This is one of the cards that fits in the card pack I use to sponsor Akka’s ganzenparadijs. The geese in my illustration are being cared for at this sanctuary.

I love these little hunting geese, but not everyone does :-)

A while ago, I had a stall with my cards at a Christmas market in a small village near Zwinderen. It went well; people were enthusiastic about buying my cards.
Suddenly, one man felt the need to lecture me. “You humanise the animals!” he said sternly. I did not know what to answer for a moment, because I hadn’t expected that. But then I said; “Oh, what a pity, didn’t your mother ever read you fairy tales when you were a little boy? You see many animals with human characteristics in those”

He quickly changed his tone. “Oké, yóu understand, but many people don’t. (so now I was suddenly the one who did understand :-) )

And then I took a calculated guess: “As a hunter, you must find it difficult that people humanise animals.”
“….How do you know I hunt?” He asked me. “Did you see me in the woods?”
Nope, I said… But I know you hunt. He was puzzled.

I didn’t tell him how I knew. I will explain to you: When I go to the woods to spot animals, I wear old clothes and a green coat that is years and years old, cheap and easy.
Unlike the forest attire of a certain type of hunter which can be described as “Expensive Green”. There is a whole clothing line for hunters… (!)

And some of them are so attached to those clothes that they wear them to the Christmas market 😀