Who are we and what is ‘de Pondemaat’?
‘We’ are (or ‘were’) Rinske Deen en Hans Schiere, married in 1975 and in the meantime with 3 nice children. In 2017 we moved from Bennekom (near Wageningen) to ‘the North’ of our small country. That was after almost 50 years work in sustainable farming and nutrition in tropical countries and later in and around the Wageningen Universitity. For some 30 years, Rinske ran an international guesthouse (‘bed without breakfast’) in the town of Bennekom right next to Wageningen. Much of what we did there can be found on www.laventana.nl.
Our newly purchased place was an old dilapidated farmhouse in a hamlet called ‘White Horses’. We intended to fix that place and enjoy it in our ‘elderly years’. We managed that quite reasonably, a bit to our surprise. In this way we also live nearer to our children and our roots in ‘the North of the Netherlands’. Unfortunately, Rinske passed away in september 2021. We cherish her memory, and obviously her demise did affect our plans. These plans are now ‘my plans’, but the general direction of ‘our’ plans remains more or less the same, though less commercial and ambitious.
I myself (Hans) turned 75 in april 2024. I keep active even if the scope and speed of activities becomes smaller and slower. The good thing is that house and garden are now in quite reasonable shape. And though I am new in this town I consider myself lucky to feel quite welcome in the community.
What is ‘de Pondemaat’?
Pondemaat is an ancient Frisian land-measure of about 1/3 hectare. Our land area here is a bit larger (more than 0,4 hectare), but we used the name Pondemaat between 2008 and 2014 for a peri-urban ‘farm’ where we grew vegetables and flowers (and friends). That ‘farm’ was 1/3 of a hectare (more or less exactly), located between Bennekom and Ede (near Wageningen). A deeper meaning of the name Pondemaat is that it refers to an area allotted by the landlord to the user (peasant). The name implies that this is the area one gets and the peasant has to do with this, not with more not with less. Rinske was very fond of the name ‘Pondemaat’, and especially of the Friesian version ‘Pounmiet’.
