the cultivation of my strawberries. Shortly after the flowers have formed, they are tied up with a soft plastic rope. The whole bush is tied together so that it stands up nicely and right. Even after the berries have grown heavier and ripened, they are not touching the ground. They don't get dirty and are much less infected by fungi and bacteria residing in the ground. As such, they can be eaten right after the picking while they are still warm and tasty from the sun, a mouth-warming experience.

A further advantage is that the flowers stay high above the leafs which is attractive to bees for fertilization of the flower

Radijsjes knabbelen op zondagmorgen met de Metaboglijder

2010-05-16T13:13:00.000+02:00

Lekkere radijsjes knabbelen op het terras, opgenoemen met de Metaboglijder

Sliderbol

2010-05-16T12:54:00.002+02:00

Draaiende bol op het terras met Metaboglijder aangemaakt

Slider1

2010-05-16T09:54:00.001+02:00

Deze opname werd gemaakt met de Metaboslider1

Mooie zondag

2010-04-25T20:12:00.002+02:00

De laatste zondag van april was een mooie dag. Redelijk zonnig maar toch niet met een grote stroomopbrengst, slechts 17 Kwu. Tijdens de voormiddag was er bezoek van Gaby met uitgebreide rondleiding in de tuin en boomgaard. De appelbloesem is duidelijk een paar weken achter op andere jaren maar er zijn terug heel veel, miljoenen bloemen. In de loop van volgende week zal het een grote bloementuil zijn.
De groententuin begint erg droog te komen. Het heeft al weken niet geregend en veel droge oostenwind zorgt voor een droge grond. Magere spinazie en geen groeizaam weer.

2010-03-18T15:00:00.001+01:00

Lekker ontbijten op het terras. Vooraan in beeld: de stilstaande "draaiende bol".

Reuzetomaten uit eigen serre

2010-03-18T14:34:00.002+01:00

"Country tase" of "Boerentomaat"

De zomer van 2009 was een succes in de serre voor tomaten en druiven. De soort was aangekocht als zaad bij De Boerenbond en zelf tot planten opgegroeid. Hun naam: Country taste. Je zal maar in Vlaanderen wonen, bedankt Boerenbond.

Santa Monica 2009

2009-11-14T21:13:00.019+01:00

Dit jaar was de aanleiding voor onze tocht naar de USA de Pichia meeting in Tucson waar ik kon deelnemen. Een prachtig verblijf in een veelsterren-Marriott. Bijna te mooi om waar te zijn. De staat Arizona was ons onbekend, maar we wisten uit de verhalen van Ben dat het er erg warm kon zijn. Tucson ligt dicht bij de Mexicaanse grens en is een soort poort voor de Mexicanen naar het rijke Amerika. Het is duidelijk dat er veel Latijnse (vooral Spaanse) invloeden zijn. De stad en omgeving was veel groter dan ik had verwacht voor een semi-woestijnstad. De ganse agglomeratie telt rond het miljoen inwoners en de stad zelf onveveer 500.000, wat redelijk vergelijkbaar is met Brussel of Antwerpen. Men vraagt zich af wat men daar zoal doet om aan de kost te komen. Veel landbouw is er zeker niet. Men merkt veel nieuwbouw die mogelijks te maken heeft met een groeiende toeloop van gepensioneerde Amerikaanse burgers. Het weer is er immers warm en droog wat goed is voor de rheumatische knoken. S'morgens bij het opstaan helemaal geen stijve gewrichten. Hoe komt het toch dat het weer zo een sterke invloed kan hebben op ons inflammatoir gedrag?
Na een grondig bezoek aan het mooie Sonoma woestijnmuseum zijn we vertrokken richting Grand Canyon. Onderweg zijn we even afgedwaald naar Sun City in de buurt van Phoenix. We werden er heel vriendelijk ontvangen op het infokantoor. De aanwezige staf dacht waarschijnlijk dat we toekomstige bewoners waren en we werden van veel informatie voorzien. Alhoewel de naam Sun city verwijst naar een stad is het eigenlijk geen stad maar een organisatie. Het is een manier van gemeenschap vormen die behoorlijk goed georganiseerd is en redelijk betaalbaar. Er zijn ook andere Sun Cities, bvb zoals in Tucson. Het zijn redelijk grote gemeenschappen waar ouderen wonen en waar zeer goede voorzieningen zijn. De parkings staan er bvb. vol met elektrische golfwagentjes die een soort substituut zijn voor een klassieke auto.
Het concept lijkt erg aantrekkelijk maar s'zomers is het er heel warm.

De rit ging verder naar Williams, een stadje niet al te ver van de Grand Canyon. Het ligt op de historische Route 66 en er vertrekken treinen naar de GC. Het vertrek van zo'n trein is een gebeurtenis op zich. Retroaspecten komen volop aan bod in allerlei vormen: de trein zelf met bijhorende staf, cow boys te paard die de trein uitzwaaien, luid getoeter bij de aftocht, etc. Ik heb het mooi op mijn Sony camcorder gefilmd. Aanvankelijk was het de bedoeling een dergelijke treintocht te maken, maar de meerwaarde t.o.v onze autorit en bezoek aan de GC de dag ervoor was niet erg groot.

Onze rit van Williams naar Santa Monica begon heel vroeg op zondagmorgen en verliep quasi vlekkeloos. Weinig verkeer, de ganse tijd autostrade en geen zware beklimmingen. We trokken California binnen op de plaats maar toch een ietsje anders dan verfilmd werd in de beroemde filmklassieker uit 1940 "The Grapes of wrath" van John Steinbeck. Met de GPS in het zelfgeplooid tralietje kwamen we goed op tijd aan in Santa Monica en Stefaan en Hilde waren ons duidelijk nog niet verwachtend. Er was dus ruim tijd om de valiezen uit te laten en de huurwagen terug te brengen naar de luchthaven LAX.
Na een dineetje in een mooi restaurant op Montana Avenue was de dag rond en kon de vakantie beginnen. Hilde's fiets werd ook nog even snel "aangeslagen" en de volgende dag kon er al gefietst worden. De voormiddag werd echter wel eerst de Costco bezocht om de diepvries op te vullen met een flinke voorraad vis, vlees en groenten.

We merkten ook snel dat de vroegere buur nog aanwezig was, maar de mooie roze fiets met ballonbanden van zijn vroegere Franse vriendin was verkocht en bijgevolg niet meer beschikbaar voor tochtjes langs de zee. Hilde's fiets was echter een uitstekend alternatief maar wel een beetje conservatief of zelfs somber van kleuren.

