Montag, 9. Juni 2008
Freitag, 6. Juni 2008
Schwäbische Alb IX - and another beautiful morning!
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"...
Schwäbische Alb VIII - a little bit of caving
We found a cave! It was completely dark in there, quite cold and a little bit creepy, too. But really exciting!
Schwäbische Alb VI - morning has broken!
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!
Schwäbische Alb V - carterpillar graveyard
What´s this???! Some weird carterpillar graveyard? The structure measured approximately 25cm in diameter and was rife with dead carterpillars. Straaange!
Schwäbische Alb IV - springs and witches
Oh how I love to disguise myself as moss, mud, stones and foliage. But this time I seem to resemble some kind of forest bank robber rather than a tree...
Schwäbische Alb hiking tour I
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...
Donnerstag, 5. Juni 2008
our forest living room
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!Before we all separated to travel to our civilized homes again, we met the other groups to share our experiences of the last days. This was when my lunatic friend Seppel told us how a bug got stuck in his nose while he attempted to smell if the bug possessed scent glands in order to test it for its palatability...
Farewell from our second home
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...
wildlife encounter
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...Then I got really excited cause I found fresh badger droppings near our camp! As you can see, they´re pretty big!
dinner naturale
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.
Life in the forest camp
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!
Jana´s brandnew dish
We try to substitute as many articles of daily use as possible - here you can see Jana constructing a dish from spruce cambium.
back in the forest!
In April, some of my team-leading friends from the NAJU (www.naju-hessen.de) and me gave a weekend-seminar to team leaders in the wildlife-project. We tought basic survival techniques such as building simple housing, sleeping mats, building a saw (see the picture of Malte and Jana) or feeding from natural sources (Andrea and Wiebke are eating young beech leaves).
Dienstag, 3. Juni 2008
weekend Tierpark outing IV
Selma and Milli spent half their time climbing the statues in the park and posing on them. Maybe they´re just practicing for later - at least Milli claims to become an actress when she´s grown up. And I bet she´ll be a famous one! Milli Meta superstar...:)
weekend Tierpark outing III
Who said that vultures are ugly???! This one is a real beauty, isn´t it?! We spent the whole day at the Tierpark and in the end, we grown-ups fell on a bench while Selma and Milli still had enough energy left to romp around on the playground.
weekend Tierpark outing
On a beautiful spring day in April Elisabeth, Katja, Selma, Milli and me decided to visit the Tierpark - but first we had breakfast at home and prepared a ton of sandwiches for our excursion. Milli´s favorite animals are the vari (a type of lemur). They live in an enclosure where visitors can pet them - well, of course only if the varis allow it. But today, they seem to be in a good mood!
squirrel at the cemetery
There´s a cemetery at the end of Winsstrasse - I love it, cause it is wild and full of critters and birds!My dead bird Simone has also found a place here - two years ago I burried her under a huge tree. In the rain...
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