2 – Getting the lay of the land
The Plant Recorder app is actually elegantly simple and the built-in help screens are more than enough to navigate it. But of course, the app is quite useless until you can get it to relate to your gardens, and getting this setup seemed a bit daunting at first.
3 – Putting Plants to Ground
Once the plan was in hand, it was time to get the plants to ground. I was pleased to be looking at a Plant Recorder plan that matched my reality and that had 84 plants neatly arranged in my driveway.
4 – The Ins and Outs of Plant Data
With a Plant Recorder's fully functioning and up-to-date XML file it is easily possible to migrate this out again. Excel will open an XML file and present it as columns with headers. From there I can delete columns and/or rows and export to other interfaces, like my Table Press list
5 – Weeding and Watering
There are plenty of pots to fill in the Plant Recorder app. Some I wont bother with. Since the focus of my gardens is plants that are native to Ontario, there’s little point in filling out Country and Region. Habitat is being used for the code ‘N’ to specify Native.
Media Notes
This page offers some Media Notes, and the links below are to newly written works by Henry de Jong that have not been published or posted, along with some Breakout ideas. These are made available here for exchange with publishers and editors. They may not be used without conversation or
Breakouts
Here I endeavour to set down ideas as kernels with the aim of growing and testing them over time. These nubs are sketched here for exchange and conversation with publishers and editors. They may be freely shared as links with other potentially interested publishers, editors and advisors.
The Age of Aquarius
I was just thirteen at the ‘Dawning of the Age of Aquarius’. This infectious song still seems to permeate western culture with its moon-struck optimism and idealism. Freedom, peace, innovation, equality, rights and justice are the bi-words of a boom that refuses to go bust.
Patriarchy
Every human heart is riven by sin — in every class, gender and race. Patriarchy has been a problem, not because it’s some grand conspiracy, but because of a lack of good will. And good will seems in increasingly short supply in today’s hostile, intersectional struggles. What we need is
Father Feito
It is indisputable that I have north Netherlands Catholic roots. I can trace many family lines back to the sixteenth century (almost all in the same neck of the woods), and thus, by extrapolation, to undocumented ancestors in the fifteenth century.
Worship Songs: 2007 – 2010
Here's at least a three year snapshot of all the songs sung in one church's worship services.
Talkabout – Living in Faith
A talkabout ministry, in an organized yet organic way, could facilitate the fellowship of people who need to talk about things. It would open doors between people with common concerns and offer some guidance for talking about those concerns.
Herman de Jong – Prose
Prose by Herman de Jong (1932 - 2004) - A set of six short prose poems on matters of faith.
Terschelling
Perhaps my father was lucky. There is a place in the world that he called his own. It's a wonderful place that he could visit and remember and which never lost its essence throughout his own variegated life.
Nikolaikirche
St. Nicholas Church prayer meetings in the 1980s became a sanctuary for dissatisfaction with communism, culminating in the Monday demonstrations that began September 4, 1989. These quickly grew in size and caught on in other cities as well.
The Wilderness that Was
I like to imagine what it was like then — my neighbourhood, or ravine-riven Toronto, or the Sarnia savannah. It would be nice, just once, to hike through old woods from the lake shore to the escarpment or High Park to Forest Hill, or along the beach from Centennial to
Vennekerk ’23
We often fail to appreciate the formative influences that churches may have on youths (beset instead by negatives). But my parents (and their families) spoke fondly of the church where they worshiped, attended catechism classes and where my father played organ. And they spoke often of their love for Dominee
Keep in the Castle
Build walls to keep out the bad and you have a small garden of Eden — ‘paradeisos’, literally, an enclosed park. Castles and their compounds, cities with walls and even humble homes are meant to be places of peace and well being, protecting us from threatening forces. They are not
The Hanseatic League
It’s a stretch to think of my grandfathers as being in league with Europe’s Hanseatic cities. They were both people of the land — one a farmer to the core and the other a land reclaimer. But they stem from people who lived close to the Hanseatic sea routes or
Reservations
This page offers some reservations, and the links below are to older unpublished, unposted works by Henry de Jong, along with some Breakout ideas, that are held in reserve for reference and for exchange with publishers and editors. They may not be used without conversation or permission. They may be
Breakouts
Here I endeavour to set down the kernels of various ideas with the aim of growing and testing them over time. The nubs are sketched here for exchange and conversation with publishers and editors. This page may be freely shared as a link with other potentially interested publishers, editors and
A Song Transformed
This moment, which I have also experienced in other Bach cantatas, is, for me, consistently hair raising. I'm always aware of course that the choir will come in (it is a chorale after all). And, at the concert, I watched the one hundred choir members ready themselves by standing when
The Minstrel’s Journey
I don't know when the minstrel came to our household or from where. But it was ages ago and he's been with us ever since. In 1976, when we were still living in Sarnia, he was there.
The van der Laan Venture (PDF)
Memoirs of Harm and Dina van der Laan. A printed book made available here in a PDF flip-book viewer.
Seerveld on Genevan Psalmody
The Gift of Genevan psalmody for today sprung from its historical context. Calvin Seerveld
speaking about Genevan Psalm 47 as sung by the Pax Christi Chorale