Mini-OE to Germany–Day 4 and 5

Day 4 was the day to met all our friends from this part of Germany. Lilo booked a table in our old favourite pub Vogelhausbraeu Ettlingen. It was like when we left, I was surprised that so many friends came to see us. Even from further away. Some drove about 4 hours just to spend some time with us. Which made me feel a bit bad because I was hoping I will manage to spend enough time with them.

  

It was a great day for us. We started at lunch time and finished at around 8 pm and I managed during that time to have two glasses of beer. I can’t remember when the last time was I spoke that much. It was exciting to see how some started new lives with new partners. Many have a small family and most of our friends had changes in their lives, some small, some big.

 

Sunday, day 5 and Lilo arranged a visit to an organic goat farm. She got into contact with them already weeks before we left and arranged that we could see them. We left at around lunch and drove through the city of Karlsruhe, passed small villages and a lot of rural landscape. Joerg used his GPS but I think it was more because I was interested in it. I am a bit behind when it comes to navigation devices. We don’t have one and never used one.

 

I found it was funny. Many times the friendly female voice wanted us to turn off into directions which were definitely plain wrong. Lilo’s brother excused this with the fact that the map data in his model was out-dated. But I wonder if that is the case. Because those areas and roads must have existed long time ago, long before the map data was created.   But I must say the lady in the GPS is a great example of patience. She never raised her voice. She made one or two attempts of trying to convince us we were on the complete wrong way and said “In  400m make a U-turn” and then she gave up, recalculated the route and carried on. I would have used strong language in a somewhat louder voice long ago.

 

So did the GPS-lady help us in the end? Well lets put it this way: she directed us to the correct area. We ended up at a pub in the middle of fields, crowded with hikers and a older patron. Lilo asked him for directions to the gat farm and he just told her she needs to keep driving. But he didn’t tell her the direction which we should keep driving in.

We drove up and down country lanes, ended up in other villages, some of the lanes Joerg refused to keep driving because of the bad conditions. Conditions I would categorize as good. I hope he will never have to drive on some of New Zealand’s roads. But we could not find this blimmin goat farm. No signage, noting. We called some friends who were supposed to meet us there and arranged to meet at some other location. When we met up with them he told us he entered the address in his GPS and would have to go up that road, pointing at yet another country lane. I cringed a bit when he mentioned the word “GPS” . I just hope his GPS-lady is as patient as ours is. I would hate knowing they would have to endure swearing and shouting out of a small box in the middle of the dashboard.

More driving around this time following another car and feeling slightly out of control. We drove down a forbidden forestry track and I couldn’t convince my fellow car passengers that it would be highly unlikely that the entrance to a farm which officially welcomes visitors on a regular basis would be over a illegal road. It didn’t matter anyways because we had to follow the car in front of us.

I cut our odyssey short here. After some time we cam back to the area just about where the country pub was, asked a farmer who was cutting down grass with a linetrimmer and he just pointed at his neighbours place. We drove past this place at least three times. Oh and interestingly enough, the GPS-lady was quiet all the time. I leave it up to my readers t judge over modern day technology.

The goat farm looked like any other farm in New Zealand. A lot of people would say it was untidy and messy. And I must say some of our more urban oriented friends who were with us did just that. Some even refused to enter the smelly sheds where the goats were housed. We just saw a normal farm. A farm where material is put down at some place “just for now”and “I’ll pick this up tomorrow when I have the front end loader”. Of course tomorrow was some day maybe last year and it never got picked up. As I say, just business as usual. People who never worked a farm or on a farm can not see behind the mess. There is always something which plays havoc with your plans and good intentions. Of course I also saw some things I thought I would never do. But that’s just normal.

