This Beautiful Country
Before August came to an end, my Mum and I did what we so enjoy doing and went on our favourite walk together, just like we have done in 2011 (you can join us on that walk here) and in 2010. We usually take this walk more than just once a year, but it is nice to compare how things look the same or have changed during the last 12 months, isn't it!
Do you remember how last year we spotted deer in the vineyards?
Of course, this time we were hoping to see one... and were rewarded with not just one, but a whole group of them! Every step we took, looking up the next row of vines, we saw yet another one or two resting or grazing. They didn't mind us much, but we were careful not to disturb them by getting too close.
It is also that time of the year again where everything is still very green, but the signs are already set on autumn - it always makes me quite nostalgic, somehow.
A lot of apples are on (and under!) the trees right now, and grapes on the vines. No plums this year, though; spring was too cold and wet, so the bees weren't flying when the plum trees would have needed their services.
Closer to the village, beautiful gardens line our way, and we saw a heron in the river.
We don't walk past here without saying hello to the donkeys that live there!
By the time my Mum and I arrived at the allotment, my Dad had already made coffee, laid the table and everything was ready - all we had to do was sit down and enjoy the delicious apple cake my Mum had made the day before.
It is my habit to go for another walk on my own after I've been at the allotment for a while, and I took some pictures that hopefully convey the atmosphere of this beautiful Saturday afternoon towards the end of August.
Views across the fields and of other villages, as well as hedgerows where the dogroses have already turned into rosehips... By the way, what looks like a tangled mess is there for a purpose: these hedgerows are deliberately "messy" so that hedgehogs and other small anmials can find shelter there.
It is, I think, a beautiful country I live in, and I am glad about that - while I never got the point of patriotism (we don't, after all, choose the place where we are born, or the family we are born into, do we?), I appreciate very much living in a country of peace and prosperity, where I do not have to fear for my life every time I leave the house (as is sadly the case in many countries all over the world, not just in Syria).
Wasn't it a beautiful walk we had together? I enjoyed it very much as well.
ReplyDeleteThe little village you show on one of your pictures is taken for a movie and also a tv-series, I learned from our newspaper, you can see it next.
It is called "Lehrhof" and has only 70 inhabitants, but when the tv-crew was there, they were about 170 persons...
Danka, Mama, it will be interesting to read about the village being chosen as the setting for a movie and TV series. I imagine it was quite different to their usual quiet country life when the filming crews were there!
DeleteA lovely post, Meike, full of wonderful photos of the beautiful area in which you live. I'm sorry to have missed commenting recently, but I have been reading and very much enjoyed your posts about your visit to France.
ReplyDeleteWelcome back, Perpetua - glad you enjoyed the posts about France, and this one as well.
DeleteDear Meike,
ReplyDeleteI have been waiting for this post this year! I love these photos and I agree that it is a beautiful walk! