De ‘Keuterij’ II or crofter's farm
After sharpening his scythe the crofter is ready for another day of back braking labour. Mowing hay in the fields of his better to do neighbor. In order to make ends meet he has to rent himself out, hoping to make enough money to feed his family all year. This means he is threshing corn in the winter, cutting peat in spring, mowing hay in summer and helping with the harvest in autumn. On top of that he has to care for his own 2 acres.
A small farmhouse from the northern Netherlands typical for the area where I’m living. Over here from around 1100 upwards the extensive peatlands where cultivated and after the meters thick peat layers disappeared due to drainage and farming poor sand soils where left. In the days before artificial fertilizer yields where low and the small farmers had a hard time scraping out a living.
Due to the way of cultivation the villages stretch for miles along roads and there are still lots of these little houses left. In the front was an ‘opkamer’, the nice Sunday room and a little further behind was the kitchen and main living area. In the back there where stables and some storage. The people slept in bedsteads. A pig, some sheep’s a goat and for the best of them a cow was mostly all they had.
My LEGO rendition is a 1:45 scale model based on the little cottages in neighborhood. I tried to include as much detail as possible with brick build windows and soldier courses in the masonry. Also included are cramp-irons keeping the first floor beams in place and bargeboard along the gable ends. Rain water coming from the roof was collected in reservoirs.
I’ve started working on a Dutch section of layout on which the farmstead will be included. The lay-out will feature a swinging railroad bridge and a small polder windmill to control water levels.
De ‘Keuterij’ II or crofter's farm
After sharpening his scythe the crofter is ready for another day of back braking labour. Mowing hay in the fields of his better to do neighbor. In order to make ends meet he has to rent himself out, hoping to make enough money to feed his family all year. This means he is threshing corn in the winter, cutting peat in spring, mowing hay in summer and helping with the harvest in autumn. On top of that he has to care for his own 2 acres.
A small farmhouse from the northern Netherlands typical for the area where I’m living. Over here from around 1100 upwards the extensive peatlands where cultivated and after the meters thick peat layers disappeared due to drainage and farming poor sand soils where left. In the days before artificial fertilizer yields where low and the small farmers had a hard time scraping out a living.
Due to the way of cultivation the villages stretch for miles along roads and there are still lots of these little houses left. In the front was an ‘opkamer’, the nice Sunday room and a little further behind was the kitchen and main living area. In the back there where stables and some storage. The people slept in bedsteads. A pig, some sheep’s a goat and for the best of them a cow was mostly all they had.
My LEGO rendition is a 1:45 scale model based on the little cottages in neighborhood. I tried to include as much detail as possible with brick build windows and soldier courses in the masonry. Also included are cramp-irons keeping the first floor beams in place and bargeboard along the gable ends. Rain water coming from the roof was collected in reservoirs.
I’ve started working on a Dutch section of layout on which the farmstead will be included. The lay-out will feature a swinging railroad bridge and a small polder windmill to control water levels.