


It´s really relaxing to hike with Julia and Betty. They´re so much fun and totally easy-going. Well, unless you try to take pictures of them:) Unfortunately, they live really far away from Berlin, somewhere in southern Germany. All the more it´s so great that we managed to meet for this hiking tour!
There is nothing in the world that can substitute a morning in the forest. You hear the birds awaking, slowly the sun rises and nature prepares for a new day. So I stick to Eleanor Farleons lyrics for a Cat Stevens song: "Praise with elation, praise every morning, god´s recreation of the new day"...


As soon as dawn came up and within seconds, Julia was as fit as a fiddle and set out to pull us out of our sleeping bags. Nooo! It was so cozy in there and I wasn´t ready to get up at all! But finally, we surrendered. Betty held her morning meditation on a ledge while I was busy taking pictures and Julia started to re-light yeasterday´s fire, so that we all could prepare breakfast. Hmmm, organic granola with fresh fruit, what a luxury!


Yeah!!! We´re out in the forest again!!!! This time, Julia, Bettina and I chose a beautiful mountain range in southern Germany for our 4-day-trip in May - the Schwäbische Alb. Usually, the weather turns bad the minute we put on our hiking shoes, but this time we were lucky: the sun shone as bright as it could and we found gorgeous sleeping places, cool waterfalls and magnificent viewpoints. But see for yourself...

Julia brought it to the point: this forest has become our living room over the years. That´s why it´s so hard to leave it behind!

Unfortunately, every weekend outside has its end, so we said goodby to the forest and thought of everything that was important to us in these 3 days - housing, food and company. So maybe we´ll come back to Malte´s idea one day: to release ourselves back in the wild, as a new protected species, somewhere near nowhere...


The next morning, Andrea was awakened by a squeeking noise that came from under her sleeping bag. She first considered it to be a mouse, but soon after a displeased toad climbed out of the leaves. I guess it got squeezed a bit by Andrea, but still seemed to be fine...

Preparing food on the fire without a pot seems challenging, but it´s easier and tastier than you might think! We wrapped our carrots, squash, eggs, potatoes and apples in mud and placed it in the blaze. When the mud is firm and dry, we broke the food packages open and had a wonderfol meal. Bannock (indian bread) can either be prepared in the embers or in a pan.


Since a good fire is essential for a comfortable life in the forest, Julia and I also tought the group environmentaly friendly fire techniques that even work in bad weather. There´s always one person who´s responsible for the fire - in this case, it was Jens. Malte is heating natural glue for the repair of his wooden spoon, Andrea is using embers to burn out a cup and the rest of us is busy grinding grains and collecting fire wood. And Jana tried to cook an egg in an orange peel. Unfortunately, the peel contains a lot of oils, so it burnt. But hey, this is the time to experimentalize!