APRIL 2010
Our World Today
March was a mad month for me: first the flu, a violent strain that drained my energy. Two days of misery and it was over. I guess I am basically a healthy guy. Then to Holland, and family meetings. At one time we had 40 brothers and sisters and their spouses there but that number now has shrunk to less than half. A younger brother had good connections and was able to get a comfortable house in a small village in Drenthe not far from Groningen where the bulk of our relatives live. There I developed the European version of this malady. Again two days of utter fatigue and it was over, confirming that basically I am a healthy guy. Actually I welcome these ailments because they protect me next time these strains appear.
The weather? No rain at all, even some sunshine and lots of crocuses!!
Drenthe is a beautiful province. My 9 years younger brother, a runner like I am and I walked for hours in what to me felt like an enchanted forest complete with thousands of years of old burial places. I imagined myself in a “Lord of the Rings” setting, and could feel the mystery there. The brochure suggested that we should ask permission to enter it.
We spent 4 nights in the Hague where my brother lives. There he had secured a next door apartment for us owned by another friend who did medical work in Indonesia for a year, smack downtown. The most striking aspect of its downtown is the lack of cars, but thousands of bikes and continuous public transportation. No wonder Europe uses half the energy we do while enjoying a standard of living at least equal to ours.
The Hague is a city of forests. My brother and I spent more than an hour running through the woods surrounding the Royal Palace appropriately named “Huis ten Bosch” (House in the woods), also just minutes from downtown.
Now we are back home. Before I left I had hung 12 maple syrup buckets out- covered of course. They were overflowing when I came back, so I was right away busy boiling the stuff, and now, weeks later am still busy tapping that wonderful sap and converting it slowly- it takes 35 liters to make one liter syrup – into delicious brown sweetener.
I am an optimistic guy, believe it or not. I am still building: just got a permit to construct another building, 12×24 feet. Need more space to store wood (I heat with it), my little wagon, wheel barrow and my city- and cross country bikes. I bike to town – 6 km one way – weather permitting. Also in the future I may want to house chickens there and perhaps some goats.
I always look ahead. This past month I took my spade and turned over the first sod, intending to do an hour of digging every day to enlarge my vegetable garden by 5 x 50 feet expanding it to more than 2000 square feet. It’s a section that is quite productive, judging by the lush grass it sports in the spring and summer. With the world suffering from drought or lack of topsoil I want to become even more self-sufficient. Home-grown food saves transporting it thousands of kilometers from California or Prince Edward Island and it’s fresh and healthier. We preserve it in our freezer, which is powered by the solar energy that provides about half of our electricity.
In whatever we do, we keep creation in mind. That applies especially to our bodies, reason why we are vegetarian. Three times per week we have a no-cook meal, consisting of lots of greens, onion, garlic, beets, tomatoes, carrots, lemon juice, olive oil, and one cooked item, beans, either pinto or black or red kidney or garbanzo.
Every night before we go to bed, I put a cup of large flake oats into a slow cooker, pour 3.5 cup of water in the bowl, plug it in, and the porridge is ready in the morning. With a dash of maple syrup, some blueberries, two table spoons of ground-up flax seed and a spoonful of lecithin, plus a chopped apple, it gives us an excellent start of the day. In the evening I have one slice of ‘roggebrood’, an easy to make healthy bread made from bran, seven grain cereal, whole wheat and rye kernels (I have a little mill in which I grind the flour on the spot), some molasses, a touch of baking soda and powder and boiling water. With a bit of honey or cheese, it is a delicacy.
I try to walk my talk, and when I run, my mantra is ‘maranatha, Lord come quickly.’
Bert Hielema has lived in Tweed since 1975, where he used to be a commercial real estate appraiser.