orchids in Leutratal

I begin this post with a warning - it contains some truly terrible photographs of flowers. I'm not really that good at (or interested in) photography, and I take pictures for the sole purpose of adding some imagery to this chronicle of our activities for the sake of our far-away families. So if you're going to get all annoyed with how the picture is really focussed on the grass behind the orchid, stop reading now. Okay, now that that's out of the way I can continue with the post.

Last Saturday I went with Calin and Susanne to Leutratal, a valley by the village Leutra, just south of Jena, by the Autobahn (A4). There's a conservation area there due to the preponderance of orchids in the region, and in May and June they offer tours twice a day on the weekends to see the flowers. We opted for the 2:00 tour on Sunday, which was a lucky choice, as I'll explain in a moment.

We ended up seeing lots of orchids, at least 10 varieties, though not all are blooming just yet. (I'd like to go back in June to see what I can find then, and maybe even in August when Jeremi's back to catch the few late bloomers.) There were so many people on the tour that we split into two groups, and headed around the loop in different directions. Incidentally, one of our guides was an acquaintance of ours from the English Stammtisch that we go to sometimes on Monday nights. Jena's a pretty small place, really.

We started at the edge of an open meadow, which was filled with a variety of flowers, including the lovely purple orchids you can see here surrounding the dead branch.Here's a close-up of one of the lighter-coloured ones:I thought I might be able to remember some of the names or figure them out from the blooming calendar, but that'll take me forever, so I'll just tell you what I can remember. I think this one is called Purpurknabenkraut in German (Orchis pupurea), and they said that the lighter coloured ones were purer, and that the darker coloured ones were hybrids. (I don't think that there was an Aryan subtext to this, as they also said that the darker ones were prettier...)

After enjoying the view in the meadow, we headed into the forest, where we saw this small, mostly green orchid:and another small one, which doesn't have any chlorophyll. This is called Vogel-Nestwurz in German (Neottia nidus-avis), and it relies upon ants to distribute the pollen rather than flying insects.This one is called Weißes Waldvöglein in German (literally "little white forest bird", or Cephalanthera damasonium) because apparently when it blooms it looks like a bird. Right now it's just leaves really. (It's in the middle of the frame, if you're not sure which leaves to look at.)Then we were walking out by the edge of the meadow again, where we saw this crazy thing:Check out those crazy spiralling petals! This one was called Bocks-Riemenzunge ("Bock's strap tongue", or Himantoglossum hircinum), and smelled kind of skunky. This got Susanne and I talking about evolution, and how some of these plants are so highly adapted to attract pollinators - what on earth is this adapted for? Perhaps it's going to end up on the losing end of natural selection. Unlike this one, which tricks the males into not only spreading along its pollen, but actually gets them to mate with it.I blew this picture up so you could see the flowers better - they really do look like insects. This one's called Fliegen-Ragwurz ("Fly" something or other, or Ophrys insectifera). Apparently they also have pheremones that smell just like female flies ready to mate, but in the species of fly that acts as the pollinator the males hatch three weeks before the females, so they spend three weeks having sex with flowers instead. Or something like that - remember that this was all in German, and next to the Autobahn, so not always so easy to hear. Calin helped a lot with translations. :)Here's another picture of the crazy tongue one, next to I think another species of white one, but I don't remember ...One last orchid - I think this one is Weißes Waldhyazinthe (white forest hyacinth, or Plantanthera bifolia). I'm sorry that I don't know any of the common names in English, but this is what happens when you go on nature tours in Germany. Later in the season there should be a European version of the lady's slipper blooming, which they said was the prettiest one. It's yellow and brownish-purple, and while it looks pretty nice in the pictures, it's got nothing on the lovely pink lady's slippers in the Maritimes. (The German name for the European one is Europäischer Frauenschuh, which means "European woman's shoe".)
There was also an interesting explanation of why there are orchids in Jena, most of which are native to the Mediterranean region. It seems that the seeds were brought over the alps along with grapevines, as Jena was a wine-growing city back in the day. (Actually, until not all that long ago, but there was a major blight that killed off much of the grapevines in Europe in the 1860s, and at this point it was no longer such a big part of the economy here, so grape-growing wasn't re-established with new root stock as it was in the rest of Europe.) These orchids are picky though, and they won't grow unless there's a certain kind of fungus growing in the soil, which just happens to be abundant in the Leutratal. Also, they need quite a warm climate, and again our local valleys accommodate with sheltered and sun-warmed limestone, making Jena the second or third warmest city in Germany, depending on whose climatology you believe. In any case, this combination of factors led to the happy accident that orchids are growing here at all, in an entirely unnatural place. (They even mow the meadows every few years to keep the trees down so that the orchids can thrive, and this is in a conservation area. Ahh, European wilderness is funny sometimes. Beautiful, but still funny.)

