House without scaffolding

Scaffolding gone. At last we can see what the house looks like after all these months of work. You can see we are prepared for the winter. The pile of wood to the left also blocks the wind from the north. The turquoise car is our faithful workhorse. With it we transport wood out of the forest, building materials and what else. We are looking forward to the next winter.

Solar dryer nearly finished

Here is the dryer Barbara has long waited for. It is really simple. Everything is simple. But all things together is a lot. And becomes a 'lot to do'. The dryer works because behind the glass is a blackened surface. Sun hits it and an airflow starts. In the top are drawers with fine mesh. On those one can put mushrooms, tomatoes, apples etc. Everything you want to keep through the winter and be able to use off season.

Clearing ground quickly

Clearing terrain can be sometimes easier when you put in a mechanical monster. What would have taken us weeks, took this steel creation a half hour. It caused a dust storm at the time. Pieces of wood shot out of the back over a hundred meters. Like arrows. This is in preparation of parking and entrance to the camping to be. When terrain is being cleared, space appears. Shrubbery can be blinding. And again, sometimes a mechanical tool can clear away things that you imagine are going to take for ever doing. And yet, also that can be a fantasy. How to do it simply. With the natural means. Is still a challenge.

Remote, quiet, fresh & relaxing inlands

In the backlands of Croatia there are many such places. You only have to go off the main roads now and then and explore a bit. Many times the oldest houses are still being lived in. The circumstances are quiet, remote and relaxing. Croatia has only a 4.4 million population and 56000 square kilometers of surface. Compare that the netherlands; 34000 17 million inhabitants. 500 inhabitants per square kilometer vs. 80 per square kilometer. What happens if you realize most of the population lives in a couple of big centers like Zagreb? There is a lot of space there.

Chickens arrive and bring eggs every day

Chicken come from the market in Vojnic. As predicted, they began giving eggs soon after arrival. You see our son contemplating chicken, us gingerly putting them in their new quarters and.... eggs. We got two different ages of chicken. It meant the hierarchy was to the disadvantage of the younger ones. Next time we won't mix the two. They are doing fine now by the way. And the eggs are great.

Slow return to nature

Simple construction marking a period that this area was lived in. It's like my hut in the dunes in holland. Some things take a long time to return to nature.

Abandoned beauty

Nature left to itself. Frank and me going into the centre of Plitvice. Him having gained is drivers license recently just barely made the sudden right turn off the main road. This right turn you can see on the digital map of the area. The road goes into nowhere. To a beautiful lake. Which you see here. A heron flapped it's wings, miffed at our presence.

Creating and materialising details is teamwork

Connected to the previous message; The detailing of the front, important design aspects have been added by Mile Knezevic together with Mirko. They have developed into faithful supporters of this project. I can rely on them to come up with solutions I hadn't thought about. As a team you can hear they are having fun working on the house. The combination with the old oak as basis for the white main cladding was Mile's idea. The view and building of a window on the west was Richards idea. The doors on the ground floor were given by Mirko. Stellagas in the supply room and workshop were given by the Auto Praonica (car workshop) of Vojnic. It has been decided a new door needs to be fitted in stead of the old front door. Actually it looks like a door, but it doesn't stop winter cold or summer heat. I am rather attached to the oldness of it though. The designing of the front door will be integrated with a small roof covering the small veranda around the door. It will be all one can do with natural wood. Quite crazy.

Finishing present projects so next steps

Our house is getting a face. Strong lines, color combinations and a strong top. The cladding is a combination of 10 cm thick 80 year old oak and simple wood cladding. Insulation between the wall and the wood makes for comfortable climate summer and winter. Mile (again). As nothing is standard, time is running out for this project. I want to finish this in a simpler way. To be able to move into next steps. Moving into phase we earn money again and starting up new projects. A foundation; Friends of the forest or 'prijetelji sa suma' will be started up to support the family of Mile to begin with. News about that in next messages. In the meantime we will design next steps, and execute beautiful new additions to the house.