California, December 2008

2008-12-25T02:10:00.009+01:00

Our yearly trip to California was planned to celebrate the end-of-year festivities in Santa Monica. We left Belgium with Delta Airlines and after a stop in Atlanta, the trip was completed at LAX, the international airport of Los Angeles. Stefaan was at the baggage collection unit to bring us with his white Dodge to his apartment first and then to our apartment in Euclid street. In fact, it is the thirteenth street but who lives in thirteenth street or on the thirteenth floor in a hotel or apartment? So, in fact, we will live now in thirteenth street for a month. The apartment is small and it was supposed to be fully equipped for "the travelling chef", but that was not fully true. Although it was not really dirty, it had not been cleaned before we arrived and the kitchen equipment was rather minimal. The manager, Saman, was called in and he was most helpful for solving all our small problems. He even repaired a leak in the bathroom. Soon, Lieve got to know our neighbour and the cleaning lady. There was a small garden with blossoming roses, white, pink and red. Rather unusual for us to see this in deep Winter time.

A nice thing was the presence of bicycles in the apartments which were for rent and on top af that our closest neighbour, who was living there on a more permanent basis, offered us to use his former girl friends bicycle. A beautiful pink beach cruiser with thick tires. We took off for a bicycle ride on Friday along the beach and one of the first things Lieve discovered was the VRT-hotel "Shutters on the Beach". It looks very romantic, a little like the Coronado hotel in San Diego. It is probably not the most expensive hotel in Santa Monica, but certainly the cheapest neither. We were wondering what the meaning was of the name, as the word shutters was not in our simple dictionnary. Further searches suggest that it are "blaffeturen" or "vensterluiken", but rather at the inside to protect from the sun. The word "to shut" is easy to see and understand.
Our trip went as far as Venice and back than to Santa Monica. Some small shopping was conveniently done at the VON's, a supermarket only 2 blocks from our apartment.
A substantial shopping was planned for Saturday with Stefaan driving us to the Costco. Meat, fish, fruits and most necessary things were bought for the coming weeks. As we dont drive a car here, this makes our life much easier. Like our American neighbour, we try to have a small ecological footprint. Given our European roots and life style, it is no problem to be superecological according to American standards. The size of most cars in the streets is far larger than our European size and the size of the real resident's houses is large as well. The budget needed for a reasonable house is around 5 miljon dollars, an amount of money we can never gather in a lifetime in Europe even as a somewhat better payed working class. The environment to live here is very attractive, fairly green streets, clean air, cool in the summer and pleasant in the Winter.

Fete des pommes a Ruy: weg met de onbekende soldaat

2008-10-13T09:22:00.010+02:00

Op zondag 5 oktober was er een groot appelfeest in Ruy (Stoumont) in de buurt van Stavelot en het voorstel van Gaby om er heen te gaan werd goed onthaald. Naast onze natuurlijke interesse voor alles wat met appelen te maken heeft was het feit dat er "appelmeisjes" aangekondigd werden daar natuurlijk niet vreemd aan. Het was een vrij regenachtige dag en de regenschermen kwamen goed van pas. Ruy is een klein Waals dorp met een mooie, snel stromende beek (ruy) en kleine straatjes die omgevormd werden tot een soort kermis. Er was een appeltentoonstelling en we hadden twee "Onbekende Soldaten" en twee "Elstars" van eigen boomgaard meegenomen ter identificatie door de aanwezige specialisten. De "Onbekende soldaat" werd heel snel geidentificeerd tot een "Belle fleur simple" terwijl de "Elstar" (het testexemplaar of positieve controle in het onderzoekersjargon) als een "Jonathan" werd aangewezen. De aanwezige "Belle fleurs de Paris" leken inderdaad heel goed op mijn "Onbekende Soldaat" en ik neem vanaf nu aan dat mijn "Onbekende Soldaat" een "Belle Fleur" is. Ik vergeef het de "specialist" niet makkelijk dat hij de "Elstar" niet kon herkennen maar zijn snelle toewijzing van de "Belle Fleur" maakte wel indruk en daarom geloof ik hem graag. Over de toevoeging "simple" wil ik mij nog niet uitspreken omdat de tentoongestelde "Belle Fleur de Paris" wel groter waren dan mijn meegebrachte exemplaren, maar omdat ik vermoed dat de appels in het mandje wel degelijk vooraf geselecteerd waren op grootte en als dusdanig niet een gemiddelde "Belle Fleur de Paris" waren. Ik weet niet waarom, maar ik zou wel graag hebben dat mijn "Belle Fleur-onbekende soldaat" ook een "Belle Fleur de Paris" is alhoewel ik weet dat er in Parijs niet zoveel appelaars staan te bloeien in de lente.

De rest van de kermis viel al bij al nog goed mee met steltlopers, oude ambachten, zeeptenten en volksspelen zou het een heel mooi gebeuren geweest zijn had het zonnetje maar geschenen. Het regende echter bijna continu en we zijn dan maar naar Spa gereden voor een steile klim naar Sol Crest.

Contreras name

2008-10-07T21:48:00.006+02:00

As I have been born and raised in Flanders, my mother tongue is Flemish. During my school time I studied rather extensively French and English, and a little German. There never was a link to the Spanish language. However, during my professional life, I often came in contact with Spanish speaking individuals and countries and although I knew that my family name had a Spanish origin, I had not payed much attention to this as I was most occupied with my professional interests. Indeed, I was often approached in Spanish and often people assumed I was speaking Spanish, but it was, unfortunately, not the case.

Spanish lessons????

Tenneville: end of August 2008

2008-08-30T20:19:00.042+02:00

Our visit to Tenneville was still connected to my retirement, almost 2 years ago. It was a gift of Stefaan's parents in law at the occasion of my retirement party in Het Kasteel van Zwijnaarde. It is in the heart of the Ardennes.

We left Merelbeke for Tenneville Saturday August 23rd around noon time. The car was heavily loaded , not only with our luggage, but also with apples for my sister
Martine and for Jos and May, the owners of the cottage in Tenneville. So, our first stop was in Zellik/Asse to deliver part of the apples. Most of them were fallen because or worm infections but some were James Grieve type which I had picked directly from the tree. Martine was most happy with the load and I am sure she will use them most elegantly for cakes and apple sauce. Christian was enjoying Olympic sports in high definition on his Philips HD-TV. After a chat with a cup of coffee and two apple flaps, we continued our trip to Tenneville. It was pouring rain between Brussels and Namur and it looked like a bad start for our vacation. Dangerous to be on the road, that's for sure. Gradually, it slowed down raining and by the time we arrived in Tenneville, it had stopped raining. The Tomtom GPS had guided me very nicely to the correct address and May was waiting for us. Jos was inside the cottage also watching the olympic games and he was lucky to see Tia Hellebaut's golden high jump.
May had bought a 4-fruits-pie and prepared tasteful coffee to welcome us in her, at first and further sight, cozy cottage. May showed us around in the premises and Jos told us the most interesting places to visit in the neighborhood. His suggestions to visit Mochamps for wild-life observation were most valuable. It is a very nice place where we could see deer, a fox, sheep and (lots of) birds. We kept this walk to have it with Dirk and Gaby who have become most experienced Ardennen globetrotters. It was the area where Saint-Hubert met the deer carrying a cross in its antlers, leading to his conversion to a Christian. Unfortunately, we missed the chapel built over there as a memory of this event. Later, in 705, he became the bishop of Tongeren-Maastricht and other places. He founded a convent in Andage, now called St-Hubert, and he died in 727 in Tervuren (age 77) but was buried in Liege and his body was later transported to St-Hubert. He was born in 650 as a member of a noble family in Aquitania.
Before Jos and May left, we transferred the boxes with apples in their car, unloaded the luggage and the same evening, we had a walk to Erneuville, a small village nearby. A church and not more than 20-30 houses. The sky was blue, but not for long.

