Großonkel

Every day for the past week and a half, this awesome photo has been staring down at me when I'm sitting at the table:



So today, I finally asked Farmer Lydia, "Who's the distinguished gentleman in the photo?" The story she told me begs repeating; as such, I shall attempt to translate and summarize as best I can.

The gentleman is her Great Uncle, born in 1893. He was sort of the black sheep of the family - a very smart guy, but a bit of an alternative sort. Apparently he was a "communist without a party;" he held communist ideals but didn't agree with the implementation at the time, leading him to write protest letters to Stalin and Mao and such. In any case, he apparently really didn't agree with Franco's dictatorship in Spain, so he joined the International Brigade and left Germany to go and fight the good fight on the Iberian Peninsula. In the late 30s, Franco joined forces with Hitler, and when Great Uncle was captured by Franco's forces, he was branded and enemy of the state and sent on a train bound for Auschwitz. The train's intended path went through southern France, through Paris, and then on to Poland. Luckily for them, the French freedom fighters were having none of it - a group of them descended on the train on horseback, took control, and freed all the prisoners. LIKE IN THE WILD WEST. Great Uncle spent the rest of the war hiding out in a small French village. When he eventually returned to Germany, he retired and spent his time, among other things, posing as a model for art students.

WHAT!

MOTOR SCYTHE

One week at the Sonnwendhof and everything is going great. We found two tiny baby kittens behind the straw bales and they are wicked cute. The lambs are mostly better - they got worm meds just in case and no one else has died since I've been here. That's a good thing. My camera is going in the mail tomorrow so you'll just have to wait until you get photos of the children.

I've been doing quite a bit of pasture-maintenance work, including learning how to use a MOTOR SCYTHE (weed whacker, okay, but the German name is cooler) to clear the bank of the river for use as grazing land. Basically cool stuff like that. And mucking out the barn. Which, surprisingly, I'm totally down with. Just throw on a podcast, grab a pitchfork, and git 'er done.

But it's also great going out with Lydia to take care of the sheep and other various and sundry. One might think, because they don't market their products and such that the work here is less serious, but they are mad serious about their sheepies and really care about their little piece of land. There is probably less work, in terms of hours, but because of that Lydia and her son have the time to stop and rattle off facts for five minutes about livestock or pasture management or the ancient Roman history of the area or what have you. It's always good stuff.

Since practically all of the older hens are molting at the moment, i.e. not laying eggs, Farmer Lydia decided we should get a couple new ones. So a dude with an awesome Fu Manchu moustache came today and delivered TWENTY-FIVE plus a turkey. I guess the turkeys are supposed to scare off hawks, which tend to munch on the chickens. Anyways it was a lot of chickens.

Apropos today, the other WWOOFer and I took a little field trip to Bad Wimpfen, a beautiful old medieval town not too far from here. There are actually quite a few of those around here, each with its own castle on a hill and cool little storybook houses and such. I didn't have a camera, so here are a couple photos I stole from the interwebs:

sheeps!

sad though it was to leave schwalbenhof, sonnwendhof is really looking great so far. the farm is run by an older lady and her son; the goal is primarily self-sufficiency - that is, they don't market their products. they have a large vegetable garden, about twelve small black-forest cattle, a ginormous boar and an equally large sow, 35 or so chickens (with a few geese, ducks, and a turkey running around in the flock), and (primarily) about 30 sheep, which they raise both for milk and meat.

in the short time i've been here, i've already learned quite a bit - for example, that sheep are less hearty than other domesticated animals. this was demonstrated by the fact that all the lambs were having intestinal problems after a particularly damp period made for wet clover, which lambs apparently can't digest. we had to head over to their enclosure and move them to a pasture without clover, in addition to bringing them charcoal powder mixed with herbs to clear up their digestion. sadly, we found one that had already died - farmer lydia told me that with certain intestinal issues, lambs can die within six hours. it was definitely sad, but as we all learned in the lion king, it's just part of the great circle of life.