Partners in making dreams real

Here you see materialisation of an idea.
A good old friend of mine, Richard van Drie from Amsterdam came by. He looked out of the tattered roof and in a flash he saw we had to do something about an apperture in that location. On top, westward looking. How we did not know. That materialised later.
The road to that materialisation is not only thanks to me. Far from it. I have cursed some twists in this road to materialising. Yet there were many who stayed the way. I listened to many a wize word.
We tongue in cheek call it "Richards hole" nowadays. I sometimes remind him to come and enjoy his baby. Barbara my wife is also a stayer in this. The idea that I could not do many of my dreams alone came from a different corner. Ellen van den Honert awoke me to that idea. She follows her dreams in Switserland. Where she does a lot of musicwork. Gerard Smeets is another trusted guy who sometimes grumbles something in my ear. I don't always listen. It sometimes takes some time to realise something needs to be different. But he has been disconcertingly right some important times. Not to forget my mother who allowed me to use some family capital to realise this dream. And what about my impossible father who inspired certainly the environmental part and very certainly the creativity in designing garden and house.
How family life of the far past unfolded is a distinct source for my following my dream. I will use that to any ones advantage in the near future.
We mean to set up a foundation that lays foundation of hospitality in our local area. The foundation will fund some limited local projects like up to a level refurbishing old houses to prepare for tourists. It will serve educational purposes. It will help local people to up their financial position from being uncertain and near drowning allways. There are some powerful partners around me to realise all that.

Roofbuilding team enjoying ice cream

You see a chain of people working together to move tiles up the chain to close the roof. In this moment it was so warm they paused to have an icecream cone. The horizontals meant to keep the tiles up are 5x3 centimeter wood. The other side was made of scrap wood that came from a sawmill. My idea was to get cheap wood. But actually the scraps were scraps. Not so much useable material. In the end the sorting and organising of the whole heap costed so much time that we decided to take what was usefull and alass, burn the rest. Also in construcing it appeared that the scrapwood sometimes was so thin you couldn't walk on it without breaking it. An idea that scrapwood from a sawmill can be useful can be just that: an idea. Something that exists in the head but in effect has some consequences not recond on. So one has to conclude that something is a mistake. When that is the case, be drastic. Take your loss and burn or ditch your mistake. Don't let the idea withhold you.

I must say I enjoy working with various people together in teams. What happens is we create easy functioning teams. Barbara and me select from the emails those that appear interesting from the point of gut reaction. Until now we can be proud as husband and wife on having so good experiences being WWOOF hosts. This year has started in an incredible way. I trust we will have a lot of fun with the visiting volunteers this year. Also having a child learning all the languages he can by connecting to so many different people is encouraging. Keep you posted.

Diesel day

You see Mile posing with a beer bottle accompanied by Mirko, Jason and Max. The last 2 came from the westcoast of the US. Unbeknowst to them, Fleur called them respectively Ruby and Emma. They worked on finishing the roof of the small cattle stables and on terraces for our vinyard, and they worked in the garden. They came travelling via various WWOOF-farms to our place. 

Coming here wasn't easy. Passing through England met with some stern frowns about "working" (volunteering) without a permit. They were actually sent on the first plane back without a refund. When in a later stage they passed that hurdle, their luggage was put on a train to Siberia. They had to go back to Austria to try and pick it up. They didn’t succeed. (Just remember to put your luggage in the same wagon as you are sleeping. Otherwise you might wake up to a previously non existant window at the end of your carriage. Beyond which endless, is the iron road to Novosibirsk.)
Together Max and Jason formed a wonderful team. Both of them have sustainability written in their future. First they are going to take education as a next step in that direction. By the way, the beer bottle you see Mile holding gave way to the joke of the day. Amidst cries of my team I took a swig thinking (not looking) it was beer or water. I burped old cartersmell for the next 48 hours.

