Random pics

Nothing much interesting happened at work today so my owner and I played around with our camera a bit and took these two pictures.

Rosehips

This post is for Moira as she wanted a post about tradional food. Maybe this is not tradional for most dutch people but it is for my owner and her OH.
So Moira: This is for you!

Today we went out to the park close to our home to gather rosehips to make jam.

Couldn't resist taking a few pictures of signs too.



Anyway, this is what we were after: Rosehips

Most rosehips were ripe, but there were even some flowers left.

When we had enough rosehips we went home and started cleaning them from leaves and we cut them in half.

Next we cooked them for awhile.

The seeds of rosehips aren't very tasty so we needed a way to seperate them from the fruity part of the rosehips: A fruit grinder thingie!

Checking out if the blade is good enough to do it's job.

And in they go!

The fruity part of the rosehips gets grinded to a pulp and pushed through the grate part of the grinder while the seeds stay in the grinder.

After all the seeds were seperated from the fruity part and the fruity part was all pulp we added a special sugar that is made to use for making jam and such and we cooked the sugar and rosehips mix for 4 minutes.

After it's cooked it's jam and it can be put into jars which then have to stand up side down for about 5 minutes so they seal themselves air tight.

After that it's time for a well deserved rest.

Groningen, Big Fish and Cat

After work my owner and I went into town for some shopping and took a small detour on our way back to see if the merry-go-round was open today. But again we were out of luck so we took some other pictures instead. This is a street close to where we live and I think this is a beautiful street.

A chestnut tree!
I love trees, especially when they're all leafy like this.

Later today we went shopping for food and we encountered this (cardboard) man with a very big fish!

When we got back home there was a cat trying to get attention (and maybe some of the food we had with us, but we kept a close eye on her, as awhile back this same cat almost stole our dinner out of our grocery bag).

Clouds

Today at work we could see there were lots of beautiful clouds. It made me long for the end of the workday so I could go outside and enjoy the weather.

After work we took it easy in cycling home and took some more pictures of the beautiful clouds!

Noorderzon - Northern Sun

This evening we went to Noorderzon (Northern Sun), a cultural festival that's been held in Groningen every year. There's lots of music, theatre, art and: food! We started our evening by getting some plates of cheese fondue. We got one with Greek goat cheese and one with cheese and Groninger mustard.

Next we looked at some of the art that was on show and for sale, like this motorcycle replica made out of tires.

I also met a very nice monster at Noorderzon and I had a fun chat with him.

Here we are posing for a classic monster and pig in distress shot. (No monsters or pigs were harmed ofcourse)

There were lots of other cool creatures too, like this dog and they were from an artist named William who was kind enough to introduce me to some of his creatures. You can see more of his creatures here

Another one of William's creatures: a grasshopper.

I really wanted to see the merry-go-round that Hammie showed on his blog a couple of days ago, but it was closed by the time we got there. What we did encounter close to the merry-go-round was this caterpillar.

I had a talk with the caterpillar and it told me it was slowly turning into a butterfly with the help of children and he hoped to be able to fly by the end of the festival.

X-Box

Not much new happened the last couple of days, but I did get to play with an X-Box! I played Overlord and it was fun as I got to command lots of minions.

Elderberries, Animals, a Window, a Church and Signs

The weather still is beautiful over here so we went out today for our customary sunday walk to Garnwerd. The elderberries are already ripe we noticed, so we'll have to go pick them soon to make wine.

We encountered lots of animals today. These cows were being lazy and enjoying the sunny weather.

This sheep looked like he wanted to taste something new so I was glad he couldn't get near me.

I don't think I'm a scary pig, but this horse thought differently and acted very skittish around me.

In Garnwerd I saw a very nice looking window and I tried peering through it to see if the inside of the building was just as nice.

The window was a perfect place for a rest at least.

We also paid a visit to the church in Garnwerd. it's a beautiful old church I think.



This sign is next to the church and I think you can guess what it means.

On our way home we saw this sign at a farm. It says: For Sale: real dutch honey, straight from the beekeeper. My owner loved seeing this sign as she used to have a totebag with these bees on it when she was a teen.

Gallows Field

Yesterday we went for a walk again and we came by this piece of art. There are a couple of these hands standing just outside Groningen and they have poems on them. This one is called 'Galgenveld' (Gallows Field) as there used to be Gallows on this field in the past.



On our way back home we took this picture of the lights of a building reflecting in a pond, but it was a bit too dark, so you can't even see me!

Knaagje

This Knaagje (Gnawy). I wanted to show Knaagje as I think she's related to Hammie. My owner got her from a friend who rescued her from the same store Hammie was rescued from. She can act as a backpack and sometimes my owner takes her with us, but only if she doesn't have much to carry as Knaagje doesn't like it when my owner tries to stuff too much in her.

Books and Moth

Hammie showed a 'Gouden Boekje'(Golden Book) a while back and so I wanted to show my collection of Gouden Boekjes. I really love reading them and I hope my owner will get me more of them. I really want one with pigs in it, but I'm not even sure if there's a Gouden Boekje with pigs, so I will settle for any book from this series with animals in it.

This is a page from 'Sambo'. It's a really wierd story about tigers who melt into butter and get baked into pancakes. My owner told me that a cousin read this one to her when she was 3 or 4 years old.

Yesterday evening it was beautiful weather so we had another waterside bbq on this lovely spot.

And I got another insect visitor! A moth this time. Insects seem to like me.