that's about it for now, but i'm excited to see what we get up to in the coming weeks. also, you may have noticed that there are no capital letters in this post. this is due to the fact that i both (a) have to type on a german keyboard, where the shift key is difficult to use and (b) am wicked sleepy. so, i decided to rock the lower case. i'll try not to make it a habit.

also also, i left my camera at the last farm, but i plan on getting it back soon; i will try to throw up some photos of the lambs and the adorable kittens asap.

liebe grüße

Rooster's Revenge and a Fond Farewell

First of all, roosters crowing ain't no joke. You might know the sound from some kind of childhood cartoon, where you see a rooster perched majestically atop a fence post, raising his head and letting forth a grand cry to greet the sun as it crests over the hilltop in the background. The reality of the situation is that roosters are the worst alarm clocks ever. Last week I had to move to a different barn loft due to construction getting started in my first barn loft, and I was like, Cool, I'm flexible, no prob. To the right is the dung heap; not really a problem, since the smell of cow dung doesn't really bother me.


To the front is the horses; again, not really concerned about the smell. To the left, the chicken pen; I thought, oh how charming, they'll wake me with their soft coo-cooing. What I didn't consider was the goddam rooster. And this isn't one of the young cockerels we did for a couple weeks ago - this is a full-blown rooster out of Central Casting.


And he is loud as shit. He starts crowing at about five in the morning - before sun comes up, mind you - and doesn't stop until they're all let out of their roost and fed. It. Is not. Cute. Like, take that really annoying buzzing alarm clock on your bedside table that you can't stand the sound of, make the sound more obnoxious and persistent, set it for a couple hours before you want to wake up, then remove the snooze button. You now have an approximation of what I've been living with for the past week. Some of you may be thinking that this is karma for the bird we ate, and you're probably right, but I've still got beef with that chicken.

Speaking of karma, I want to take a moment to say that I have a LOT of good-host-karma to make up for after this trip. Everyone I've stayed with has been amazing and basically taught me that I've been a terrible host in the past and need to get my act together. So thank you (in advance for some) to Andrew, James, Betty, Sabine, Alex and Susanne and family, Familie Leopold, Sonnwendhof, Theresa, and Giulia. You've all been incredible and I'm a better person for having stayed with you.


Speaking of Sonnwendhof (see how I did that?), I'm moving to a different farm tomorrow! I may have mentioned this previously, but my time at Schwalbenhof has taught me that vegetables may not totally be my thing (besides the eating part); it's the livestock here that really captures my interest. However, although they have a nice little herd of cattle and a few laying hens, animal husbandry is definitely not the focus here. So I decided I wanted to head somewhere where it is. Enter Sonnwendhof ("Solstice Farm"), a small farm not far from here that has cows, milk sheep, pigs, a large flock of hens, and goats. I'm going to learn how to make cheese! Put that shit right on the resume.

It's certainly bittersweet to leave Schwalbenhof, but I feel as though it's time to move on. The people here have been incredibly warm and welcoming and I won't soon forget them. Thank you again to Susanne, Jogl, Tobias, Julia, Afra, Fabi, Prinzy, and my buddy Momo.

Momo says, "Wake up."

Oh I remember now: For every day you don't update your blog, it becomes that much harder to update when you do get to it. Ah well, here goes.

I slaughtered a rooster today! To be fair, I held the rooster while Farmer Joachim did the chopping, as the good farmer did not want to be responsible for any loss of fingers on my part, but I'm going to go ahead and say that's the hard part, as one must continue holding tightly for a number of minutes lest one wishes to have a very literal "running around like a chicken with its head cut off" sort of situation. Which almost happened. But I held tight whilst the blood removed itself from its previous location within the rooster. Matthias did the same with the second bird.

We brought our two freshly headless prizes into the outdoor kitchen area where, like two old Caribbean ladies, we dunked them in baths of boiling water and proceeded to remove all the feathers. Hella old school. And let me tell you, mad respect to those old Caribbean ladies, because that shit ain't easy, and it takes a long time when you're not a practiced hand. After the plucking's done, the feets gotta come off (no, we didn't fry them and eat them) and the bird must be opened and cleaned. I will say that I did not pull out the guts with my bare hands - that, I let farm-child Matthias do. One step at a time.

