Geit

Here's a photo from the goat farm at the Amster- damse Bos, about which several of you have heard me rave from time to time. This particular photo I took when I visited there in June with Casey's niece. I'm the sure the goat was hoping to nibble my camera at the time.

The Amsterdamse Bos is a forest on the southern edge of Amsterdam, about a 40 minute bike ride, mostly along the river, from our apartment. The Bos has all sorts of diverting pieces: soccer and (field) hockey fields; a rowing baan (what's the word in English?); some little islands with ropes courses, a cool raft, a rope swing, and the like; two horse stables; a theater... but my favorite amenity is the goat farm. Well, that and the game in the visitor center where you match photos of poo with the animal that made it. Anyway, at the goat farm you can pet the goats, buy grain or milk to feed them, watch them try to eat anything not nailed down and several things that are, AND taste goat ice cream and goat brie and other awesome goat cheeses. The farm has done nothing to temper my enthusiasm to acquire a pet goat.

This particular goat was roughly teenage. Kids' hair is much softer than adults', which I'm not sure I'd realized. Aren't goats CUTE???

Texel

As I write, I'm on a plane to the US. Captive without the internets, I'm finally writing a blog post again.

I took today's photo in Texel (pronounced "Tessel") when my aunt and cousin were visiting at the beginning of September. Texel is the largest of the Wadden Islands. "Wadden" is basically "wading," and a couple of the islands you can actually wade to from the mainland at low tide, and you can also walk between two of them, also at low tide.

Texel is quite easy to reach from Amsterdam, and yet it's remarkably deserted, even on the weekends. And YET, it's the most populous of the Wadden Islands. Casey and I are quite excited to go back and see some of the others.

These little houses seem to be somewhat privately owned, but I think they're only storage. They did have some individualism in the form of decorations, but they are maybe half the size of the garden "houses" near the city that are country escapes for city people.

We camped at a tulip farm (at a grass clearing, not on actual bulbs). Most of the island is farms, but the west coast is a long dune nature preserve, which reminded me a lot of the dunes at Cape Cod or on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. We didn't have time to explore the dunes as much as we'd have liked. Definitely worth a long weekend.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a downloaded episode of Most Smartest Model to watch.