Croatia and westcoast US team

You see Mile posing with a beerbottle accompanied by Mirko, Jason and Max. They were dudes from the westcoast. Unbeknowst to them, Fleur called them respectively Ruby and Emma. They worked on finishing the roof of the small cattle stables and on terraces for our vinyard and worked in the garden.
They came travelling via various woof-farms to our place. Passing through England met with some stern frowns about working without a permit. They were actually sent back on the first plane, without a refund. When in a later stage they passed that hurdle, their luggage was put on a train to Siberia. They had to go back to Austria to try and pick it up. They didn’t succeed. Just remember to put your luggage in the same wagon as you are sleeping. Otherwise you might wake up to a previously non existant window at the end of your carriage. Beyond which endless, is the iron road. In this case to Novosibirsk. Together they formed a wonderful team. Both of them have sustainability written in their future. We had some deeper exploration of that after them being with us for some time. We touched upon working with vision, values and action plans. In that there was heartfelt connection.  First they are going to take education as a next step in that direction. By the way, the beerbottle you see Mile holding gave way to the joke of the day. Amidst cries of my team I took a swig, thinking (not looking) it was beer or water. I burped old cartersmell for the next 48 hours.

The 'Ooee sisters band

Ruby en Emma Day Branch of Maine

Here are two beautiful people. With their mother we exchanged sweet notes about those two. We had a lot of fun and all kinds of exploring discussions about life, earth, education, the system and so on. We came to the conclusion that living in your own piece of the earth, working the earth, celebrating once everyso often and eating from the earth would be a worthy way to spend ones life. And spreading that message too.

And work they could. They are two locomotives. Searching their way to life yet decisive when a plan needed executing. Mile and Mirko, our two local workers, noticed their endurance and other qualities too. Making beautiful doors shine, colouring a wall, decorating our topfloor, they were versatile, energetic and creative. No doubt they will succeed in their country initiative. With a complimenting nod to their mother Katey and late partner. It was a mutually inspiring period. Remembering them still inspires us and brings a smile to our faces.
Fleur looked around corners in the house expecting them to be there. She would call "Ooee". Her rendition of Ruby. Whenever they open up an initiative in Maine US, we’ll mention them. It will be worth visiting.

Cheese making ala Carlos

One day Carlos came in from Lubljiana. We started speaking about various things one speaks about  when one doesn't know each other. In short time he mentioned he could make cheese. He came in two hours later than the message from Sinisa we would get three goats as a present from him. I mentioned that to Carlos. And i grabbed our special goat recepee book from the bookcase. All pretty amazing. Then and there we decided we would arrange a cheesemaking workshop.

Bringing milk to temperature, keeping it there 15 minutes, coagulating the milk, putting in forms, putting under pressure in a cool place for a time. To age the cheese. Enjoy!

Max and Sinisa came from Blatusa to join as well as Anja our neghbour. All in, the cheese is maturing in the larder now. Goats will be coming shortly. We will make a nice house for them. And know how to make cheese.

Eten vinden wij belangrijk

De keuken krijgt smoel. Het werkblad in de keuken is een oud blad uit de school uit Leiden waarin de vader van Rozemarijn les gaf. Een oud loodzwaar beukenblad waarvan we er twee in Kroatie hebben. Leiden leeft voort. De stad waar we graag zijn. Tegelijkertijd is het project en onze tijd in Kroatie een enorme verrijking. Het werken aan dit project is zeer inspirerend. Nog even en we kunnen boven koken.

Croatia working with Galicia

Working together on acacia balcony. In the foreground you see a very focused Carlos. He comes from Galicia. He has many specialties. Cooking, forests, making cheese among others. Today he suddenly was playing quite a good harmonica. He has many surprises. In the background Mile and Mirko are positioning acacia parts in the grid. Mirko uses a broad ax or bradva. It is a very old style tool. There are some tools that just are extremely effective. They are I can tell you ancient. This tool has appeared maybe a 1000 years ago. Maybe longer ago. The tool Carlos is using is much older. I don't know for the ax. It can be it's older than i think. I just can't find it.