Full Circle
My father (1932 - 2004) had no idea that his granddaughter would become a Christian Reformed pastor in 2017 or that he had generations of 'dominees' in his family, as far back as the Dutch Reformation. But recent work with My Heritage has uncovered five centuries of faithfulness and a
Young and Old Alike – AACS/ICS family conferences
On the Square Inch website: For me, there’s a string of pearls stretching back from 1991 all the way to 1970. The first AACS (now ICS) August long weekend Family Conference was held in Niagara (Fort Erie) fifty years ago this summer. Along with the ever-increasing number of families taking
Family History
It was a privilege for me to delve deeply into the lives of ‘Opa and Oma’ van der Laan in 2019, while editing and assembling the various writings and photos for the book "The van der Laan Venture" -- memoirs of my grandfather, but also of his wife and several
The Nature of Things
It is now already five years since the Christmas of 2016 when we last gathered fully as family in Niagara, some three months after Stiny de Jong's funeral. We were drawn together to hang on to that sense of belonging that only a matriarch can supply. We gathered for a
A place in the heart
Laura's repost in Reformed Journal: 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. That place is Terschelling
Terschelling – A place in the heart
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. That place is Terschelling
Forty Years
Forty years is a long time, by any stretch. For us, particularly, these back forty have felt like a lifetime, with two bookends - our trips to Europe in 1983 and 2023 (still to come).
Summer Quest 2023
In the summer of 2023, Wendy and Henry explored parts of Holland and Europe as well, before and after the van der Laan extended family reunion in Stadskanaal.
Ontario Native Plant Gardening Facebook Group Shares
The Ontario Native Plant Gardening Facebook group regularly shares links to informative and interesting articles. But only members have access, and the links are hard to find back, so I have determined to share them again.
Music Visualizations
Music is primarily an aural experience. But of the other senses, the visual is next in line. Listeners have long been fascinated with ‘watching’ the music – seeing musicians ‘get into it’ with body and soul, focusing on flying fingers, following along with a score, and reveling in synchronous dance
God Includes
God loves you and me. That’s the firm foundation for our faith, as it can be for every one of God’s children. God’s esteem for us is also the foundation of our self-esteem. We know from the history of redemption that God does not hold back this love from those
Talkabout – Living in Faith
The desire to talk about things is a natural and important part of our being. That is a reflection Of God's own nature -- God's Word is a testament to His eagerness to talk with us about everything under the sun. We ourselves do talk back, and we talk much
1 – By their names
For keeping track of plant names, after sketching and scribbling on sheets of paper, I knew there had to be a better way, and that it should involve my phone in the field, still tied in somehow to my computer in the office. I'd been exploring possibilities for Windows and
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.