There were other flowers blooming as well - here's a wild white poppy:
And Jeremi in New Brunswick is worrying about frost dates and moon cycles, wondering when it's safe to plant poppies for the wedding, and in Germany they're already blooming in the wild! (Oriental poppies are also blooming in gardens here now - spring really is at least a few months earlier here.)

We ended the tour back in Leutra, a charming little town where there is an unusual number of farm animals in people's yards, mostly chickens and sheep. We actually stopped when approaching the town as there was a lamb on the wrong side of the fence running by the side of the road, very anxious to get back in with the other sheep, but luckily he found his way back in without us. (He didn't heed my advice to run for the predator-free hills while he had the chance.)

The sheep in the picture below was also rather unhappy, and tied up all alone by someone's garden. I'm hoping it was just temporary, because she seemed pretty unhappy about it. I took the picture because I was shocked by how long her tail was. You can sort of see it by her legs in this picture.
Here you can't really see the tail, but you can see Susanne and the sheep communing. She really seemed to like Susanne, for some reason.

And finally, the reason we were lucky to have decided to go on this particular tour on this weekend on Sunday at 2:00 - because at 3:00 the Leutra Orchideefest started, which involved a fantastic brass band, the ubiquitous grill with bratwurst and Rostbrätl (like a pork chop on a bun) and beer, and local women selling trays of homemade cake. Naturally we had to stop to taste the goods. You can also see a bowling game set up in the foreground, with boards laid out on the pavement for really wide lanes, and then they had more boards set up for a hand-operated ball return at the other end. There was also information from the nature conservancy organization, with a table set up to teach people about beavers. It seems that there haven't been beavers on the Saale for many years, but just this year two swam up from Saxon-Anhalt and have set up home. While I was worried that they'd dam up the meager Saale and flood downtown, I found out that it's a different species of beaver here than in Canada, the Eurasian version, and they're a bit smaller and not quite as hard-working when it comes to altering the landscape. Now I can sleep at night!

the Weinmeile

Last weekend was a long weekend in Germany, due to Pentacost (or Pfingsten), and we had Whitmonday off work. Every year on Pfingsten weekend the wine region to the north of Jena, along the junction of the Saale and Unstrut rivers, which Jeremi, Marie and I visited last summer for a bike trip, has a big festival. It's called the Weinmeile (wine mile - the link is in German), and all 32 little wineries over the 6 km from Bad Kösen to Naumburg open their doors on Saturday and Sunday, serving wine, cheese, and heavy German snack food to passersby.

I mentioned it to Calin and Susanne, and we decided to ride our bikes up to Bad Kösen and across to Roßbach and take the train home from Naumburg (just past Roßbach). The weather has been simply gorgeous the last couple of weeks, and it was a perfect day for a bike trip, about 25 degrees with blue skies. The ride was great, down along the bike path that runs along the Saale river. It stays mostly in the valley, so the hills aren't too brutal, and it's only about 40 km to Bad Kösen. Along the way we stopped at the ruins of the Cyriakskirche, which was a convent (I think) founded in the 10th century. It was just 100 m off the bike path, and worth the short walk.
There was a spooky staircase into a cellar there too, but none of us ventured down...
And had we continued on from there, it was only another short 1.3 km to get to Hell, as this sign helpfully indicates. (Hölle means Hell in German, for those of you wondering what I'm on about.)

We stopped for a light lunch and our first bottle of wine just a bit north from here. While it wasn't officially the Weinmeile yet, we were pretty hungry. In the courtyard where the restaurant was I saw the biggest pigeon ever. I know it's not clear from this picture how big it truly was - the size of a chicken, I swear. Susanne was trying to chase it so that she'd be there for scale, but it was too quick. While eating we saw other giant pigeons with different colouring, brown and white, and it became clear that they kept some variety of giant domesticated pigeon, and that this wasn't just a massive everyday pigeon with a severe case of leucism.

