Just a few miles to go! My car is hopping, quite agile for its age, over a wildgrate. I’m spotting an arty wild boar alongside the road and I smell the Veluwe: I’m on my way to Reinanda Haverkamps place.
Reinanda and her husband Jan are living in a lovely renovated farm in Epe. They kept as many authentic parts of the farm as possible. So, in the living room are still wooden items of the original farm to be seen.
Jan and Reinanda are living at their farm with a few Icelandic dogs and –horses, cats, many Shetlandponies, the Welsh ponies and the rabbit owned by Denise…. And a few chicken. Last time I visited Reinanda the chicken were running free. I remember, because at the time my dog immediately teamed up with the Groenkamp dogs to chase a chicken so hard that it got stuck in the hedge. Poor soul had to be cut out of it…
Reinanda. Again, she’s not at home today. She’s in Amsterdam, Jan says, doing her job. Did she not tell me? Well…. No. She must have forgotten to tell me. Which is quite logical, knowing what the woman does in a day’s time….
So. What did you say her job was? Well. Be seated for a moment…
Officially her job is to smooth out differences between individual employees in businesses. In all kind of businesses, so she travels a lot and often has to stay over in hotels. So, at home, she employs Denise and Jeroen to look after all the living inhabitants.
Just so she won’t be bored with doing nothing… she also runs a webshop; selling various equipments for Shetlandponies.
She regularly hosts young people who are having problems living at home.
AND she coördinates the making of our magazine De Shetland Pony. Writing articles, inventing new items, chasing writers and photographers to get on with it…. (sorry, Reinanda….)
How she manages all that, I really don’t know. And today, again I can stay over. This time not in the bed with the crib, shepherds and little baby Jesus because that room is taken by Denise and Koen. Now I can stay over in the room where Denises’ rabbit is living….
Ponies:
A few years ago, much tot the joy of Reinanda and her crew, the stallion Eise van de Groenkamp (by Justus v Kort Ambacht) was licensed. Most of his daughters were shown this year at various ‘keuringen’. Championships were taken home. The most joyous one was the overall youth championship of Ice Queen van de Groenkamp at Reinandas regional keuring. Unfortunately the joy did not last for a long time, because a few months later Ice Queen was found dead in the field. She probably died after a cardiac arrest.
A while ago I read an advice of a hundredyearold man: If you want to be happy, just do not expect your life to be fair….
Hopefully 2017 will be a happy year for Reinanda and all the others of The Groenkamp Stables!