We had and have no clear ‘business plan’ for the Pondemaat. The notion of doing some business like local food selling and tourism was abandoned with the demise of Rinske (and because I myself am getting older too). We did fix the house, the yard and the garden, using ‘cradle to cradle’ concepts where possible (I also like to talk about that). We also use rainwater capture for drip irrigation of the garden and that seems to work, even with the weird summers of the past few years. The crops and flowers are grown in a way to enable year-round fresh local food with ‘manageable’ labour requirements. Rinske used to preserve food, but I cannot handle that even if some friends and neighbours do help. We have a nice greenhouse and overall we are ‘stuffed’ with old and new crop varieties. The design reflects notions from urban farming, from organic ánd conventional farming.
The original idea was to enjoy our older age in an active / creative way, with the garden, renting of rooms, camping space and places to enable other people to experiment. I left the notions of larger commercially activities after Rinske’s demise, but I am still happy to receive guests, mainly (friends of) friends in the lodging rooms of ‘de Pondemaat’.
Lodging rooms and appartment in the back of the house.
Once a month the garden gets ‘filled’ with (the noise of) children of a local primary school in Willemsoord. The kids come not only to do planting and weeding. They also come to enjoy the flowers, the taste of the soup and/or other dishes. Tasting, enjoying, food preparation, decorating and planting are as much part of gardening as are hoeing, weeding and trimming of trees.
I do hope to continue along these lines, leasurely and creatively. A friend has temporarily used some space for a workshop with re-use of used cloth. Friends use our place to temporarily store furniture and on and off, we have someone using our space for carpentry or other things. I still intend to do left-over writing of academic work (www.laventana.nl). Our children and the community keep me busy, with never a dull moment.
In case you want to know more about our personal lives please click hans.schiere@laventana.nl and request an update.