Where's Nifty?! #2

Begging swans. The lady who lives there feeds the birds every day and they know it.

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Ok Levina.. Why are a sheep and a man (who look very much like Ben Kingsley) staring at each other?

Beautiful frost, BTW..

CameraMan, love your foggy shots!

joayne wrote in post #18249429
Ok Levina.. Why are a sheep and a man (who look very much like Ben Kingsley) staring at each other?

It's a sculpture by Merijn Bolink. The man and the sheep look in each other's eyes. When the water is not frozen like now, jets of water are sprayed from the man's eyes into the sheep's eyes. The idea apparently is that when a human being and an animal look in each other's eyes, there is some form of communication even if they don't really understand one another; the jets of water are a reflection of that. Being up to their necks in the water symbolises the history of the area where the dikes would break all too often and the land would be flooded.

Beautiful frost, BTW..

Thanks!

Great images, Cameraman and Levina. My favourites are The Road Home (colour version) and Levina's grasses with the frost on them - but I like them all!

Thanks, Annie. The grasses are my favourite too!

Levina de Ruijter wrote in post #18249446
The idea apparently is that when a human being and an animal look in each other's eyes, there is some form of communication even if they don't really understand one another....

Yep, that's me and Dopey - except we DO understand each other perfectly. He wants food and I give it to him.

AnnieMacD wrote in post #18249487
Yep, that's me and Dopey - except we DO understand each other perfectly. He wants food and I give it to him.

LOL. Good one, Annie!

AnnieMacD wrote in post #18249472
My favourites are The Road Home (colour version)

Thanks! I love lower angled shots myself. A couple of the waterfall ones were lower angles.

Levina de Ruijter wrote in post #18249446
It's a sculpture by Merijn Bolink. The man and the sheep look in each other's eyes. When the water is not frozen like now, jets of water are sprayed from the man's eyes into the sheep's eyes. The idea apparently is that when a human being and an animal look in each other's eyes, there is some form of communication even if they don't really understand one another; the jets of water are a reflection of that. Being up to their necks in the water symbolises the history of the area where the dikes would break all too often and the land would be flooded.

Thanks!

Thank you, Levina, for the explanation..

... OK, I get it, but it is a bit odd.
I do love stuff like that, tho.

Wonderful shots, Levina. I see that house on the water and imagine what it would be like to live there. Our rivers here generally rise and fall due to rainfall and snowmelt ... is that not the case there?

CameraMan wrote in post #18249243
And a straightened B & W version of The Road Home.

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/Rj5r​Do IMG_0109bw by CameraMan, on Flickr

Great shots of the waterfall and of the fog (I love shooting in the fog)
I really love the b&w of the road...well done.

Levina....I really like all of the frost shots, so beautiful.

kbColorado wrote in post #18250262
Wonderful shots, Levina. I see that house on the water and imagine what it would be like to live there. Our rivers here generally rise and fall due to rainfall and snowmelt ... is that not the case there?

Thanks very much, Paul. The houseboat with temps below zero right now, it's cold! Must be.

As to the water levels, they are always closely monitored in the entire country. This is necessary because at least half of the country is well below sea level. The lowest point is almost 7 meter below sea level. That's over 22 feet. Amsterdam is well above sea level but if the dikes break it will be a small island in a vast sea of water. My own location is a little over 5 meter (18 feet) above sea level, which makes me feel rather safe, especially since I live on the third floor (I think you would call that the 4th floor) of my building, so that adds another nice bit of height.

There is a nationwide system of waterworks (dikes, locks, pumps and what have you) to keep the water out, although the big rivers are allowed to rise and flood the nearby lands at certain locations. These sometimes flooded lands are called Uiterwaarden. There's no English word for them that I know. But it's land that is between a so called summer dike (a low dike) and a winter dike (a high dike) and the land in between the two is an Uiterwaarde. It's usually used as cattle grounds. When in Autumn and Winter storms and high water come, the uiterwaarden are there to kind of store the excess water from the river. The high winter dike stops the water from flooding the land behind and so protects it. The canals in the city are kept at the same level as much as possible. Here too we have water locks and pumping stations to control the levels.

hawaiiboy wrote in post #18253036
Levina....I really like all of the frost shots, so beautiful.

Thank you so much, Kevin.

Levina, I think the English Translation would be Under Water j/k.

I don't think people can understand about the Netherlands unless you have seen the country and how precious land is to the people.
The Dutch have been ingenious in creating farm land and grazing land let alone places for people to live. No land is wasted, yet the people have a lot of places and open spaces for recreation. To me the amazing part is that this has been going on for hundreds of years!! If I'm correct a lot of the windmills are for pumping water.. Is that correct?

A few centuries ago an area not too far from Amsterdam was a huge area of industry with literally thousands of windmills, used for all kinds of tasks. Some sawed wood for ship building and for the paper industry, others were used to grind grain and sunflower seeds, or crushed flaxseed (for the dye industry), and yes, windmills were also instrumental in keeping the land dry. After the invention of the steam engine, most mills were replaced by machines and now there are only a handful left but not too many still in function. Windmills were great in a country with so much water and wind.

You are right, Jo, that no land is wasted. The country is too small for that. However, the downside of it is that most of the land is cultivated. Not too much genuine (wild) nature left, although attempts are being made to bring some of it back.

"Under Water" is right. We have a history of devastating floods. The last big one was in 1953. Some 2000 people died. After the flood the Delta Water Works were built: https://en.wikipedia.o​rg/wiki/Delta_Works

To us the water is both our best friend and our worst enemy.

This weekend was terrible as far as the weather goes. We were under 4 tornado watches and had a couple tornado warnings. One possibility passed near my house but touched down one time in my county. It was not a fun weekend. Luckily we made it through all that without any damages. But the threat was pretty hairy at times.

I did get out today to run a couple errands. I took a couple photos with nifty but it was starting to look like it was going to rain again so my time today with nifty was short lived. I will try and get out tomorrow.

There are a couple places I'd like to go with nifty before I send it on its way. Seems this time around I've only been able to take it on errands.