All Around The Tuin

Tuin - pronounced sorta like town, but not exactly. Our street has this same "ui" combination (Luikersteenweg) and there is no equivalent in English. Which is why when we say our address people take on this confused look and then say "Ah, Luikensteenweg!" in a way that our mouths just won't do.

When we began looking for this huis (there's that combo again) on Luikersteenweg, the main requirement was a tuin. That's a garden here and what we Southerners call a yard. Mostly for the hondje, but also for me. I love working in the yard and my specialty is moving things from place to place. Nothing ever gets a tap root because I move it before it has a chance.

In our initial purchases for the house, we bought a hark (rake), a weed-eater (in lieu of a lawnmower) since our "yard" is about the size of your dining room rug, and some snoeiers (pruners). So this past weekend we did a little shopping for some additional tuin essentials: a grill, Adirondack chairs, big pot for flowers, etc. "Check" on the grill and a big pot, but the Adirondack chairs have eluded us.

Jim built the ones we have on our front porch in Jefferson, but building chairs here just isn't an option. We do love Adirondack chairs though.

And in case you're interested in a little history . . .

There is a town on the edge of Lake Champlain, by the Adirondack Mountains, called Westport. The first Adirondack chairs, called Westport chairs, were named after this town. Each summer in Westport, New York, a man named Thomas Lee enjoyed time with his large family at their home called Stony Sides. They had a shortage of patio furniture and in 1902, on the lawn in front of the house, Thomas Lee began nailing boards together, crafting new chair designs for his 22-member family to sample. With family feedback, Lee created a unique new chair with a slanted back and seat and the now well-recognized spacious armrests.

Thomas Lee showed his new creation to a carpenter he knew, Harry Bunnell who predicted that the yearly residents who flocked to the region during the summer would appreciate Lee's chair. In 1904, Bunnell requested a patent, calling the Adirondack chair the Westport chair. In 1905, without Lee's knowledge, Harry Bunnell secured the patent for what would become one of the most recognized furniture pieces ever. The chairs which were made of hemlock, painted either dark brown or green and signed by the carpenter became popular all around the region. Today, Bunnell's original chairs sell for about $1200 each, but were originally sold for around $4.00.

Unfortunately, we were unable to find Adirondack chairs or even comfortable wooden chairs, but we did find some nice ones and I'm looking forward to wearing them out!

Incidentally, while we were waiting to load our patio furniture, this car was in front of us. Now pretty much everyone in Belgium has a small car and I've seen only one or two pick-up trucks in 8 months. Maybe 5 or so full-size SUV's. So it wasn't a complete surprise that we saw this:

. . . sheer determination. And she was off!