The next morning, it was raining again. We had a very silent night of sleep and decided to visit Saint-Hubert, an important European center for hunting, nature and as we would learn later for small air-plane aviation.
The city is surrounded by large, dense woods, often with beautiful beech trees. The Tomtom took us right to the Basilique church which was very quiet around 10.00 AM. We visited the inside, found many links to Flemish art and nice multilingual explanatory signs. The "crypt" was very well accessible and worth a visit. History was easy to taste here. When we left the church, the sun was shining and we made part of the historical walk of the city. During this walk we spotted a few hunting-horn blowers in typical dress moving towards the church and we followed them, hoping for some sort of a performance. And, indeed, we were lucky. There was a special mass at 11.00 AM for the celebration of a jumelation with the English village of Dorcet. The four hunting-horn blowers opened the ceremony with their typical music and were most generous with their breath also in further parts of the mass. It was a pleasant experience to see a female protestant priest celebrating mass together with a young catholic priest. The female priest gave a well spoken sermon in French while it was disappointing to experience that at the end of the ceremony the Catholic St-Hubert priest needed an interpreter to understand the visiting guests when they offered their presents.

Monday morning was wet again. Some rain and we decided to drive to La Roche. A short drive of less than 15 km and with the Tomtom GPS programmed to the center of La Roche, it was a piece of cake. We parked our car a little outside of the city and walked along the river Ourthe towards the center of the city (shopping street). A somewhat dangerous walk because the same path had clearly been used by several dogs who had forgotten their plastic bags. A little sad to notice this for a touristic center of that level. The shops were inspected and for lunch we had a pizza, stone-oven baked. The afternoon was filled with a walk around the city, interrupted by the consumption of a cup of coffee and a pancake. Of course, we lost the way, but thanks to our walking instincts we found the center of La Roche back after which we returned to Tenneville. All together, a relaxing day.

On Tuesday, it was decided to go to Laneuville-au-bois, a small village close to Mochamps. According to the map we had bought in La Roche, there was a marked walking path that we decided to follow. The village is rather small and isolated in the

woods. It was interesting to learn that it had been so isolated in the past (e.g. Middle Ages) that they had escaped the plague disease (de pest). Indeed, there was no cafe or restaurant, only a few houses and a church. The walk, almost entirely in very nice beech woods, was highlighted by an encounter with 2 real giant male deer. They were apparently "on the road" together which seemed a little strange to me. Later on, in October things will probably change. I did not see a cross in their antlers and we continued our path. The walking signs were not longer found and we were lost, real deep in the wood and were preparing ourselves mentally to stay the night over there. However, after having spotted an open space and hearing car noise, a new path was taken that brought us on a street from where we could find the direction to the center of Laneuville-au-bois and our car. It was almost dark when we returned home for dinner. The stove was started up and the cottage was nicely heated before going to bed. A good night sleep came easy.

A visit of Dirk and Gaby had been planned for Wednesday and we were on the look-out to see their car coming in the street. It is always a pleasure to see Dirk and Gaby back as they are always in an excellent mood. The plan was to have a good walk in
the early afternoon and a BBQ in the evening. We had been shopping for some wine and vegetables and a few other things while Dirk would bring the meat and potatoes and Gaby's own baked cake. After the breakfast, I just made a quick visit to the mini-Delhaize in Tenneville and all was ready around 10.00 AM. Around 11.00 AM Dirk's Astra was spotted in our street and soon they were at the cottage. The cake, meat and BBQ tools were unloaded and we prepared our pick-nick for the walk. As we had seen the nice woods in Laneuville-au-bois the day before and heard the advice from Jos we went for a 2-3 hour walk in Mochamps. The weather was dry but not really sunny and Autumn seemed like already somewhat present. It is indeed nice walking over there, good paths, very quiet, nice trees and flowers. Short after our lunch, Dirk spotted a baby deer in the open space and a little later a fox. There is a high observation tower that was climbed, but we were too early to see much wild-life from up there. Later, we were told that it is best to come around 8.00 PM. Anyway, we were already most happy with the fox and the baby deer, knowing well that we could not expect to see bears and wolves in Mochamps anymore. Our walk finished as planned and we directed home for the BBQ.
It is clear that Dirk is a food specialist as he got the food ready and the BBQ fire up in no time. I feel completely lost and useless in such situations as I know that it is better that I do nothing than to do things erroneously. I made myself useful by opening a bottle of Cava champagne that we had as an apetizer. I also put the radio on "Classique 21", a music station that was highly appreciated by the four of us. They turn not real Classic music, but classic pop fromn the sixties and seventies. Some singing and dancing is always in the air when such music is played.
However, our cava pleasure was suddenly interruted by a double, loud explosion. An Eternit tile that was close to the BBQ fire suddenly exploded and pieces were flying around, mainly in Dirk's direction. Apart from the broken plate, no damage was noticed and soon the food was ready. The Atlas potatoes cooked in aluminium foil with some garlic butter were absolutely delicious and the meat, already xxxxxx from the day before, was even better. With some veggies and Pinot noir wine, the meal was a topper. Gaby's apple cake was a tasteful dessert, fresh and sweet. Time was flying fast and it is a pity that such hours seem so short. Our friends drove to Stavelot while already dark and even without a TomTom GPS they have found their home.

My obsession and admiration for flying objects brought us to the Saint-Hubert's air-field on Thursday. We had seen some gliders the days before and we knew of the air-field from our touristic documentation. In my dreams, I often do not need an air-plane to fly, just my arms and off I go. Gliding over the trees and cities, it is totally different from what one experiences in a Boeing 747. Hub-Air is the local airline and to our surprise there was a lot of activity around despite the cloudy weather. Gliders were flying in and other small air-planes were flying out. We visited the bar (called "The cockpit"), had a coffee and some information. An airplane was for sale for only 37.000 Euro's and a course for pilot was only 5.000 Euro. So what is the problem?

Friday had a clear sky and we decided to visit Nassogne. Not far, at least by car. During our trip to there we noticed on our left side nice pigs stables. Modern architecture and plenty of happy pigs around. We had been told about such an animal friendly farm by our cottage neighbor and it was clearly there. Later, afer arriving in the center of Nassogne, we noticed the butcher's shop which was closed. The town hall is a nice building and a walk was undertaken around the village. It is clearly a rural area, nice and clean. We were a little late for buying a sandwich at the "Spar" (closing exactly at 12.00 am) and decided to try our luck in March-en-Famenne. Easy to find because it is close to the N4 highway. We entered the city shortly before noon and it was not easy to find a parking spot. The city gave a nervous impression, probably caused by the high-school students who were preparing for the school start by collecting their books from school. We found a nice place for lunch on the central place just in front of the main church. The food was excellent and after a walk and an ice-cream, we returned to the Tenneville-cottage. The sun was shining almost the whole day and the forcast was very promising for the coming weekend. Indeed, we made our trip back home on Saturday and were glad to find our home in perfect condition.

