This is where we live:

[Jan]

To give you an impression from wher wel live in the north of Holland:













Somwhere bihind there is wher we live:











The charme of a fishermenstown, always activities at the ships:

[Dutchringgirl]

Fantastic pictures!!!!

[vneerland]

Geweldig.
Jan, would you care to tell us how a lock (sluis) works! That is a concept, totally foreign to many over here.

[Schlussdibusti]

Absolutely beautiful!

[Sugars Mom]

[Jan]

Geweldig.
Jan, would you care to tell us how a lock (sluis) works! That is a concept, totally foreign to many over here.

Sure Judith, I will try.
Some of you may have travelled to The Netherlands and did so by airplane, landing on Schiphol/Amsterdam Airport. But I think none of you have even considered the idea that by doing so you would find yourselves 4 meters below sealavel after landing. And yet this is the exact situation, as it is for large parts of our country (more or less than those 4 mtrs.) We are being protected from the sea by sand dunes ans sea dykes. These maps might give you an idea of how the situation would be whitout them:





And a part of a sea dyke and the protected land behind it:


As you can see most of our country wouldn't exist. In fact the areas that are protected from the sealevel are the most inhabeted ones with millions of peolpe living there and having the major part of our industry is located right there.
But there are also differences in waterlevel throughout the country and a lot of waterways such as rivers and (manmade) canals. To make sure ships can travel from one part of the country to another we need an ingenious system of waterways abnd waterworks such as locks. How they function is in fact both simple as brilliant:
you make two dams in a canal which are in fact two doors that can open and close to enable ships to go in. Than you pump the water in or out depending on the waterlevel at the diretion the ship is traveling. in the early times there where relatively small doors in the lock doors themselves which could be opened by hand to let the water inside the lock in or out.
An old lock:

And a more recent one (the ship inside belonged to my dad btw):

Our coast line has changed a lot over the centuries and the part we live in the first dykes where being made by monks in the twelved and thirteenth century.
The land behind these old dykes that could be reached with low tide was very fertile and therefore being used for agricultar which ment the people who lived behind these dykes had to be able to close the road through the dyke when the tide came in. They used wooden beams to do so which where kept on top of the dykes. Some of them can still be seen as shown in this photo close to our town:

[Raven]

Why is that the places other people live usually seem so much greener, the skies so much more blue and the landscape just a little more interesting than your own backyard?

Thanks for posting. Very nice.

I settled in a protected swamp called Rattlesnake Gulch--but I'm not bitter!

[Lauren]

That is so amazing! Your dad's boat is pretty awesome too! Just beautiful. Thanks for the pictures and explanations, I am going to share them with my kids!

@Raven, don't feel too bad over there in Rattlesnake Gulch... I live on Hogback Mountain!

[Sugars Mom]

Thanks for taking the time to share and explain!

[icvanstra]

Why is that the places other people live usually seem so much greener, the skies so much more blue and the landscape just a little more interesting than your own backyard?

Raven - I travel to The Netherlands not nearly often enough - yet often enough to start seeing the not-so-green and not-so-beautiful (Hush Judith!!!). In general it is a very green/lush place.

I like being there in the warmer 6 months of the year. Very long days.

The colder six months the days are short and it seems very gray. Riding a bicycle home from the train station well after dark in the cold rain is not that great.

I think it's something like 8 hours of sunlight around the winter equinox and 16 hours at the summer equinox.

...

Good stuff Jan!

[vneerland]

Wow Jan, you should have been a teacher! Great explanation.

[Jan]

Wow Jan, you should have been a teacher! Great explanation.

Thanks Judith and others.
My passion is being a truck driver instead of being a teacher to be honest.

[CaroleBoaz]

Riding a bicycle home from the train station well after dark in the cold rain is not that great.

Riding home in the rain is better than riding to work in it.

I lived in Seattle for 7 years and bicycled 4 miles to work along the Puget Sound. There are about 6 weeks in the winter when it's too icy, but I tried to bicycle every day. Also a very lush green landscape.

I like to visit The Netherlands. Though, last time I was there I forgot my jacket and caught a cold. I went to drugstores and apotheeks looking for a familiar cold medicine (Dayquil, Nightquil type of stuff), but they seemed to not understand the concept. Finally got some cough syrup, and the TSA took it away from me at the airport.

[vneerland]

Jan, my husband keeps asking:
How old is this beautiful house and what did it use to be? (I was thinking a hundred years at least, probably more, and that it was a prominent citizens dwelling?)

[Marjolein]

jeez, just parc your house IN the sea

I live well in the green (above sea level) part, just across the border in Germany, nice and safe

[GSDNanny]

Jan,this was AWESOME! Thank you for your effort in posting this with the maps and explanations. How interesting and what a beautiful place.

[Jan]

Thank you. You're welcome.
We live in the blue area in the north I'm afraid. Just a few years ago in a november storm the sealevel was just a few meters underneath the top of the sea dyke and then you realize how vulnerable you are against the forces of nature.

[Dutchringgirl]

WOW, fantasic, looks beautiful over there

[Jan]

Judith, this house was built on the sea dyke around our town and is was meant to be for the person in charge of the lock at wchich it is situated. It was built in 1870. In former times this was a high ranked job and in fact this person had a staff of people to work the lock which had to be doen by hand. Zoutkamp is a fihermenstown and this meant that by the end of the week many fishing ships returned to the harbour to deliver their catch and to do the necessary maintenance on the ships and the fishing nets.
These are two picture you could put behind each other to give you an impression of the old (and present) situation, made from the -former- sea side:



This link tells you more about this -very nice looking ánd situated- house:
http://www.zoutkamp.net/Bezienswaardigh ... terij.html
There is one major difference: the sea isn't here since 1969 and Lauwerszee became Lauwersmeer:
http://www.zoutkamp.net/Geschiedenis/lauwerszee.html

[vneerland]

Thanks again Jan! Wow, makes you want to be the person who was responsible for working the lock. Gorgeous. Come to think of it, my own great grandfather worked a lock way down south. He had set up a shop and restaurant for the skippers at the lock. I believe he fared well on account of it.