Weekend Reflections, Windmills,

 
 
 
 

Click on photos to enlarge and see the details.

These photos were taken in Kinderdijk, near the windmills.The name Kinderdijk is Dutch for "Child's Dike". In 1421 during the Saint Elizabeth flood of 1421, the Grote Hollandse Waard flooded, but the Alblasserwaard polder remained dry. It is said that when the terrible storm had subsided, someone went on to the dike between these two areas, to see what could be saved. He saw in the distance a wooden cradle floating. There was no hope that anything would be alive in it, but when the cradle came nearer, someone saw that a cat was in the cradle trying to keep it in balance by jumping back and forth so that no water could come into it. When the cradle eventually came near the dike, someone took it out and saw that a baby was sleeping in it undisturbed and dry. In some of the stories the cat kept it balanced and afloat. This folktale and legend has been published as "The Cat and the Cradle" in English.

This meme was started on 27 September 2009, by James. You can join this meme at some time during the weekend. Just post your photo and go to James to tell him that you are on, or click on the logo in the sidebar.This meme is created for any type of reflection.

Sky Watch, Texel, The Netherlands,

 
 
 

Sky Watch is hosted by Klaus, Sandy, Ivar, Wren, Fishing Guy & Louise
Thank you so much for this great meme, it's always a pleasure to participate, and see all the other skies around the world. If you want to see some real skies please click on the logo in the side bar.

Another sunset taken on the Isle of Texel in the north of the Netherlands!

ABC Wednesday W for Web

Click to enlarge, please! These photos are taken in my garden.

From Wikipedia:"Spiders initially started producing silk for reasons other than web-making. When spiders moved from the water to the land in the Early Devonian period(416 to 359.2 million years ago) , they started making silk to protect their bodies and their eggs. Spiders gradually started using silk for hunting purposes, first as guide lines and signal lines, then as ground or bush webs, and eventually as the aerial webs which are so famous today.

Spiders produce silken thread using several paired spinneret glands located at the tip of their abdomen. Each gland produces a thread for a special purpose – for example a trailed safety line, sticky silk for trapping prey or fine silk for wrapping it. Spiders use different gland types to produce different silks, and some spiders are capable of producing up to 8 different silks during their lifetime.

Most spiders have three pairs of spinnerets, each having its own function – there are also spiders with just one pair and others with as many as four pairs.

Webs allow a spider to catch prey without having to expend energy by running it down. Thus it is an efficient method of gathering food. However, constructing the web is in itself an energetically costly process due to the large amount of protein required, in the form of silk. In addition, after a time the silk will lose its stickiness and thus become inefficient at capturing prey. It is not uncommon for spiders to eat their own web daily to recoup some of the energy used in spinning. The silk proteins are thus recycled."

With thanks to Denise Nesbitt, who created ABC.For more interesting ABC posts click on the logo in the sidebar or Here. This week we are looking for words beginning with W.

I wished I had taken these two beautiful photos myself!!! They are from Wikipedia.

Sky Watch, Texel

 
 
 

The sun set seen from an island is breath taking, but difficult to capture on a photo.

Sky Watch is hosted by Klaus, Sandy, Ivar, Wren, Fishing Guy & Louise
Thank you so much for this great meme, it's always a pleasure to participate, and see all the other skies around the world. If you want to see some real skies please click on the logo in the side bar.

ABC Wednesday V for Volcano

Lake Barrine was created by a volcanic eruption in Queensland Australia.

Click to see more details of the lake, please!

Lake Barrine in the Tablelands, Queensland Australia.

To see slide better, please click on "View all Images", then on "Original View".

A volcano is an opening, or rupture, in a planet's surface or crust, which allows hot magma, ash and gases to escape from below the surface. The word volcano is derived from the name of Vulcano island off Sicily which in turn, was named after Vulcan, the Roman god of fire.
Also in Australia there were volcanic eruptions long ago.Many of these eruptions created lakes, which we saw in the Tablelands in Queensland. One of the lakes is Lake Barrine. We walked around it. It is a five kilometers'walk. The Lake was created 10,000 years ago. The eruption must have been enormous. The video you see, shows the eruption of one of the volcanoes on Hawaii

With thanks to Denise Nesbitt, who created ABC.For more interesting ABC posts click on the logo in the sidebar or Here. This week we are looking for words beginning with V.

Today's Flowers, The Colour Purple

 
 
 

The colour purple is dominant in my garden. Here are a peony and some poppies.

TODAY'S FLOWERS was created
by LUIZ SANTILLI JR
Now it's managed by SANTILLI and DENISE BC Thank you, Luiz and Denise!To see more flowers click on the logo in the side bar.

Camera Critters, waterbirds

 
 
 
 

Click to enlarge!
When my Australian family stayed with me in May, we went to the windmills and to other places not far from my home. We saw many waterbirds as in this part of the country there's a lot of water.All kind of waterbirds were having young ones, some of the chicks swam after their mothers, others were carried by their mums on their backs. We saw ducks, grebes and coots, the latter in very dirty water.

Camera Critters is hosted by Misty Dawn. Thank you so much Misty Dawn.We all enjoy seeing and talking about animals. All creatures great and small give us much pleasure.If you want to see more Camera Critters click on the logo in the side bar.

 
 

We were astonished that these geese had so many goslings. We hardly could count them.Neither could we see what kind of geese they were.

ABC Wednesday U for Umbrella

From Wikipedia:
An umbrella or parasol (also called a brolly, rainshade, sunshade, gamp or bumbershoot) is a canopy designed to protect against rain or sunlight. The term parasol usually refers to an item designed to protect from the sun, and umbrella refers to a device more suited to protect from rain. Often the difference is the material; some parasols are not waterproof. Parasols are often meant to be fixed to one point and often used with patio tables or other outdoor furniture. Umbrellas are almost exclusively hand-held portable devices; however, parasols can also be hand-held. Umbrellas can be held as fashion accessories.Umbrellas were already used in many ancient countries.

A Terracotta Army carriage with an umbrella securely fixed to the side, from Qin Shihuang's tomb, c. 210 BCE.

Indian fresco painting, c. 700

A painting of Chancellor Pierre Séguier with a parasol hoisted above his head, by Charles Le Brun, 1670.

Woman with a parasol, by Édouard Manet, 1881.


With thanks to Denise Nesbitt, who created ABC.For more interesting ABC posts click on the logo in the sidebar or Here. This week we are looking for words beginning with U.
.

Bench of the Week in Oosterend, Texel

Walking through the little village of Oosterend on Texel (see previous post), you cannot but notice that many people have a bench in front of their houses. The houses have no front gardens so the benches are just placed on the street.


RuneE of Visual Norway
began this informal meme on "Bench of the Week". Please visit his site for other participants. PERBS has a whole site dedicated to benches called "For the Love of Benches", which is going on for two years and every day she posts a new bench.Her friend Malyss. has shown more than 600 benches on a site called "benchesonmyway".