Germany Life

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

BIKE RIDE OUT TO THE EAST OF VOGELSTANG
Since the weather was sunny and it is predicted to get cloudy and rainy again in the next couple of days, I had to get back out on my bike while it is nice. I rode a little over 14 miles. I even wore just ONE layer of bike clothing!
Take a look using this link from February blog entry to see the layers I used when it was cold out.
http://susanssmith2012.blogspot.com/2013/02/biking-in-kafertal-wald-park-on.html

Me with only one layer of bike clothing, before starting out to ride almost to those hills in the distance.

This was a lovely short bike/walking path through a Vogel (bird) Park

There in the Vogel (Bird) Park is a wooden structure you can climb the stairs into to watch the wildlife. It was very peaceful up there. A small pond is on the other side (behind me at this point) of the small hut.

This diamant (diamond) pheasant was really performing for the lady who was not paying any attention to him.

The peahens sleeping in the path and the pheasant running away as always.

This pheasant was caught off guard and I got a better photo. Looks like something got hold of his tail feathers tho. Maybe that is way they are so skittish.

Caught this goose taking a bath. She squawked, "Don't look, I'm naked".

This big nest was outside the park. There is a bird in it but you can't see it.
The nest might be one of the storks with the red legs.

This white flowering bush is in many places right now. The flowers smell great.
See my bike up on the path.

A better look at the blossoms. The bees like this one too.

At this spot I was off my bike to take the photo and had parked the bike in the shallow cobblestone rain gutter. When I was getting back onto my bike I lost my balance on the stones and had a slow motion crash. No bruises, landed on my ample hip, lots of cushion there, but I didn't notice that my bike cable almost fell out of the basket in the back until I was almost in the next town. I reached back to pull it back into the basket but I guess I didn't get it in the right part because later I noticed it was GONE. I had to stop in Wallstadt and buy a new cable.

This tree has much larger while blooms. This is near the small town of Straßenheim, where the vet has an office.

The Straßenheim water tower.
I like some of these old water towers, they look really neat.

These purple trees are very pretty. Almost as pretty as our Jacaranda trees in California.

These trees, I found in Heddesheim.

This is a typical bike path here. Aren't they just lovely!

In these trees, you can see the missile toe, it looks like balls or nests.
It is easy to see since there are no leaves on the big trees yet.

Einheimische singvögel means "Native songbirds". This is one of the signs in the small Vogel Park. I have seen many of these in our area. No wonder our area is named Vogelstang.

SUNRISE - SPRING
This winter seems like it has been SO LONG. Now spring is here and we had a really nice sunrise. Since I don't see them very often here because it has been cloudy most of the time, I had to take some pictures of the sunrise. It is always a thousand times more beautiful in real life. All my photos are from just a small point and shoot Fujifilm camera. Also I downsize all the photos so they are not so large to load onto the website. Several people have told me that this year has been a record year in Germany for the least amount of sun in 100 years. I hope next year isn't going to be another record breaker for no sun.

Sunrise with jet stream trails. Taken from our balcony.

Self timer photo of me watching sunrise from our kitchen window.

BIKE RIDE TO LADENBURG
We rode our bikes out to Ladenburg again today. We had such pleasant warm weather and no wind. We will do this often I think. It is such a pretty town and there is always more to see and explore. This time we saw there are several places where there are ancient Roman Ruins. A friend of ours from church used to live in Ladenburg and explained that because there are buried Roman Ruins there that trying to renovate or build things there is very difficult because if any old structures are found, the archeologists get to take the project over and they preserve the site and your project could be stopped forever or take a VERY LONG time to finish. This ride was just under 17 miles round trip from our apartment.

One of the town office buildings.

Roman walls and archeology site with dates on the various depths. New structure usually went on top of previous structures. The lower parts are from the second century AD.


	Romanesque wall with grout lines, Second Century AD

I like to visit the swans and they like me too.

This is not with a zoom on the camera, they come right up to me.

SPRING ARRIVED ON SUNDAY - April 16, 2013
Finally, Spring arrived on Sunday, it was warm and sunny and up to about 68 degrees F. It may not last but I love it while it is here. Predictions for more rain in a few days and cooler temps. But for now all the plants and flowers are ready to burst forward with new growth. The birds are flirting with each other and flying about with twigs and stuff in their beaks to go and make nests with. I went out with the camera to capture the spring starting. The big trees are budding up and haven't really started producing but the smaller trees are blooming and look gorgeous. The white blossoms on the trees smell really nice, a little like honeysuckle. I don't know the names of anything here.

I took this from the guest room balcony looking down at this tree by the path. These trees are really popular around here and smell wonderful. The next day almost all the blossoms got blown off.

Pink blossom tree and white blossom tree, taken from our balcony.

Tiny wild flowers in the grass at the lake parks.

Daffodils are growing up along the roads. I don't think people have planted them they are in so many locations.

I took this from the guest room balcony too. These yellow flowering bushes are everywhere around here. They seem to be the first to bloom. Before the branches bloom many people cut the bare empty branches and put them in water in their homes and the plants bloom inside with just the water.

Another one of the popular yellow flower bush outside our apartment.

Outside the apartment, this tree has larger flowers.

Tiny wild flowers in the grass by the lakes.

This big tree has green flowers, these are not leaves. The bees love this tree.

This one is a willow tree, no blooms but the small green leaves are finally growing out. I love the willow trees along the lake.

Another one of the same yellow blooming bush, taken from our balcony, looking down 12 stories to the ground.

Steve resting after our bike ride. Steve got to where shorts for the first time since me moved. NICE!

The last time I took a photo from this spot the kids where sledding down the hills on snow sleds.

Self timer shot of us in the lake park by our apartment.

FINISHED ANOTHER PROJECT
This is an apron I made from a 1940's pattern. The pattern is a reproduction. I made this as a small size, next I'll make a larger one. I'm thinking about putting together a church activity to teach some sewing techniques.

Apron front

Apron back

Apron unfolded. The spools of thread print makes it hard to see that there are two heart shaped pockets.

Monday, April 8, 2013

KAFERTAL WALD BIKE RIDE
On Saturday we rode back over to the Kafertal Wald Park which is only a few miles from where we live. We rode about 17 miles. Last time we went there the trails where really muddy and there was still snow on the ground in spots and it was really cold. This time it was cold and cloudy but not as cold, maybe in the 40's. This is a park we will probably go to often because there are so many trails to explore and if it ever gets hot here it would be shady and cool. This time we noticed they have a bird sanctuary so we went in and had fun looking at the birds. Also we saw more deer and bighorn sheep this time. They are in an enclosure though, big one but still in an enclosure.