2008 BLOG resumption

2008-08-18T15:47:00.011+02:00

My last message was December from last year. A very long interruption caused by several events.

The first reason was our 6-weeks stay in San Diego, California during January/February this year. Although the events there were worth more than one story, I didn't write them down. My laptop was not working well at the time over there and of course, it was a busy time. First the "Protein expression meeting" in the Coronado hotel, then Stefaan and Hilde visiting and a 10-day visit from Gaby and Dirk.

The second reason was the further construction of our terrace. A lot of work indeed but worth the trouble, so far. I will try to write a separate story about this later....

A third major reason is the start of the organization of my hobby room. Also plenty of inspiration for a new (still unfinished) story.

In May, there was a short interruption for the Biotech 2008 meeting in Zurich (http://picasaweb.google.com/roland.contreras/Zurich2008).
June and July were full with garden work (Exempla potato harvest) and hobby room construction. The first week of July was used to renew the gutter. Indeed the supporting hooks (?) were all rusty and replaced with stainless steel models. It took me a whole week to finish the job, even with 2 days very valuable help of Andre and Lieve. A special cover was designed (patent pending!!!)to prevent falling leaves to enter the gutter and clog the rain pipes.

A short, one-week "caravan" trip to Sint-Job-in-t'Goor was a sunny intermezzo with nightly thunderstorms. The cycling condition was substantially improved and the green area around Antwerp explored. Kalmthoutse heide, Westmalle, Oostmalle, Wijnegem, and surrounding villages were included in cycling trips often along the Albert and the Turnhout-Dessel channels. Unfortunately, no pictures were taken from this interesting area with military domains and huge villa's. The people living over there must be very rich and I got the impression that the Ghent area is a poor region.

August seems like a flat month. A lot of rain and the unfortunate death of a baby-sheep. It's always sad to loose an animal. The garden is full with vegetables and I need to take a picture of the garden path, a summer look to publish next to the winter look below. Apples start to ripen, and the "James Grieve" species is again very productive. Somewhat less then last year, but plenty to eat. Much more worms because I completely ommitted chemical insecticide treatment this year. The difference with last year, when I treated 1 or 2 times immediately after the blossoming time, is very clear.

The Garden Path

2007-12-27T18:34:00.006+01:00

Our vegetable garden is around 200 square meters (10x20m)and roughly divided in two parts of 5x20m separated by a garden path. The old path was formed by heavy tiles of 50x50 cm just lined up ,more or less in the middle of the garden strip. They were brought here in the late 70-ties when my brother Adrian was a team leader in a road construction company in Oudenaarde as rubbish, and in fact they were kind of rubbish. Broken pieces, sinking away below ground level, always dirty and too narrow.

But now, a new garden path has been constructed. Internet and Google have been a great help here to find the construction materials. Searching for "betonplaten" lead me to the site "www.betonplaten.be" and in there interesting companies can be found. First, I decided to buy 100x50 cm plates which are used in fence construction, but after searching a bit more I found a nicer size of 80x80 cm with a 5 cm thickness. The company was not a real company, but a one-man bussiness. Anyway, the man brought the giant tiles to my home place and even helped me to transport them to my garden area.
For the underground of the giant tiles, I used sandy clay, recovered from the terrace, mixed with cement in a ratio of 200 kg cement per cubic meter of sandy clay. The tiles are positioned a little higher then the land and as such they will remain clean or get cleaned from falling rain.
Under the path, a long tube (red in the picture) is foreseen to allow collection of rain water from the garden house for use in the green house. I hope that the orchids will appreciate this.

P.S. Note in the back left, the fantastic smelling roses protected from frost by straw.

Het terras

2007-10-22T21:45:00.003+02:00

De winter staat voor de deur en veel zonnen op het terras zal er wel niet meer inzitten, alhoewel het zonnetje vandaag wel te genieten was. Er werd dan ook besloten het krakkemikkig terras te vernieuwen. Een eerste stapje werd gezet met de aankoop van een grote breekhamer, in de Makro. Voor 125 euro, in de reklame weliswaar, werd een vrij grote breekhamer gekocht om de tegelvloer uit te breken alsook de onderliggende wegzinkende betonplaat. Op donderdag 18 oktober begonnen en op maandagmiddag waren de tegels verdwenen en de onderliggende zandlaag netjes fijngeklopt en opgeborgen voor later. De betonplaat verwijderen was andere koek voor de breekhamer, maar al bij al geen grote problemen. Een eerste namiddag trillen en de plaat was halfweg in grove brokken gebroken. Alhoewel ik eerst van plan was de brokstukken naar het containerpark te vervoeren met mijn aanhangwagentje leek me dat zienderogen geen goede procedure, vooral gelet op het gewicht van de brokstukken. We hebben dan besloten een container te laten komen om het grof gesteente weg te voeren. Dit zal heel wat overenweergerij naar het containerpark vermijden en toch 10 kubieke meter steenresten en zavel op de gepaste, lees recycleerbare, bestemming brengen. Voor 210 euro werd de container gebracht en gehaald en hij kon 4 dagen blijven. Woensdagnamiddag gebracht en tegen die tijd ligt alles hier wel in brokken "geschoten" zoals de profs het zeggen.
Ik probeer het voorbereidende werk zo goed mogelijk te doen, maar eind november, begin december komt een vakman de klus verder zetten. Deze keer willen we het goed doen en wordt alles in het werk gesteld om nieuwe verzakkingen en opvriezingen te voorkomen. Het wordt een ingewikkelde klus maar het moet gebeuren. Het oude terras was gewoon niet meer te genieten, lees behoorlijk te reinigen.

October intermezzo: French castles in Picardie

2007-10-11T13:52:00.001+02:00

It started about one year ago, when Sylviane and Myriam choose one of my presents for my retirement. They choose a Bongo for a stay in a very luxuary place, a hotel. As the present was including a "luxuary" dinner as well, we choose to go to France and found a hotel in Chantilly, close to Paris. Only three hours driving from Ghent and located in a castle in the woods surrounding Chantilly. A second fact contributing to the organisation of our trip was my reading of a book about the Middle Ages that I started in Dirk's place last July in Stavelot. It seems a well known book by Barbara Tuchman describing the Middle Ages in general as an introduction to a historical study of the "Sires de Coucy", an important family living in Coucy-le-Chateau 1n the thirteenth-fourteenth century: the "Enguerrands III-VII". Despite the fact that I had only finished one-third of this very thick book, we decided to visit Coucy-le-Chateau on the way back home from Chantilly and I reserved for 2 nights in the hotel "La Belle-Vue" with a view on the castle.

