Netherlands 1

The idea to bike trough Netherlands appeared because of many circumstances. It is not something extremely special what we did but we decided to at least make it special by using minimum of resources. What do I refer at when I say this? Well, let’s list some of the things we made economy with:

-          second hand bikes with no gears or special equipment;

-          cheap map for car routes;

-          no special bike clothes, just some sport clothes we had around;

-          one 3 euro bike bag and one borrowed bike trailer for carrying our things around;

-          no hotels or restaurants.

For sleeping we decided to use Couchsurfing but not only because of financial reasons but because we love to use Couchsurfing every time we are travelling. Couchsurfing really gives you the opportunity to meet great people and to feel at home everywhere you are around the world.

We planned our route using this website and our car map. The website is in Dutch but with a bit knowledge of German it is understandable.

Our target was to get from Amsterdam to Boxtel, near Eindhoven in 4 days. The reason we wanted to get to Boxtel is because we planned to stay there for 2 days in an eco village and work together with a team from France in building a sustainable house. After Boxtel we planned to take the train back to Osnabruck, but the plans changed a bit on the road, as you will se in the next blog posts .

If our plan worked and what problems we had you can read further in the detailed description of our trip:)

Planning Netherlands -1-

I love the ideea of spannungsbogen described by Frank Herbert in Dune: “…spannungsbogen –(..)is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing”. Starting from this definition I can say that in generaly we spend our lives from a spannungsbogen to another.The problem is that our delay is almost never self-imposed but society-imposed, or more corectly said,
survival-imposed. We need to carry out our lives as society tells us because this became survival nowadays. But it feels great when we see in front of us a short moment of escaping our daily society-imposed lives. So we plan our escape with delight and fear in the same time. The delightment comes from imagining every moment of our getaway in a bit exagerated way and the fear, like many of our fears, comes from the ideea that we will fail in fullfiling our desires. But things take time and time is our enemy when it comes to spannungsbogen.
And we wake up every morning happy that we are closer to our dream but we run like always from a place to another, from a feeling to another.Still we keep our desires somewhere on a treshold, waiting for us to let go of them, burning in us like little candles.

Delicious green Nettle!

As we promissed we will also share some of our recipes with you. So, because now Spring is here and everything is getting green, we decided to profit of the warmth and to prepare something good. One of the most delicious plants that grows in this time of the year in the wild is Urtica dioica or the Stinging Nettle.

How to cook it?

One of the best recipes is to cook the nettle as a sauce. It has a very similar taste with spinach so it can be cooked in the same way.This is a recipe from Romania;)

Ingredients:

• 1 bag of stinging nettles harvested from the forest
• oil
• 3 garlic cloves
• 3 spoons of flour
• 100 ml of milk
• salt and peper

Preparation:

• boil the nettles untill they get fragile, approx. 20-30 min;
• take them out of the boilling water and cut them very small, removing the parts that are a bit crusty;
• in a pot put 2-3 spoons of oil and the garlic cut in little pieces and let the garlic fry a bit (don’t let it burn because it gets bitter);
• after the garlic is a bit fryed put the flour and mix it with the oil;
• mix the oil and the flour untill the mixture is homogeneous and then put some water (depending on the quantity of nettles you have);
• put the nettles inside the mixture and add the milk;
• add salt and pepper and let it boil untill the flour transforms everything into a sauce;
• enjoy the sauce with what you desire (fryed egs,boiled potatoes)!

This is  one of the ways the nettle can be cooked but this plant can be cooked in so many other ways.

Third harvest : A Hanging Little Sun In Early Spring

Name :
Tussilago farfara
EN : Coltsfoot
FR : Tussilage

Trip
Afoot, 15 kilometers, 3 hours

Description :
Along the bank of some paths in the dark forests spurt some exuberant little yellow flowers, hanging on stem growing over the ground. Tussilago farfara can be used for its young leaves during the spring : they can be cooked or be eaten in salads, like the flowers, which appear before the leaves, in early spring.The plant contains alcaloids and vitamins A and C. It was known before and used against cold, cough and asthma.

Link :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tussilago_farfara

Second Harvest : A Non-Prickled Nettle Along A Creek

Name :
Lamium purpureum
EN : Deadnettle, Lamium
FR : Lamier pourpre
DE : Taubnesseln

Trip :
Afoot
15 kilometers

Description :
As we decided to go through some forests to typical farming lakes, we started to cross a hill. On the upper side of the bank of a creek, near a wooden bridge, a little plant drew our attention. Looking like a nettle with leaves partially red on their top, this plant was doesn´t have prickles.
The young parts and fresh leaves are good in salads or stir-fried. The taste is not very strong.

Links :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamium_purpureum

First harvest!

Name :
Taraxacum officinalis
EN : Dandelion
FR : Pissenlit ou Dent-de-lion

Trip :
Afoot, 5 kilometers, a book “Edible plants recognition”, a camera … and some enthusiasm

Description :
The sun finally glows its first rays on the sleepy landscapes of winter. A short trip afoot in the forests around our residence let us discover a small plant with parsed leaves, linked together at its base. Taraxacum officinalis, or Dandelion.
This small plant offers leaves which can be used for salads, and the peeled roots can be boiled and eaten with butter. The plant has diuretic effects.
So let´s say this first harvest was a purifying glimpse of spring!

Welcome!

Hello readers and welcome to our blog!!We invite you to make a short travel with us in the world of Dagda. During this travel you will learn many things you didn’t know about the beautifull nature that surrounds us. All you need is just a bit of patience!

What is this blog actually about?Well, what we know is  that nature can offer us much more than we actually realise. We decided to combine our travels with the search of alternative resources of food.

We really hope you enjoy!