The Fordson Tractor Pages Forum

Hello,

Last Saturday the club held the annual harvest day in cooperation with the foundation Borselse mills at the wind mill of 's-Gravenpolder. Because of bad weather the date was postponed by a week. Unfortunately it was a wet week, but the event went on. The day itself began with dark air and there were hard showers, but later on it became better and it ended with a lovely sunshine and a brilliant Dutch sky. The Mayor of Borsele opened the event by throughing the first wheat in the barren machine. In his speech he said he was a lover of these kind of activities and spoke his appreciation for everyone that on whichever manner contributes at the preservation of our cultural inheritance. Despite its rubber boots the gentleman thought that he still was not good prepared on possibly more badly rain and supported our association én passánt by the buying of our club cap.
Both associations gave the public a pleasant day. The whole cycle from harvest to baking was shown. The cutting and binding, combining and other different manners of mechanical threshing were shown. Also single station engines were present to power some machines. At the wind mill a small but pleasant market had been built up. With a horses wagon, a small drive through the surroundings was possible. It was possible to visit the mill inside against a small compensation. This compensation is to be used for the restoration of the mill. On the position around the mill there’s a beautiful survey to see the activities on the field. Several ploughing members work the ground.
http://www.mijnalbum.nl/Album=N6Y3UE86

Those are great photos Henk, you can see the sky change as you go through them. Everybody looks to be enjoying themselves.
Its good to see the old machines working while the new ones are parked up. I bet it took as much fuel to power all the old machines than it did to drive the new ones into position.

Once again you have taken some great pictures.

Is this the reclaimed ocean land that Oscar showed us in the other post? And the big yellow crane what did it do? I have operated some of these Cat tractors, they are such a great piece of history.

It certainly is Mark, but than many years before. This part of Holland was reclaimed with small area’s. Every time they laid a dike around a peace of land that came higher because of sand and mud that come with the high tides. With ditches the water was led back to see, and the ground was cultivated. It was many times done by monks and with shuffle and small lorry. The dike are still in use as so called watchers in case of a flood. In such time there very important. Don't think the sea will not be able to come in the land. The last time it did it was 1953.

Brian, did you notice the proudly plougher on the Cletrac

Thanks Henk,
That's really interesting. As a kid I wondered what the wind mills were for, and then when I went to school they taught us a little bit about them, but it's good to hear an explanation from someone that actually lives there. I love learning about every one's different cultures. And if I ask a stupid question it's not meant in any way to be offensive, I just love to learn about your country as well as every one else on the board. It would have been nice if I'd had the opportunity to learn all the languages, that would have been something in it's self.
Thanks again.

I had not Henk, until you pointed him out.

They are great pictures as always.

Mark,

On the outside the wind mills look more or less the same, but there are a few types. The one on the pictures is a grinding mill for wheat and other seeds. There's the ones at Kinderdijk, a famous place were all the Japanese are coming. Those are wind mills that pump the water out of the polders. Those one are not common in my aria. You can also drive machines with it, for sawing wood or so. There's another sort of mill that's been powered by the water to drive al sorts of things. Those are common in country's with streaming rivers.
Hope you have learned a bit again.

There are pictures of the Kinderdyjk windmills in my wiki on last years Meddo show on the wiki page.

http://www.fordsontractorpages.nl/wiki/ ... k2007.html