This is the farmhouse, which is pretty typical, although maybe fewer flowers than normal (seriously, the Bavarians love their flowers). Huge, square, with walls so thick that it’s probably the same temperature all year round, and I can’t use the telephone or wifi in my room because the signals can’t make it through the floor.
Also typical is the fact that the cow barn is connected to the house. There’s no door between them, but there is a window, which is kind of entertaining. The upper level of the barn is just hay and grain, and piles of old tractor-bits, and the bottom is where their 40 cows live for most of the year. They’re not here in the summer, though, but all out in the mountains, grazing to their heart’s content (they only raise cows from birth to 3 years old, so they never do milking).
The main hall downstairs. It looks a lot bigger in reality. Kitchen, pantry and living room are to the left, Helmut’s father’s room, bathroom, mudroom and stairs are to the right. Maybe you can see, but there are horsey things all over the place—bridles and horseshoes etc.
The front pasture, looking over the road. I need to take more farm pictures, but I’ve been waiting for a sunny day, and there haven’t been a lot of those lately... (Seriously, though, where is my summer?! It was cold and damp when I was in VT and it was cold and damp in Heidelberg, and now it’s cold and damp in Bavaria! Damn you, global cooling!!)
On a nice evening, we had dinner outside, complete with grilling and everything. A little bit blurry, but Jenny and Helmut (the farm owners) are next to each other on the left, and on the right is Guillermo (wwoofer from Spain, who left), Damien (from France, who also left), and then Manuel. It was really nice :)
View outside my bedroom window... Although, below this pretty sight are about 40 chickens. I really hate chickens. There are more, too, and they are a pain in the butt.
Luzy, aka Luzifer. Very nice dog, though, despite the name, although she looks much too much like a wolf.
There are also 3 cats on the farm, one of which just had babies! This is them when they were only a few days old. They’re about a week and a half old, now, and ridiculously cute.
So, farm life... The general routine seems to be this: Wake up at 6:00, be in the stables by 6:15. We feed the horses, and clean the 10 stalls, 7 of which have little outdoor paddocks, which we clean as well. We’re usually done by about 7:30, and we go into the house for breakfast (fruit, yogurt, musli, coffe). After breakfast, there’s about 2 hours of chores. I usually spend a while doing dishes, and then sometimes cleaning inside (it’s a big, old house, and thus is always dirty no matter what you do), and sometimes cleaning the fields (it’s a silly task, but necessary—when there’s too much horse poo in the fields, they can get worms), sometimes rescuing baby trees from the grass that’s growing over them, and today, gathering a pile of apples from the trees... Etc. Yesterday we spent 2 hours cleaning the windows in the barn. I’m all for things being clean, but... Really? I don’t think the cows care...
Lunch is at 1:00 (Jenny cooks really well), and then we usually have time off until 3:30. Then, we bring the horses into the pastures, and we muck out stalls. There are the 10 in the main stable, but there are two other smaller stables, one for the mares, three of which have foals, and one for the four boys. It usually takes about 2 and a half hours, with the 3 of us working. Around 6:30, we take the horses in, and feed them (it’s incredible how much a horse can eat in a day... Also, just how much they poop), then we feed/water the chickens and geese, and spent 20 minutes chasing the chickens, and getting them back inside their house. Sometimes it’s entertaining, but mostly it makes me want to kill them because they all act so surprised that we’re chasing them, like it’s never happened before. “Wait, what’s going on? You want me to go somewhere? You’re going to eat me! AHHHHH!” And if you get too close, they start to freak out. Stupid animals. I like to watch them run, though, and pretend that they’re mini Velociraptors. Dinner is around 8, which is good, although consists of bread, cheese and pig-products a little too often. I think that’s just very German. Their bread is basically a meal in itself, and it’s filling, just not terribly interesting. Also, we eat off of wooden boards, which feels very Bavarian. Geese have to go into their house after dinner. Geese are awful, awful creatures. They are loud, obnoxious, and they like to hiss. They only way I can deal with them is by imagining them roasted and on the table for Christmas dinner. Om nom nom.
Anyways, so far so good. It gets a little repetitive, and 6 am comes awfully early, sometimes, but it’s alright. I wanted different, and that’s what I got! Manuel is in Prien, which is a few towns over, and we have a nice routine—he’s been coming over to stay on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, and then leaves first thing in the morning, and then I can get a day off on the weekend, and we go do something. It’s almost like dating... Crazy.
It is nice, though to have the afternoons pretty much free, and I’ve been reading like a crazy person. Finished Dracule and the Pillars of the Earth. Gotta say, the latter was interesting, and is great historical fiction, and I have to appreciate the architectural detail, but... There wasn’t really a plot, the writing was repetitive, there was nothing surprising, and the good characters were entirely good, and the bad, entirely bad. I’m not usually one to criticize a book that combines art history, historical fiction, political intrigue and some bodice-ripping, but I was not super impressed, although, granted, maybe that’s because I had been hearing rave reviews for the past few years. Hm. Wow, and I just wrote a novel. Hope it’s not too boring. I’ll try to write again soon, with more farm pictures! Tah!
Great posting - I really get a feel for the farm from your writing.
ReplyDelete(smiles and hugs)