We left home early on the Sunday morning of October 7th with the Tomtom programmed on Auvers-sur-Oise, the place where the famous Dutch painter Van Gogh spent the last 70 days of his life. So, it should be clear that our trip was not only gastronomic but also cultural. The place was reached nicely in time and we could start the visit with sun on our shoulders. The first to discover was the famous church and nearby the graves of the brothers Van Gogh, Vincent and Theo. The village was decorated with replicas of the most important paintings that were made there, almost one every day. Indeed, the man was painting at a speed of one painting per day, the last 70 days before he committed suicide. Unfortunately, not one original of the 70 paintings made over there was present in the village. Only replicas. The village has made a special effort in maintaining the room in the cafe where Van Gogh was staying during his Auvers-period. Vincent was there because of a doctor who was supposed to be highly qualified to treat his illness and it seems from his letters that he found some piece in the personal relationship with this xxxxxx doctor and he quoted him even in his letters. A striking quote I found was "it is very difficult and complicated to be simple". That made me think about the chemical DNA sequencing method of Maxam and Gilbert who also made a complicated task very simple and in doing so boosted fast progress in Molecular Biological and Genetic sciences. After a pic-nic at the river Oise, we visited the castle in Auvers which hosted a remarkable exposition on the "impressionists" without showing one real original impressionist painting. Monet, Manet, Renoir and many others were mentioned, but no reference was made to Van Gogh. On our way to the hotel-castle in Gouvieux-Chantilly we were wondering why.

The hotel was a really beautifull location. A place where we never would enter when we had to pay ourselves. We had the most expensive room, very authentic with a historical bed and a modern bath-room. Our dinner was very tastefull and the wine was excellent. Some fish as a main dish and Entre-deux-Mers as the wine. I was fortunate that I didn't have to drive home that evening. Normally, I don't drink much wine, but now it would have been a shame to leave the bottle unemptied. Our breakfast was very extensive as well, with all possible ingredients that could be present there. The only thing we could think of was caviar, something we had in the Abba Bjorn hotel in Stockholm last february. We were certainly not the only Belgians in the hotel and we noticed some of them during our visit of the impressive castle in Chantilly and later on in Senlis. The Chantilly castle is so beautifully located and preserved for the public. It is the place where the Chantilly cream was "invented" but unfortunately a tasting session was not included in the 9 euro visit ticket. Lots of art are there, mainly from later periods in history.
On our way to Coucy-le-Chateau, we visited Senlis, also a nice and very historical place and we arrived exactly at 18.00 hrs in Coucy-le-Cahteau, as I had promised Mlle Lefevre, the hotel manager. Dinner, containing something with Paris' mushrooms, was taken and an early night was welcome to give the driver-tourist some necessary rest.

The first day in Coucy was a lazy start. Breakfast untill 10.30 am followed by a guided visit to the castled village. Indeed most of the houses were build inside the larger walls of the Medieval castle. Our guide was a lady, a former mayor of the village who was well informed and an enthousiastic defender of the hughe historical value of the Coucy-le-Chateau site. She explained the strange situation which was created by the French revolution whereby the city walls became private property and as such are very difficult to restore in a well maintained state. Some parts are decorated with houses and some house are even extending in the hughe towers of the wall. Our guide took us to the church where we met a group of visiting Croatian singers from Marija Bistrica. As the y didn't understand French and our French guide didn't speak English and certainly not Croation I made the translation from French to English, after which the Croation guide translated into Croatian. The group showed their gratitude very extensively by singing two very nice songs in the church and several other presents, mostly sweet things to eat. We promised them to attend their performance in Soissons that same evening, but that part was not realized as we visited Soissons in the afternoon.
Soissons is very proud of its broken vase, a remnant from the time of Clovis, the Frankish king who was baptized in Reims together with his wife Clothildis in 486, an important event in the Christianisation of Europe. The vase had been stolen by the soldiers of Clovis from a church and was supposed to be returned to the church on demand of the bishop. The soldier didn't agree with the idea of returning the vase to the church and he broke it with his sword. Some time later, when Clovis recognized the soldier who had damaged the vase during an army inspection, he simply own-handed, cut the soldier's head off. The least that can be said is that these times were rough even compared to the Middle Ages like they are described very well in the book of Barbara Tuchman.
Our last morning in Coucy, we visited the castle itself. It is very impressive, for instance compared to the Counts Castle in Ghent. The size of the buildings, the thickness of the walls, the story on the destruction by the French people itself in the early 1600's as ordered from the French king and the destruction by the Germans during the first world war (called "barbarie" in French). No doubt, this place breathes history from a very rough nature, far from human civilisation. Fichthing, killing destruction and who knows what kind of human misery is all connected to this. Unwillingly, I think back to my grand-father who was hit in his eyes by the German war gasses in WW1 and to my father who spent a year in German captivity during WW2. So, it seems I will escape this violent sequence of events and comapred to their lives, I find my live much more satisfactory and pleasant to live. Also hopefull is to see that Stefaan, my son, is proceeding with an interesting international professional life, something he had to fight for, but he made it all by himself and therefore, I think it is most rewarding for him.

Apples here, apples there, apples everywhere: garden of Eden?

2007-09-12T20:09:00.000+02:00

The apple season has really started and runs on full speed. Its a few weeks earlier than other years, the effect of the 6 weeks summer time we had in the spring, but the yields have never been better. My earliest species, "Transparente blanche", is no longer available because the tree died two years ago, but the James Grieve did again an excellent job. The tree was full with nicely red coloured apples, I estimate more than 150 kilograms. Year after year, this tree is so productive, delivering delicious apples that it deserves the price of best tree of the "Contreras orchard". The reason for this constant high productivity is difficult to find. I explain it with the presence of the animal's drinking bucket in its close proximity. Indeed, this bucket is filled everyday with plenty of water by an automatic water delivery system and the overflow goes to the roots of the James Grieve tree. Especially in the summer time this is a welcome source of water and a stimulus for the tree to expand its roots system. Right or wrong, the result is amazing, year after year plenty of delicious apples during the months of august and september. They are soft to bite, have an excellent taste and aroma, but don't last longer than end of September.
No problem, of course. In the mean time the "Jacques lebel" starts ripening and most years they are also available in large quantities. Their aroma and taste is clearly different from the James grieve apples but they are not less attractive. The colour is largely yellow-green when they have ripened and they are also fairly soft but they have a more extensive skin. They are perfect for jelly and apple-sauce as well. Again, it is a pitty they don't keep longer than October-November, at least in natural conservation conditions.
It would take me too long to describe all my apple species, but there are also "Rode boskoop", "Reinette descardre", "Reinette etoilee or Sterreinet", "Elstar", "Jonathan", "Unknown species", "Jonagold" and "Gloster". This year they all carry a nice load of fruits, far too much for my own use. The other years, i distributed the excess of apples among my brothers and sisters, and the closest neighbours, but this year there were too many. So, we listened to our garden help Andre, and posted a panel at our front door with "Apples for sale". The message was also put on the www.kapaza.be website and in the local advertising journal "Gazet van Rode". The result was positive; many neighbours came to visit and later, many more interested mothers and grand-mothers came to collect apples. They were all served with fresh loads of excellent tasting, tree-ripened apples. Indeed, I had put nets under my trees to catch the ripe, falling apples without damage. They remain clean, are perfectly ripened and aromatic, and they are well conserved from damage. I noticed that some early clients have come back already and they were all surprised by the excellent taste of my apples.

