Out with the Baron

Saturday, May 19, 2007

Our day started with the visit to Brewery Lindemans. We were honored to
have the Baron Piet Waeyenberge leading the tour of the brewery. 
Afterwards they led us to the bar where we had several kinds of their
beer.

After the brewery tour, we visited a dairy farm. The most interesting and
innovative machine we saw was the automated milking machine. The
machine uses laser sensors to detect the place to milk the cow, and
automatically stops once it detects the right amount of milk. The
interesting part about the process is that the cow knows when to come
to the machine without anyone’s help. The secret to this is that when
the cows were first introduced to the machine to be milked, the farmer
puts food at one end of the machine, so that the cows learn that this
is the place to go when they are ready to give milk and there’s food
for them to eat. They then treated us with fresh ice cream!

The Baron treated us with a delicious steak meal followed with freshly
picked strawberries. The baron gave a wonderful speech after accepting
the gifts from our group.

After lunch, we checked out the town market. There were a variety of items
sold at the market including flowers, strawberries, bread, cheese, and
various kinds of vegetables.

After the market tour, we arrived at the Baron’s residence. First thing we
saw as we were walking through the giant gate, were beautiful Belgium
horses on the one side of the gate. The Baron led us into the horse
farm and we saw two newly born fouls with their protective mothers. The
horses were absolutely amazing. The young ones were full of energy,
wanting to go out and experience the world. We then saw several more
horses, each more beautiful than the other. We had the honor to take
pictures with the Baron and his horses.

We then decided to visit the Castle after leaving the Baron’s residence.
We walked through the courtyard after entering the castle. The
courtyard had the most gorgeous view of the castle as well as the rest
of the open area. We were then fortunate to go on a tour of the castle.
We learned many interesting historical facts about the castle and its
previous owners. 

Overall, it was an amazing day with the Baron.

Posted by IBIP Administrator