Holland - De Anna Hoeve

     The pastoral flavour of the town of Nijverdal is not limited by any means to the province of Overijssel. Every place we went in Holland, barring Rotterdam and Amsterdam, proved to be an idyllic mix of water management and creative land usage. In our second week in Holland our friends surprised us with a six day trip to the west where they had rented a house on a working farm near Schemerhorn. De Anna Hoeve was once a barn. Thatched peat ceilings, low windows and massive beams remain in a modernized home that sleeps eight people comfortably.



Once a barn...now a house.



De Anna Hoeve Farmhouse Kitchen....thatched ceilings and beams....

Surrounded by managed ditches, this was a place to fish! I was intrigued by the technique used to catch fish. The pole was not the six foot one with a spinning reel attached that I was used to. And the fish knew it. With that style of reel, not one fish was caught. Hans used a rod measuring six metres. It was equipped with a swinging line and a tiny hook. Little balls of bread were attached and as the bread hit the water, the fish hit the bread. Hans caught a number of small colourful fish, but I couldn't manage that rod...way too heavy. There was one elusive monster that we chased for days; we could see it make its rounds about once per hour. Right below the surface, it left a perceptible wake. But try as we might to cast right in front of it, it was having no part in our plan. We also tried to use a bait trap to catch eels, but to no avail. I was both relieved and disappointed when we retrieved the trap after it had been left in the ditch overnight.




My Ontario methods did not impress the fish!



Staying at De Anna Hoeve we watched the cows cross the ditch bridge daily and the horse graze right across from us. Huge rabbits and many ground birds shared the land. Miles from a city, the farm held it's own noise...braying, mooing, cooing....and of course the tractors that were cutting hay for feed. We spent much of our time on the deck watching and listening and breathing in the peace of this place.

This home proved to be a most restful place and a base for us as we struck out to surrounding towns and cities to take in all we could of Holland.