The gardening hobby is fun, it is a healthy thing to do and an acquired skill which improves through the years if one learns from their mistakes. Wending your way through the Rules of Mother Nature, seasonal change and plant and soil understanding requires a certain degree of sure-footedness to avoid the pitfalls and navigate their way to an acceptable level of garden expertise and success. Everyone who becomes a gardener experiences some kind of baptism. It may be failures, it may be a feeling of overwhelming, reoccurring work…sometimes it is more moist—like in the biblical sense. This last thing—the wetting of the body and soul is real, I know because that was one of my baptisms. Remember my posting: https://www.gardenstew.com/threads/sjoerd-got-his-willy-wet.42371/#post-390146 Well chaps, many of us on the gardening club’s complex have had this baptism. I mean there are canals lining many gardens. The weather was hot and we were grubbing-away at those persistent weeds in the flower beds when a high-pitched squeak rang out, followed by short sentences and struggling sounds. The unusual sounds alarmed us so the bride jumped up and hustled over to se wat was going on. The pictures below speak for themselves: What a mess, and just like when I had my own “water ballet”, the smell was ghastly. She hosed herself down to be clean enough to bike home. She wanted pics to prove to her family where the dodgy smell in the bathroom came from, and have a good laugh. Where there is water, there is always a potential for baptism.
This is very funny. What a good sport she is asking for a photo for proof. hahahaha My first worry would be leaches ( shudder). It may have been a "scar everyone for life" and check for leaches if I was in her shoes.
Bless her, what an introduction to gardening! Reminds me of a time we were conducting an outdoor adventure for children and parents, and one little boy insisted on getting on the edge of the pond. His mother was warned, she ignored, and the kid fell in. Husband pulled out the muddy, smelly child and handed him over to his mother with the words, "Well, handle this!"
So, Mrs Sjoerd fell into the canal... but what were the noises before that? I am glad she is okay. At least we are all washable.
Gardeners can have such an indomitable spirit! I'm glad she was OK, and not discouraged by her swim. It does look a bit hazardous. Are there pumps that can be used, perhaps with a hose, so people are less at risk? Maybe use a lesson from the ancient Egyptians and construct a shaduf?
I forgot to ask her what she was doing when she slipped and fell into the canal. As for taking water out of the canal— we have installed whereby the water is pumped out of the canal and through water pipes to our gardens. We simply turn on the spigot and out it comes. Do you remember these pics? We did the work ourselves, each section laid their own stretch.
Great pics Sjoerd! The lady was game to have you take her pic! Is the canal swamp-like? As in, it's not sewage, right?
Ta Cayu. She laughed at herself and was a good sport. No Cayu, that is not sewerage. It is rain, field drainage and stream water. The water is moved from low-laying land to higher and higher lying land…into ever larger types of canals until the water finally goes into the sea. Everyone who owns land that on the banks of the canals had the legal responsibility to keep them clean so that the water can flow freely. The stink is from the squishy mud that lies on the bottom of the canal. It is rotting veen and water plant remains. It is not to say that people do not ever pee into them, instead of onto the compost. Also throughout the country, there are cows and such that no doubt occasionally pee and poop into the canals somewhere along the trajectory. Yes, and the occasional dead farm animal. It happens. But sewerage, no. We have sewers for that. Chortle.
