SOME TIME WITH THE WATSON'S
The Watson's had me, Bianca and Melanie and her baby over for a while before we watched some of the church General conference.  It was a nice day so we took a bike ride to the Vogelstang lakes.

The Watson's SPA.
Bianca and the girls painted their finger nails.

Decisions on what colors to use.

Carly does her nails too.

Cool alteration of the photo of duck above with high contrast.

DOWNTOWN MANNHEIM WALK
I went to the library downtown and had some time so I walked around some.  The Water Tower and Parade Platz have nice flowers this time of year.  The day wasn't a sunny one but I didn't get rained on.

This is the center of town, Parade Platz fountain

Parade Platz is a nice place for people to gather and sit and talk or have food at one of the side walk cafes.

I had never seen this park before.  I takes up about a city block.  It was someone's garden in 1688.  Really nice big trees here.

The WasserTurn

Love those pansies.

This lion used to be on someone's mantle back in the early 1800's.  Not sure when it came to the Wasserturn Park.

It is baby bunnies season, they are all over, so cute.

BIKE RIDE TO HERMANNSHOF GARDEN
I really enjoy the ride out to Weinheim and to the Hermanshof Garden.  At this time of year the flowers in the garden are especially pretty.  It takes me about an hour to get to the garden.  The garden is free.  There are also a lot of old beautiful trees, even a Sequoia tree.  I think last year was even better for flowers though.  On the ride back, I was able to fill up my glass bottle of fresh milk from the dairy in Waidsee.

Here is the link from last years post when I went to the garden.
http://susanssmith2012.blogspot.de/2013/04/bike-ride-to-weinheim-again-i-rode-to.html

Here is a link to some more info on the garden.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schau-_und_Sichtungsgarten_Hermannshof

I saw a couple of these guys in ultra lights flying over Waid See.

The cow statues at the dairy.

My fresh milk from the 24 hour self service house at the dairy

The white magnolia tree with the Sequoia in the background.

These are really interesting ones.  Maybe a lilly of some kind, the flowers point down.

SATURDAY DOINGS
We had a busy Saturday.  Steve had to do a little work WORK at least at home while I got to go to the Stoffmarkt  http://www.stoffmarktholland.de/stoffmarkt/ in the morning.  I went with two good friends and we all had a nice time together and we were successful in finding fabric we wanted.  I bought some for a quilt I am making and found a nice piece to make a dress or skirt for Christina.  After that Steve and I rode our bikes to our church to do some cleaning but it was mostly all done already so we came home and got ready to ride to Ludwigshafen for a couple of parties.  It was an adventure finding the places as it was through a lot of city and my map that has street names didn't go out far enough so I used my bike map that has the bike routes but no street names.  We didn't get home until pretty late, maybe 11:30pm.  On the way while it was still light out, we saw a baby hedgehog in the Luisen park area.  On the way back in the dark we saw a fox going after a weasel or ferret and a billion bunnies.   The fox didn't get what it was after because it stopped to look at us.  I couldn't get a picture of the fox because it was really dark.

 This little guy is about the size of a grapefruit.  I think it is a hedgehog? It didn't move very fast, I petted it and the quills are really stiff and sharp.

BIKE RIDE IN THE AREA TO THE EAST
I rode my bike east of the apartment towards Heddesheim and the hills beyond that.  I don't know how far I went but I was riding for most of the 4 hours I was out.  The weather is nice right now and it feels like spring.  The only bad thing is just right around the Vogelstang Lakes, there are swarms of gnats.  I got them in my eyes even with glasses on and swallowed a few.  I rode up into the hills just a little so I could see a view.  I couldn't ride some of it because it was too steep and rocky for me but walking up and pushing my bikes counts as good exercise too.  Here is some of what I saw on my ride.

This appears to be a fresh apple cider still.  It wasn't filled when I was there but it would be fun to try some when it is going.

I saw a few goats.  The babies are so cute.  But they didn't jump around like the ones on YouTube, they just ate the grass.

I liked this small bike/walkway going to this Catholic church in a small town called Leutershausen.

This is as high as I got up the dirt road.  Nice horse pasture with trees blooming white and towns in the distance.

Cute path I found out of the hills.

I made it back to Waid and the dairy.  This time I had some money and bought myself some fresh milk from the self serve milk dispenser that you can buy from 24 hours a day.  The cows are in the barn behind the little milk house.

You buy the empty bottles on the right for .40 cents each

You buy the milk on the left for .70 cents per liter.  Here it is filling my bottle.

I stopped at Waidsee to have some of my milk with one of my home made granola bars.