A week in the French Alps: Saint-Sorlin d' Arves

2007-08-12T17:09:00.000+02:00

We started our short vacation in France last week Friday, August 3rd. I had reserved a room in the "Grand Hotel" in Vesoul and the Tomtom was nicely programmed with the precise address and predicted a travelling time of 5-6 hours. We left home at 5.45 AM and followed the instructions of the GPS lady, called Lucie. All went well and we got even ahead of the schedule. Lieve had won this stay during the open door day of our regular travel agency, Europareizen last year, November 16th, indeed Lieve's birthday. After a short stop in Epinal, the Vosges (Vogezen) shorly before noon time, we continued for Vesoul and arrived there early afternoon. The beautiful weather made a visit to this small city best pleasant and we enjoyed, among other things a "petanque" competition in the local park for the local population. A tasteful dinner with a bottle of Arbois Rose wine concluded our evening and an early night sleep in this traditional hotel was welcome for relaxing the driver.
The next morning, we continued our trip for the final destination: Saint-Sorlin d'Arves. All went well until the last 20-30 kilometers from Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. A detour was announced because of road works in a tunnel and we were sent over a very small and dangerous road D110 over the Mollard mountain. This road was really very narrow and winding and I was surprised that Lieve was not showing signs that she was afraid. After asking the way at least three times we found our hotel, L'Etendard. The last person we asked was the chef of a local "Crepery" and he assured me that I could not miss the place because there were only Belgians (in French, "il n'y a que des Belges"). He was right because all the cars parked at the hotel were all carrying Belgian plates. Very soon, we also found out that the chef (maitre d hotel) was also a Belgian West-Vlaming. After paying a 1 Euro tourist tax per person and per night we were assigned room 13 and despite the number, we felt comfortable and had a nice dinner and a good night sleep.
On Sunday morning we made a walk to the neighbouring village and attended the tourist information session organised at 11.oo AM in front of the tourist office. There was a lot to do for the rest of the week, but our attention went to the mountain walking tracks and to the parapente. Indeed, the writer of this blog had the silly idea of learning to fly after his retirement, but he did not realise how difficult it might be. So far, a very positive experience was realised from our balloon flight with Stefan Rykaert, a former student and still postdoc in the lab. The flight was given as a present by my close collaboraters from U2, U14 and the LMBP unit. We had a beautiful flight starting in Merelbeke, following the river Schelde for a while and doing so passing over my birth village Welden. After passing the Flemish Ardennes we landed in Louise-Marie/Ellezelle just over the language boarder in Wallonia. We noticed many more swimming pools than we had anticipated and that Flanders looks nicer from the air than from the street. There was not a moment we were scarred and had full confidence in our pilot despite his young age.
Our second walk was a one star walk on Sunday afternoon and it was a test for my new Lafuma walking shoes bought in the Makro. All went well and we planned a two star walk for Monday with the plan to end on Thursday or Friday with a three star walk but the weather disturbed our plans. Three days of rain on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday kept us away from the mountain walks. On Thursday, we visited Grenoble. The trip went over the "Col de Croix de Fer and "The Glandon" in heavy rain and therefore, dangerous driving. The afternoon was much better and after a walk, a lunch in the park and a coffee, we visited a very nice museum located next to the major church. The museum was very well organised and educative and above all, free of entrance charge. This visit concluded our fternoon and we returned back to Saint-Sorlin, our home village for this week. The strange thing was that the saint protecting the church was Saint-Saturnin, a saint I had never heard about.
Our final day was very rewarding. Our table companion, Nancy, was also interested in a parapente flight and she had contacte Dominique the parapente pilot and enrolled both of us for Friday noon. The weather was much improved and the flights could go on. Nancy made her flight first and than it was my turn. The trip gigh-up on the mountain was partly by car and partly by walking. Dominique carried the heavy bag containing the parapente system and after a while we were ready to take off. All went well and the sights over the valley were very beautiful. Not a moment frightend, even at high elevationb above the valley. Only the noise of the wind and some instructions from the pilot Dominique disturbes the silence. It was an amazing experience which concluden my second real flying experiment. Indeed, being in a Boeing can hardly be called flying.
Lieve also made her flight after me and she was equallly enthouiastic with this new experience. I underestimeted her before by thinking that she would not dare to make this type of flight.
The next day, on Saturday we made our trip back in two steps. We stayed the night in Plombieres-les-bains in Hotel Napoleon. It looked like a very historic place, both the hotel and the small city. Next to Napoleon, also othe European emperrors had been there, e.g, Stanislas, the king of Poland. Some band playing in the streets in the evening and a nice walk concluded our day.
The next day we were home, welcomed by a wet shower.

Rat in a tree

2007-07-26T22:24:00.000+02:00

Never seen this before. Yesterday, Wednesday, the only dry day of the week, a rat was sitting in one of my apple trees. I noticed it in the morning, it was still there in the afternoon and later we decided to chase it. First, I thought it was a squirrel, but the colour was gray and it had strange ears. Our garden help, Andre, who came in the afternoon to trim the lawn, also thought it was a rat. But why was it in a tree? I have never seen this before and I always thought rats were living in the ground. A possible reason could be the heavy rains we were enjoying the past days.
On Friday, during our trip to the Ardennes, the rain was pouring by buckets all the way from Gent to Stavelot and on Monday afternoon, during our way back, it was more or less the same. So, I imagine that the ground was saturated with water and that caused perhaps the rats to look for drier places. True or not, the rat was amazingly quiet the whole day and only after Lieve had pinced it with a long stick it fell on the ground and ran away to the neighbours garden.

The morning of that Wednesday had been pritty busy with the trimming of our beech-hedge at the street side of our house. It needs to be trimmed at least once a year and we do it normally during the week of our national festivity day, the 21rst of July. A few other shrubs are trimmed as well and all the trimmings are collected in my small wagon and transported to Merelbeke's container park. The whole operation takes about half a day and "klaar is Kees".

We were still in excellent spirits from our Ardennen weekend at Dirk and Gaby's house. Although the travelling days were very rainy and wet, the other days were nice weather, almost completely dry over there. We had nice walks, excellent food prepared by Dirk and Gaby, even better drinks like champagne and CarlosI, some surprising music from long ago and even some singing and almost dancing. This was real vacation time for which we never can compensate our friends in Stavelot. Wild and cultivated berrys, BBQ, lessons in French, it all added to this remarkable weekend.

Thursday was mostly dry in the morning, but rainy again in the afternoon. I had started to remove the wall paper of my office on Tuesday and Lieve continued on Thursday. At evening time the job was finished. Some cleaning and my office and computer is back in function. Next September, a friend will hopefully come to put the new wall-paper and this will be a next step in the redecoration of the house. The hall was painted, the kitchen was refurbished and next in row is the living room. Where will it end?