 

Herrmann and Belinda the two farmers took a lot of time to show us around and talk to us. The milk about 100 Saanen goats and have a lot of poultry too. And Belinda makes cheese. This is part of their business.She has a small cheese factory and produces fresh,semihard and hard goats cheese, many with herbs and spices like fenugreek and cumin and the local baerlauch, a wild sort of garlic I  remember from when we lived here. I was very interested when Herrmann told us abut the regulations he has t follow. The European Community has a far reaching arm and also has this farm in her grip. For example by EU law the farmers are not allowed to practice what they call “unnecessary death”. Which means they are forced by law to raise all young livestock. No killing of newborn calves.lambs or kids. They have to raise them by law. Many would even think that this is a good thing. It could be but he then told us about the cost. For slaughtering a goat kid for example he pays 25 EUR for the slaughter, 9 EUR for the veterinary who has to confirm that the animal is healthy and all plus 19% Gst. This is for a goat kid which brings around 12 kg of meat. Now add the loss of milk due to the fact that he has to raise all these goat kids and you see that he actually looses money with every kid born on his farm.

 

The night before we visited a fox killed more than 20 of his chicken. Which you could say is just a thing nature would do. But again, the EU regulations are playing a role. The hunting law n the EU under pressure from environmentalists and green parties limits the shooting of foxes to a very small number. He told us that there is currently a law going through EU parliament which will allow nobody to shoot foxes at all. The farmers in his region are fighting this law. He told us he can see foxes in bright day light walking down his paddocks. To me a sure sign that there must be an overpopulation. The foxes also kill all of the native rabbit and ground breeding bird population. A good example of men stuffing up this planet, then running around like headless chicken – excuse the pun – and pushing through counter measures which then create another problem. To the farmer just more loss, more financial pressure and as he admitted another step towards the decision to just give up.

Then Belinda showed us her cheese production. She produces 5 or 6 different kind of Goat’s cheese, from a soft Chevre style cheese to a semi hard and a hard cheese. Her  cheese is delicious. She doesn’t press the cheese at all which makes her process simpler. She works with 200 litres of milk, adds cultures and curdles the milk. She then processes the curd into the different cheese. She keeps things simple this way. She doesn’t have to use multiple batches but uses the same curd for all her cheese. I enjoyed the conversation with this German cheese maker very much. And I was jealous about her cheese cave and the pasteurizer with the automatic log writer. It made me wonder if there might be a way to do this at home. But when I told her the cost of auditing she was a bit shocked. That tells me that her auditing and compliance cost must be less than ours.

We left with a big parcel of cheese we bought, the head full of pictures and information and the good feeling you get when you spent time with people who have the same interest you have.

Our next stop was a “Besen” ((broom). I think I need to explain this. There is a hundreds of years old law in Germany which allows winemakers to convert their house into a wine pub. The serve young wine and some basic food. Their kitchen becomes a restaurant kitchen and often the living room or the garage is turned into a pub. As a sign that they are open and serve wine the hung a broom outside.

Sadly it is very hard to find an original “Besen”. Commerce has taken over long ago, dedicated rooms and kitchens are  now the norm. A menu gives you a selection of food where there once was just one dish and if you didn't like it you had to stick to the wine only. If you can find a real “Besen” you have almost no chance to find a seat especially if you are a big group of people like we were. So we ended up in a winery which had a little restaurant. We were sitting outside, had some great food and I enjoyed a Kerner, a fruity delicious white wine.

 

Back home I was hot and sweating. The weather is a bit a mixed bag at the moment but it is always warm and most of the time humid. I decided I will have a jump into the pool Lilo’s brother has in their garden. Also I would have felt bad if I wouldn’t have spent some time with the children in their swimming pool. Oh the fun we had. The kids enjoyed to dunk Uncle Peter and use him as motorboats and play shark although I more feel and look like Moby Dick. But I also enjoyed to just let go and be a child as well. So far I enjoy these holidays so much because most of the time I am very relaxed, very positive and just happy.

 

At some stage it was a bit too much for my nice Lucy and she sulked and didn’t want to come back into the water. It was my fault because I need to learn about limits with a child. I must have dunked her a bit too often. very body was begging her to come back in. My little princess turned into tough negotiator. She put down her demands like no splashing, we needed to keep a certain distance and then she demanded 2 Euros from me and her brother. This little cute girl will have a great future ahead of her.

 

After another great day another great dinner with BBQed steaks and sausages followed, washed down with more German beer and eventually ended in bed,  tired but happy.