UKATANI

 Stubby our wonderful, faithfull, smart, mischievous, Bahamian pot cake dog. He adopted us years ago.  Stubby and his blonde brother came from a house with 22 dogs and would swim across Gt Cistern Bay and  past our house and roam into Murphy Town, raiding garbage dumpsters.   He was a wild dog and had never been handled, trained or peopled and was very wary, was in poor condition and had hundreds of ticks all over, ears, nose, eyes etc. Would not be approached or let anyone near him.   We started to talk to him and leave food.  After many weeks I was able to approach and handle him and would remove dozens of ticks and brush him daily. Then he started hanging out by our house and going home at night. One day we visited a friend, by motorcycle, who lived near the house with 22 foster dogs, when we were leaving on the motorbike Stubby ran after us and followed us home, about 5 miles, by road. He stayed.  I contacted his owner who was only too glad to see him go to a good home.   After a f

 One traditional Dutch custom is going for a quick dip in the frigid North Sea on New Years day. The event was normally sponsored by UNOX, a company that makes soup and sausages. Unox would set up booths to supply hot soup, sausage and Unox wooly hats to the participants after their dip.  Due to the virus restrictions the event will not take place next new years day,  so Unox.nl is canning North Sea water and giving it away and will have a competition for the best 'at home' event photo using the canned sea water. Maybe I should take a dip in me Billabong ?   But it is frozen over most mornings now.

  Looks like we back in the well/water/drilling/installation business again. We have city water supply for the house, but the water is purified/treated/chlorinated and softened and is metered.  Needed irrigation water for yard and garden, so had a shallow well drilled and cased.  It is 7 metres deep. Last summer we used the yard well to irrigate the yard and garden with untreated, unmetered water.  Now, we are rehabbing the barn loft for living conditions, adding toilet shower, sink, washing machine and need a pressurized 'on demand' water supply. Found a neat little stainless steel system with a 1.5 hp pump and a 24 Litre bladder pressure tank online. Set it up temporarily to check pressure, flow, recovery rate etc...and it is fine. This is just a temporary test setup.  Pump will be permanently installed inside the barn. The local boys arrived by tractor with a tank of water to jet the casing in. Easy to jet down 7 metres, as the soil is sandy and soft, no rocks or voids like

  Two celebrations in Nl, the traditional 'Sinterklass' and all it's history and the Christian Xmas. Here is the history of Sinterklaas