Potato harvest

2007-07-09T19:45:00.000+02:00

Last week Friday the time was ripe for harvesting the potatoes. Why so early you could ask. There are several reasons. Firstly, they were planted fairly early outside after they had an inside period in the green house. They were planted in individual pots in February and could grow while it was still cold outside. The second reason was the 6 weeks of almost summer we had in April/mAY. The potatoes could grow with plenty of sun and warm temperatures. A third reason is the bad rainy weather we had the last weeks. The plants got sick and were infected with plant pathogens, I assume a fungal pathogen. I had applied only two treatments of antifungals and early July the plants were really heavily infected. So, it was high time to take the tubers out of the ground before they got infected too. A last reason is related to the species. They are half-late/half-early Exempla potatoes from the Flemish farmers union (Boerenbond). We appreciate that kind already for several years for its excellent taste and relative resistance against disease.

The harvest, in terms of yield, was pretty good. Around 200 kg from 30 square meters of garden space. Recalculated in yield per hectare, it was 60 tons per hectare. I am wondering how many professional farmers do better than this. I have to admit here that I was spoiled with fertilizer this spring by a friend called Roger who gave me several cubic meters of real manure from his horse and cow stables.
I hope that the potatoes will stay healthy until next year but that is a big question mark at this moment.

Last Saturday, the empty space from the poatatoes was already used for starting new cultures of lettuce, corn salad, beans, endives and carrots. As this weeks is pritty rainy again, the seeds will germinate well and the winter harvest for these vegetables will hopefully be succesful.

Visiting friend

2007-06-17T10:24:00.001+02:00

Last week was bringing in a lot of variety, again. Visits to Brussels,some garden work, Hilde and her mother visiting on Thursday afternoon and a pleasant event on Friday and Saturday. We had our Chinese friend and former student Jing-dong Zhu visiting our home place. He was on his way to Dresden for a meeting and made a quick stop in Brussels. I picked him up at Zaventem early in the morning and brought him to Merelbeke by car. Usually, we go there by train, but for this special occasion, I left home at 6.30 AM and arrived at the airport around 8.00 AM. The plane was delayed for about an hour, and so I had a chance to have a coffee and 2 tastefull cookies for breakfeast. It was a real pleasure to see Jingdong appearing in the gate. A lot had happened since our last meeting in San Diego and I was glad to learn that things were turning the right way for him and his family. He has started a new interesting job, moved to a new house and the family was expanded with a lovely daughter. What could you wish more?
On Friday evening, I arranged a dinner gathering with the students from that time in restaurant" Ma Racine". They call themselves "the old-timers" and the driving force Dominique is most enthousiastic for such gatherings. Katty, Dirk, Walter and Dominique were all very pleased with Jingdongs visit and we had a very pleasant evening. Apart from lots of gray hair, mainly on my head, they were all well conserved and in good shape. Jingdong had brought some very good wine and the food was excellent. Of course, a picture was taken, as can be seen here.

Katty, Dominique, Roland, Jing-dong and Dirk caught at a late moment in restaurant "Ma Racine"

Orchid composition

2007-06-06T10:07:00.000+02:00

Sunday morning, I visited the market place in Ledeberg. Usually, Lieve and I go together, but now I went alone by bike. The task was clear: buy a bicycle tire for Lieve's bike and four pumpkin plants to plant on Stefaan's land. We go there once in a while, escpecially in the spring and summer time, mostly to buy babyplants s.a. tomato's, cucumber, etc. As usual, I visited the flower stands and I bought a small flowering cactus for 5 euro with the intention to include it in the creation of an orchid set-up. The plan is already in my head for several months. A few days earlier we bought two (cheap) orchid plants in the Brico in Sint-Denijs-Westrem and so i was ready to make the composition.
The basis was a head of a tree I had trimmed during last winter and after slight remodelling I planted the three plants and, of course, some photographs were made to send around. Stefaan's old Fuji camera is still working and the photo's have been send around to close friends and family. I thought it would be easy to put the picture on my weblog, but I feel blocked at this moment. How can I add the picture of my orchid composition to this message. I have to find out first.

Sunday morning composition: orchids on a tree head

A week in Brussels

2007-05-28T10:01:00.000+02:00

Last week, I spent most of my time in Brussels, but not by having Day-dreams. I was fully active in scientific activities and was pleasantly surprised that my comprehension was still pritty intact, almost a year after my retirement. I got the feeling that my brains were still very active and critical, possibly because they got some good rest and a lot of distraction lately.
I used several transportation systems which seem to work all pritty well. Still, the best time between my place of destination in Brussels and my home place is 1,5 hours to cover around 60 kilometers. I used 5 different travelling tools: private car, tram, train, metro and walking. When the connections turn bad, the travelling time easily goes up to 2 hours or more.
I like travelling with the train and it reminds me my student time when I travelled from Eine, now Oudenaarde, to Ghent every week on Mondays and Saturdays. Indeed, than we had to follow courses on Saturdays; I remember there were classes of physics on Saturday morning by professor Mortier. These classes, I liked pritty much because there always was a practical demonstration of some important physical principle. I give myself a bad point because I hardly tried to import a practical thing during my own classes of Molecular Biology. Once, I had a glass test tube with a very viscous DNA solution that I handled over to the students to circle around, but much further than that I did not make much progress. A lost chance, I would think.
But back to the travelling by train. I like travelling by train and I see it also as a place to meet other persons. This was particularly the case when I was a student. It was a place to meet people and to play cards. Not so long ago, on my way back to Gent from Brussels I met one of my students and we had a very nice conversation. The trips between Brussels and Ghent with the colleagues, in particular those from the plasmid collection, will always have a special place in my memory. Sometimes there are totally unexpected encounters which are double pleasant.
Unfortunately, most trips are silent and I see that most daily users of the train hardly talk and continue a sort of semi-sleeping status until their place of arrival. My experience in the USA is totally different, Americans easily start a conversation and often tell you all kind of stories, even very personal, while you travel with them by accident in the plane, train, bus or even on the skilift. I like this behaviour very much, although I am not much of a talker myself. I dislike the situation in an small elevator with a stranger travelling from the basement to the top of the building without saying a word to each other.