From there we continued on toward Bad Kösen. Around Saaleck we crossed the river and I saw the castles high up on the hills above that we rode by last summer, with 38 C heat. Luckily this time we had a proper map of the region, which clearly showed the alternate path of the bike path which avoided the hill altogether. I'm sorry I didn't know about this last year, Marie, but the view really was nice from the top...And finally we saw the sign - we'd made it to the beginning of the Weinmeile. Calin isn't confused about which way the arrow is pointing - he's just practicing some of his male model moves.
From there on in it was a long stream of people, wine, food, wine, animated discussions (in both German and English), wine, trying to ride our bikes through throngs of people, wine, wine princesses, wine...The place shown above had quite a nice set up, with live music and a variety of food. As we sat and ate and drank at one of the long communal tables, there was a group in front of us who were all singing along and doing actions with the song that the band was playing. We didn't know it, but they all did, including all the actions with bunny ears, lassoing, making a tail, holding the reins etc. Some of these actions come up in later photos as we attempt to relive the moment.Ah yes, here they are now, with bunny ears and lasso, and a bottle of rosé. (Jeremi and Marie, if this looks familiar, it's the same place we stopped for rosé at the top of a very steep hill.)
By this time I was having lots of fun! (Note the vines growing in the background.)
Susanne may have been feeling the effects as well...
We met lots of friendly people along the way too. I think it was at this place that we sat down with a group of older people who were all wearing small glasses in leather holders around their necks, so they didn't have to pay the deposit on the glasses at each place. (Also quite popular were giant snail shells made out of pottery which were hung from the neck.) To say cheers they said something like "long live Karl Marx" (a free and approximate translation), and one of the women just couldn't get enough of hearing Calin speak Dutch. They were lots of fun.Now it was getting a bit darker......and then suddenly it was night time. Seeing as it's not getting dark now until around 9:00, the evening really surprised us, as did the fact that we'd been drinking for over 7 hours at this point:
Hmmm... This picture of the top of Susanne's head (and the ubiquitous bunny ears) doesn't seem quite right...
Ah yes! I just had to aim a little lower.
Did I mention that we'd been drinking???
And don't I look like I'm up to something?
Here's a picture of the last place we went to (at least as I remember it, which is not so clearly). Here we made a bunch of friends, including someone named Heidi, whose number I saved in my cell phone under the heading "4". Luckily Susanne remembered her name the next day. There was a band playing here too, and people dancing...
...and then we were dancing too!
Ah yes, it was a drunken night. A nine-bottles-of-wine-for-three-people night. Luckily Susanne managed to guide us to the train station in Naumburg (I fell off my bike once on the way, and Calin fell off his twice), and we caught the last train to Jena that night. We had checked the train schedule earlier, but really didn't think that we'd spend so long there. While it was convenient that we caught the last train, it was unfortunately a night train, which requires a reservation (costing 19 euros per person, and 7 euros per bicycle, for a 25 minute trip that usually costs <10 euros). We honestly didn't know that it was a night train when we got on, but the conductor wasn't entirely understanding. We pled (genuine) ignorance, and argued, and she threatened to call the police, and Susanne got upset when she told us that we were too drunk and stupid to understand, and I got indignant and thought that she should call the police, and Calin was slightly more reasonable and got her to settle for 19 euros for the three of us (and our bikes). I think she only agreed because we were almost in Jena at this point. Still, at least we made it home.

That night we changed our original plan which had been to go up to Cospeda, and slept instead at our apartment in the city which was closer. The morning found us all a little the worse for wear, me the most of all, but by the afternoon everyone was doing much better. None of us even got headaches, the usual curse of too much wine, which maybe says something good about the wines from this region? Who knows. In any case, we had a great time, and can't wait until next year, but we're going with rules next time. Perhaps alternating bottles of wine and water, or setting an upper limit on the number of bottles, or a time limit so we get the right train, or perhaps all three. There was much discussion on Sunday about whether we'd have been as drunk if Jeremi had been there - perhaps we would have split the same number of bottles four ways instead of three? We'll have to wait for next year to see if that's the case.

Walpurgisnacht

The wednesday before I left for Canada, Calin, Susane, Julia and I went to the Walpurgisnacht in Leuchtenburg. Leuchtenburg is a castle on a hill about 20 km south of Jena. It is now a museum, but on Walpurgis night, it's ground are reserved for Witches and Warlocks (and Goths since they're already in costume). A lot of people were dressed up and those who were got discount. There were demonic decorations everywhere as you can see around the stage.

Apparently in german, witch means naked woman wearing stockings (not really, but click on the pictures to see what I mean).

The band probably had the best costumes, they were all decked out in leather and pelts. Here you can see the bands not one, not two but three bagpipers all in leather skirts.
They also had a bass player that played with what looked like a chopstick. They were very good.

Here you can see that there was quite a croud, and witchy kids dancing to the music.

When it got a little darker, the firedancer came out.
She was wearing a patchwork dress that Julia was quite interested to see since she will be making her wedding dress with a similar concept.
There were also some less interesting act like the MC witch and her antics, and Professor Fartsalot or something. The later was obviously more aimed at kids.

There was of course the usual event foods and beer which we enjoyed and a big bonfire that started at 10 ish. It was lots of fun.

It's big

Here is the latest on the quilt. I finished the borders at the head and foot with a bit of sashing in between them and the main section as you can see here.


I'm standing on a chair and a lot of it is still on the ground. With the borders, it is now 10' x 8'.

The backing was pretty easy, just two seams to attach the three 10' long black strips. Here you can see it taking up all of the living room. We had to stand up the striped brown couch on it's end to make enough room to properly spread it out.

And here's the wool batting that's been in the corner of our bedroom since January acting as the most indulgent cat bed ever. It's probably mostly cat wool now.


And finally the quilt top, the left side of my head and my shoulder. Of course I had to do all that again after the couch was moved so that I could pin the hell out of it. Over 300 pins actually. After that I could start the actual quilting which is started but still no where near done.