cornjum - Bartleheim: 19th December 2005.

We parked the car in the parking lot by Martenastate and walked around Martenastate and back towards the church.

we came out on the 'Aldlansdyk' and continued to walk through Cornjum towards the hamlet Bartleheim.

We came across a house that was seperated by a moat from Martenastate and there was a set of trees that were growing on top of a terp, which was the grave yard (Grafheuvel), of the Martenastate family.

The tree's were very big, the base of the tree looked like a big foot, and looked as if it was protecting the graves (as were the other tree's surrounding the grave yard), it was quite impressive.

The grave yard was first laid in 1709 by Remia Juliana Azutzenia van Burmania,  though sad to say she was the first person to be buried in the grave yard.

The most famous person of the Martena family was David van Goorle, he married Swob Martena, he was later famously known for physicist and philosopher, and through his revolutionary ideas was known as  'The Nederlandse Galilei'.

In the background of the photograph where the trees are surrounding the grave yard, there is a house, this house was not the house that stood there originaly, the old house, which originally  was the coach house, (koesthuis),  was pulled down in around 1899, and this house was rebuilt in it's place.

Looking at Martenastate and this place it seems to be that perhaps all the buildings, the church, Martenastate, the house, graveyard and the farm across the road, were I think around when the original Marteneastate was built and were all connected to each other like 'Dekemastate' in Jelsum. I think the house by the grave yard was perhaps the ground keepers cottage (which was the coach house as I mentioned above), and the farm helped produce the crops.

We then continued along 'Aldlansdyk' and we took a photo of the clouds as they were very pretty against the autumn light blue sky they made a very pretty picture.

We could see Jelsum which was in the distance on our right, you could see so far it was so clear.

We then continued towards the direction of Bartleheim and came across farms dotted along the way, and then we reached a sign in the road saying Bartleheim 7 kilometers still to go, we looked at our watches and realised we would be too late getting back to the car and decided we had to go back home and continue the next time.

Walking back towards Cornjum we saw a farmer feeding his sheep, it was amazing and quite funny to watch the sheep, they met him at the gate when he approached carrying two buckets of food, (which were filled with bread crumbs), which he told us (when he spoke to us), and told us his son or son in law owned a bakery and twice a day he came and gave them the scraps which the sheep enjoyed with relish.

Watching the sheep was funny the farmer came tipped their trough over to get all water and old food out, most of the sheep went to the first trough but four of them remained in the background and when he tipped the second trough and filled that up they were the cleverest (I think), as they scooted over and got most of it before the sheep that crowded the first trough came over to get some.

We then thanked the farmer and continued back to Cornjum to the car.

We came across a whole lot of birds sitting in a tree and managed to capture a photo, the bird was  a Musje (in english I do not know what it is called), it is very cute and looks so proud and cheeky for its tiny size.

We came across a house that had a ditch (sloat) running next to it and the reflection of the house and trees were shinning in the water so clearly it was just like a mirror, the surface of the water was so smooth and calm.

Nature is very pretty and it offers so much peace and tranquillity, if one was only prepared to go out and look, I realise now that by staying home and not going out you miss out on so much.