Veggy Tales ...A New garden

Hmmm the site...gee this looks good...?

Lift the tiles, the DECONSTRUCTION...always TBG's favorite part...

Plant some seeds early with Gma, Thanks for the help Gma!!!

Now to get down to the real thing...the planting ...

The finished product....not bad ..No?

A New Garden

Garden in Germany

Recycling the German way

Paper, all types even tissue goes into a small clear bag.

Plastic in a small clear bag.

Compost all organic matter.

Some glass and plastic bottles must be returned at the store at which they were bought. Others, mainly big brand names like Coke and Sprite may be returned at any grocery store.Coke and Setc, apparently packaging can be returned to the vendor as well but I have yet to figure that out.

Any other non-recyclable glass can be deposited at a “green white or brown bin” to be picked up by the city.

Other actual bona fide “Garbage” (and now I am not even sure what that is anymore) is placed into a very small (about the size of our typical grocery bag) and expensive to buy (12E for a roll of about 10) garbage bag and left curbside.

We are down to one teeny tiny bag of actual “garbage” a week and I am told that even this is sorted through by recyclers.

*blinded by the light look*

First bits and bites...

Germany…First Impressions….

Green… so very Green. Half timbered…lots of SMILING people,

New favorite food obsession…sour cherries, everywhere… YUM.

Beer and lots of it, plus de-alcoholized for the just-a-half-beerers like me…(give me a glass of good wine…now THAT’S another story…)

Great grainy bread, and lots of yummy new yoghurt types to try.

LOT’S of cardboard boxe…no wait that is just at our house…

Beautiful windmills, very old ones and very Large white new ones.

A fabulous breeze that sweeps down the mountain next door that blows right through the house...

We met a helpful local soul in the grocery store today who had done a student exchange in Mississippi and was most anxious to practice his English, how very funny to hear a German y’alling me and the kids about juice boxes. LOL

More amazing high end cars than you can shake a stick mostly BMW’s, Mercedes lots of nice Audi’s and VW’s too…, and more bicycles than you can shake a stick at too...

First sounds at our new house…sheep bleating at 6 o’clock (coming in from pasture for supper maybe?) cloister bells ringing at 7:30 A.M, 9 A.M and noon plus 6 P.M…marking the work day…(how nice!!) and the tinkle of our fountain…soothing just like at home, and NO sounds at night AT ALL ‘cept the crickets. Bliss.

The kids had their first day of school today and it went so well I had to drag then away at the end of the day. Riel was very excited to introduce me to a few of his teachers at the end of the day and Lily managed to chat up a few of the teachers in the other kindergarten classes. I packed them up a special lunch so at least that would be familiar to them, and I must confess even though I knew I need not have worried, I did a bit. Had a bit of a scare too could not get the GPS to work on the way back to retrieve them at the end of the day and had images of my weeping children waiting forlornly for me. The sense of direction that always fails me in shopping malls served me just fine in open air however and I found the school in good time after all. Phew.

Home and "Home"

While were in Canada the kids went to our local Montessori school for a week, and had a great time with out good friend who is the super gifted directrice there. The school is a dream, set in the heart of the hills with a horse farm on one side, and a forest and stream on the other. They and I love it and I hope it is where they will go when we return to Canada.

I was able to cram some quality time in with my good friends as well, a great dinner out with Trisha and another with friends from our old mothers group as well as some great visits. One thing I LOVE about our community at home in Canada is that we can just drop over for coffee. Speaking of coffee I could not resist a trip through drive through and a Tim Horton’s maple dip donut and a large-decaf-double-double (everyday…*blush*). Did I mention that I LOVE drive through? All in all though it was pretty great, pretty hectic and pretty tiring but really good to be back home.

My mom flew back with us and we had a smooth journey back to Germany or “home”. The day we arrived we were able to view the house and indeed it was finished and met our expectations in every way. While my Mom spent 3 days in our hotel room with the kids (bless her heart though she started to look a bit frazzled towards the end...), the movers and all our stuff arrived. The movers, who reminded me of a cross between Arnold Schwarzenegger and the happy but bumbling 7 Dwarfs, spent two days traipsing boxes into our house then the unpacking and sorting began. I always hate this part as it seems that we have an overwhelming amount of stuff and that it will never ever fit, so consequently I spent about 36 hours cursing our North American appetite for possessions and alternately sulking as I was sure our new house was too small to fit everything (again). I become what an only be described as irascible and then begin to fantasize about my back packing days, when all I had I could carry on my back. The tension wanes however when everything starts to get tucked away and miraculously.
We decided to go all out and get it all done right away so have spent a spent the last week up until 2 A.M almost every night unpacking and assembling new IKEA stuff but have finally....

Run out of steam…