In any case, we got it done, cleaned up the bits, and threw it in the oven. Time from live chicken to chicken on the plate: about three hours. Don't get much more local than that, folks. I admit that the morning's events were still a bit fresh in my mind by the time lunch rolled around, but hey, that's how these things go. I feel like if I want to eat meat, I should have the experience of slaughtering it myself. I'm not going to say it was fun, but it was an experience worth having. And if you're like "Hexinaw you didn't do that you're a liar," here are some photos!



Moving right along... Saturday morning was spent at the market in the village of Möglingen, selling everything we pull out of the ground all week. And I had a really good time. Finally, something my theatre training is actually good for! I've always been pretty good at the whole customer service thing, and I'm great at flirting with old ladies, so I did good. And selling something I know is of the highest quality and good for folks and such made it especially rewarding. Farmer Joachim clearly has a strong customer base and basically knew almost everyone who came to the stand. We chilled with the customers, ate delicious sweeties from the bakery across the street, munched on amazing green-onion cream cheese from the nice cheese lady at the stall next door, and made some bank slinging nutritious veggies. I could get used to that.

Yesterday I went to an outdoor climbing cliff with the daughters, Afra and Fabienne, who are both very nice young ladies. We rolled out in Farmer Joachim's 60's Mercedes and got dropped off at a beautiful "Weinberg" (vineyard on a hillside), at the top of which stood a bunch of massive rock faces suitable for climbing. The amazing thing about Germany is, whether in the middle of Berlin or out in the countryside, there tend to be climbing walls free and open to the public. All you really need are a couple of sturdy metal rings in the right places on the rock and if you've got the gear, you're good to go; the costs of installing these rings are usually taken care of by some German climbing club or another. And then it's "Climb At Your Own Risk, and if you don't know what you're doing, that's not our fault!" I don't think I have to tell my American audience why that's pretty amazing.

The small gorge where most of the climbing takes place was serene and beautiful; it really looked like something out of a movie set, with the colors all perfectly suited and the ivy hanging just so. If we go back, I'll remember to bring my camera. Of course, I wasn't thirty seconds on the wall when a HUGE storm rolled in and put an end to that nonsense. Seeing as our gear was still attached up top, we had to wait a half hour for the wind to die down before I could climb to the top of this narrow outcropping and army-crawl across to unhook our carabiner. We climbed back down the trail to the street, sopping wet and muddy to boot, where Joachim swung into the parking lot and pulled out a pizza from the back seat. I'd say a good trip, all in all.

Overall, I'm still really enjoying my time here. The second week was a little rough, as Farmer Julia said it would be - one doesn't have the "new" energy of the first week, but it's still too early to have really gotten used to the work and the hours and such. But when Grandma eats three pieces of your zucchini bread, you start to feel it. The lifestyle here is waaay different than anything I've ever experienced, and it's not always easy to handle. There is very little break between work and life, which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how you look at it. Then again, maybe that's how it should be. It wasn't too long ago that a majority of the population slept where they worked and worked where they slept and had real passion for their jobs as the people here do. And given that at least one of the daughters is going to become a farmer as well, they must be doing something right. I am still in some ways addicted to the stress and energy of living in a city, but for now, I'm content to hang out in my barn loft and get woken up by the braying of a goat.

Of CSAs and Rainbow Chard

Lunch today was a large effort, but I'm getting the hang of this cooking-for-lots-of-people-in-short-amounts-of-time thing. The menu consisted of a salad of summer lettuces, chickweed, and radishes; pasta with charred zucchini and garlic, fresh basil, and Romano cheese; oven roasted cauliflower with paprika; and warm zucchini bread for dessert. It's just so easy here. They're like, should we give this basket of delicious vegetables to the cows, or do you want to use them? And I'm like, well do I have a choice? I like to have ideas in mind for the main dish, but then the holes in the meal kind of fill in themselves when I see what needs to get used up, or when we spend the morning weeding the bean patch and I get all this perfectly edible chickweed out of it.