The empty oil barrel from Ieper

2007-05-17T22:57:00.000+02:00

Now that the Multicalor gas heater is functioning well, the oil tank is ready to be cleaned. From my earlier measurements, I calculated that still 500-600 liters of oil are left in the tank. Precise estimation is difficult because I don't know if the tank is horizontally leveled and because the amount of solid dirt is also unknown. According to some specialists this solid sedimented dirt can be substantial, but I don't believe them. Therefore, I decided to try to remove the remnant oil by pumping it in an old empty oil barrel of 200 liter and then transport it to my sister Lucie's place for her oil heater. So, I searched my favourite www.kapaza.be site for a metal barrel (metalen vat in Flemish) and only two offers came out: one close to Vilvoorde for 35 Euro and one in Ieper for 5 Euro. The barrels in Vilvoorde were new and therefore more expensive while the barrels in Ieper have been used for oil.
I decided to drive to Ieper on Wednesday morning and loaded my Qtek9090 PDA/GPS with the address of the old empty oil barrel owner. Arriving in Ieper, we noticed Flanders language valley on our left and the place we had to be on our right. A worlwide known site, back in the news recently because of the trial with Jo Lernout and Pol Hauspy just starting up. The garage man was a very kind man and after talking a little to him he decided to give me the barrel for free. When I asked him why he did give it for free, he said that he found me a friendly and nice man. This never happened to me before and this man really made my day. In my earlier professional environment, I believe that I am known as a rather severe, but I hope a correct person. So, it seems, that my retirement has changed me. It is quite well possible that the absence of the stress from my previous work makes me a more agreeable person. I can mention here that the last weeks I have also been pritty generous with the seedlings that I have been cultivating to all the people who visited our house. Hundreds of yellow and brown Tagetes (gele en bruine "stinkers"), cucumbers, selery plants, basilicum, etc. have left my green house and will lead a, I hope, happy life in someone else's garden.
The garage man who gave me the oil barrel for free told me almost his whole life's history and plans and so we had a nice story to talk about on our way back home.

The new heating system installed yesterday

2007-05-15T21:12:00.000+02:00

Monday, early in the morning around 8.00 hr. am, the Sani-heating crew arrived at our house and immediately started the installation of our new Multicalor Sphere 30 heater. It was soon clear that they were very experienced and, although a Monday morning, started the job with enthousiasm. The day before, I had nicely finished the support for the the heater by adding a noise absorbing skin to the inside and making sure that it was perfectly horizontal. I had also worked out the connection between the new heaters' head and the existing tunnel system. I was fully confident that things would run well. And so they did.
The team of two was clearly used to work together. One person started to put the new double walled concentric pipe in the chimney and the other started the installation of the heater. Connection to the tunnels, the water drain (it is a HR+ condensation system) and to the high-tech Honneywell thermostat. In the mean time the youngest of the two surprised me by climbing and standing right-up on the chimney of my house, about 8 meter above ground level, and inserting the 6 meter long concentric pipe in the existing chimney. Step after step the system got more and more ready and by noon it was started up. After a few trials it was burning and all seemed to work well. It was burning at full capacity and as such, it is rather noisy, but the big advantage of the system is that it can work in a modulated way. The heater is intelligent and calculates all the time the level of use of gas and adapts its flame and speed of the ventilator to the heat demand. As such, most of the time it works at reduced capacity and it is clearly much more silent than our old oil heater. The ventilator speed can also be regulated with a minimum and maximum speed. Perhaps the maximum speed will have to be reduced somewhat.
Our first impressions are very positive, and we hope that it can stay that way.

Shortly after noon, the crew left our house and it was all mine again. Lieve was with Gaby in Ghent for some talk-shopping. I cleaned the garage and put most of the junk away. Always a little time in the garden and/or greenhouse. Than I disappeared behind my computer to do some other work. Sometimes I am surprised about the complexity of the things I am doing in one day. While I was assisting the heating crew with some simple tasks in the morning (holding a pipe or putting away the rubish, vacuuming the garage), in the afternoon I was correcting a manuscript for Hepatology and providing advice for a bilateral project application between Belgium and China on liver disease diagnosis. Still, my heart seems to be closest to the heating/construction team, I don't know why. Perhaps it is nostalgia to the time I spent with my Godfather, uncle Henri. He was my mothers' brother and in a way, a special man. Plumber, electrician, metal constructions, etc. He was certainly inventive and sometimes I think my occasional inventivity or creativity must come from there. He was most famous in the surrounding villages because he was removing the rooster from thetop of the church towers completely on his own, without any assistance. His reward was a picture in the news paper and eternal friendship with the priest of the village.
When I see what kind of tools are used now to finish this type of job, I wonder whether there is an increase in efficiency or rather brute force.

A new heating system is on its way

2007-05-08T19:43:00.000+02:00

Our house is equipped with a heating system with pulsed air bought from Multicalor in Mechelen. All kind of air-carrying tubes are running in the house, in the floor, the basement and the attic. The nice thing is that the furniture is easier to fit in the rooms and that the house is warmed up in a short time. In short, a lot of attractive flexibility. On top of that, we found that the system was very energy efficient. I only used an average of 1.400 liter of oil during the last 10 years, for a house build in 1976. Of course, the configuration and the size of the house has also an influence on this, but it concerns a stand-alone villa with 4 bedrooms and a double garage. No extensive insulation, e.g. nothing in the floor.

No negativity at all, you will ask? Of course, one disadvantage is a low level of noise which is around when the system is on. I expect an improvement from the new gas burning system which is modulated and much more silent. Some low level of draft around the openings. The doors have some grids for the air to pass when they are closed. These openings are also responsible for a certain increase in noise moving from the one place to the other in the house.

I am waiting for the professional team from Sani-heating to install the heater and I sincerely hope they will come next week. Wait and see.

Google search engine for blogs

2007-05-07T22:01:00.000+02:00

When I search on "hilde BLOG van gool angeles", I find a link to the 'www.flickr.com" site where photos from Hilde van Gool have been published. In this flickr site, I find a link to her real blog: www.kipenskip.be. So, no direct link to the blog, but, at least an indirect link. For Stefaan Contreras, the old web site in www.happyfuel.be/esse shows up, but no recent link to an active blog. Perhaps, there is none? My conclusion is clear, Google is not very efficient for finding blogs of individuals. I tested my own blog, set up recently under Google and guess what, it was not found.
I have to admit that Google is disappointing me very heavily today. What can be done about this? Write more frequently perhaps. I will try, but an every day article seems difficult to realize.

Today, the old Multicalor oil heater was removed from the garage. It took me 4 to 5 hours and tomorrow I will bring the metal pieces to the "Container Park" in Merelbeke. I carefully separated the non-metal parts from the metal parts and everything will be discarded in its appropriate way.
The new heating system will burn gas (aardgas) and it is waiting in the garage to be installed. I look forward to see how it will function. After dismantling the old system, it was clear that a replacement was absolutely necessary. A crack in the central fire place and oil droplets over the whole heater body. I recovered the fan and the control unit. I would feel like a sinner if I had to discard such nice parts but they will disappear on the attic probably "for ever".

It is only the beginning

2007-05-01T21:20:00.000+02:00

Google is influencing my life, that's clear. For some strange reason, I even started this blog from their site. What do I expect from this? Not much. I noticed that I loose interest in the blog from my son Stefaan and his wife Hilde. Is it a sign of bad fatherhood, or is it just the web address of the blogs which is too complicated. I certainly feel something for the latter explanation.Or perhaps a lack of time despite my retirement.
Who will tell?
Can the Google search machine help me to find blogs? I will try in a minute.
Tomorrow, I let you know the result.
Roland