Here I would love to share with you our travels and adventures as international mushroom consultants. MEMOIRS about husband Pieter Vedder, who was a SCIENTIFIC PIONEER in Commercial Mushroom Cultivation Education. His practical handbook is in 9 languages and is called the MUSHROOM BIBLE: https://mariettesbacktobasics.blogspot.com/2020/08/modern-mushroom-growing-2020-harvesting.html
On June 3, 1995 Pieter started clearing our jungle. The adjacent lot across the creek that also became our property. Pioneering work as no one EVER lived there!
To the right in below video you see already how he'd opened up after he'd cut the underbrush and had done some 'logging'...
Again, if you watch it on YouTube, you find below the clickable points.
Using his electric chain saw, with a long extension cord and the very powerful long-handled jungle machete.
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My Dad flew home in March of 1993 with such an orange extension cord, that he loved so much. Back home in The Netherlands he would only have to change the plug.
Since it is rather stiff, we had given Dad a nylon zippered sports bag to carry it.
In Atlanta at the Airport screening point, a black lady wanted to take it away from Dad.
She claimed it was a weapon! Yeah, can you see a 72-year old passenger strangling someone with an extension cord?
So both of us stepped in and asked for the manager.
He came and said, NO it's not a weapon and it is not even on the list!
Dad got almost a nervous attack and was so glad that he got cleared...
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That lot was far from 'even' as you will see at clickable 2:10 where Pieter literally is doing a balancing act on a long tree trunk. Or else he would be falling DEEP into a hole as seen at 2:44.
Yep, it was a real jungle and rather dark with all the underbrush.
At 5:00 Pieter is completely out of sight, deep inside such a hole...
At 6:42 I'm showing our white Gloxinias that we kept in our greenhouse during winter.
Ending at 6:55 with our tame squirrel Piep and I lure him down the tree for finding his bonus, a hazelnut.
Hope you enjoy this little insight.
Soon after, we had to leave for Indonesia, for a couple of weeks of consulting work...
Having your own property with Backyard Wildlife is at times complicated...
It is heartbreaking to see some 40 ducklings vanish within days, from a long row of 13 to 3 and then 0...
Kwekkie the Mama duck, never gave up and started all over.
We have raccoons, hawks, owls, snapping turtles, foxes...
We both speak Dutch in video, but you can use the YouTube version and find the clickable points written below, with English text.
We always sent my Parents this kind of written letters home, so they could see and hear us.
Kwekkie happily on our pond with 7 of her ducklings... I've seen that the big Eastern River Cooter did pull down one of the tiny ducklings while they were eating cracked corn near the pond's edge.
The species P. concinna is highly omnivorous and will eat anything, plant or animal, dead or alive. Diet seems to be determined by available food items. While some writers feel that this species of turtle will not eat meat, predatory behavior has been observed.
Yep, I've seen it with my own eyes!
Let's forget the nasty killing... No fun to do and while patrolling early morning at 6:00 AM that was not a happy start of the day for me.
But in the evening I cooked us a good dinner and dessert I still had plenty left from our High Tea two days earlier.
Uncle Bo Whaley and Delores viewing some of our photos in the veranda, after dinner.
Fond memories!
Miss my Uncle Bo and he's already 15 years in heaven...
The Polka Dot cotton pique skirt pants I'm wearing is one of my own sewing creations.
This was an empty whole milk plain yogurt container with cream on top...
Pieter's brother Toon, the ex Marine, shot through and next his brother Pieter (my husband) an ex Military guy shot through the very same hole!!!
Vedders are sharp shooters and don't mess with their wife either... 😏
Several years later, Pieter shot a huge snapping turtle that constantly knocked down the rocks from the island, that Pieter had built for placing the fountain inside.
On the video from Middle Georgia Magazine you could see it in working.