NOTE: That cauliflower thing mentioned above is a super easy, super delicious side dish that even "I can't cook" people can make. I know, I thought I hated cauliflower too, but the roasting really takes it to another level and turns it into something you've never known before. Basically just cut two heads into florets and such, toss them with olive oil, garlic, and a bit of salt, then throw them on to a baking sheet and roast in a pretty hot oven for 25-30 mins, until they get a little char on them but not so that they're mushy. Then just take 'em out, toss with paprika, chili flakes if you want some heat, and more salt to taste. Voila, there you go. This also works great with broccoli.

Speaking of having vegetables lying around: I would like to urge all of my loyal readers to join a CSA! CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, and is a wonderful scheme implemented by small, local farms to great success in the past five years or so. Basically, you find a farm you like and pay up front for an entire season of produce delivery, which consists of a box of veggies (or whatever) every one or two weeks, mostly. Most have options for a small box or a large box; some farms offer home delivery, for a fee, but more likely there will be a drop-off spot somewhere in your city - so it's important to find one with a drop-off close to where you live or work. Some weeks are light, some weeks are heavy, but every week is delicious.

It's definitely a little more work than what many people are used to, as you have to work with what you get (i.e. no special requests, generally), which requires that you try out some new recipes with products you may have never tried before. But honestly, it made my last fall a lot of fun. Every week was a little more exciting, not knowing what was going to come out of the box. I ate a whole lot more salad than I was doing, given that I always got a ton of winter lettuce and spinach, which turned out to be a very good thing. I'd never really eaten squash or kale or radishes or beets or really most of the things I got; but now I eat them all and have great recipes in my book for each one of them.

The great thing about this system is that the farms have a little bit more security in a sometimes insecure line of work. They get some cash up front - so it's sort of like a mini investment on your end - and they have a consistent outlet for the produce that's coming out of the fields. And of course, the farmer gets the full dollar - as opposed to when one buys food at the grocery store, where the farmer receives, on average, 11 cents on the dollar. Of course, if you can't commit to a full CSA, head over to the farmer's market for the same reasons! They usually run until the middle of October! It does indeed tend to be a bit more expensive, but knowing now what it is to pluck each individual green bean by hand, I'm even more convinced that supporting a living wage and good working conditions for the people growing our food is a truly worthwhile investment. Not to mention (a) you're going to have way less worries about salmonella and e. coli and all those terrible things in the news, which almost always stem from large-scale processing centers and (b) you're getting the best quality produce, eggs, meat, cheese, etc. around.

If you are interested in the CSA thang, check out this website to get started: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/. I don't know if it's too late to sign up for a summer CSA, but like a said, fall vegetables are a lot of fun to work with as well.

Phew! That took a lot of energy. Hopefully you all aren't bored to tears. In closing, I'm going to make a plug for chard, an unsung hero of the vegetable world. It's a "leafy green," one o' them "superfoods" folks talk about, and it has many excellent attributes. First of all, it's one of the coolest looking plants I've ever seen, coming in colors ranging from white to yellow to bright orange to magenta.



Seriously though that picture doesn't halfways do it justice. It's like that experiment you did in third grade where you put carnations in blue water so the petals turned colors, except on drugs and forealz. In any case, both the stems and the leaves can be eaten, and it's mad full of nutrients. Have you ever had a recipe tell you to use three stalks of celery, and you're like, "What the good goddam am I going to do with the rest of this celery? I guess I'll let it rot in my refrigerator drawer."? I'm going to go ahead and suggest that next time, you should buy some chard! Use the stems instead of celery, then sautee the leaves and whatever's left of the stems with some garlic and olive oil and salt for a simple and tasty side dish. I was skeptical, as well, seeing as I HATE sauteed spinach, but chard is waaay milder and way more delicious and I actually really liked it.

Okay dear reader that's all for now. It's 8pm and I'm ready for bed.

Bwah I keep forgetting to put up the photos of my "bedroom"!







Pretty great, huh? The first picture is the "Internet Cafe." Bwahahaha.

Oh and if you have any good, easy, vegetarian-type recipes that can be prepared for 8-11 people, please send them my way!!

--James

P.S. If it's not clear, "muh" (from the blog name) is German for "moo."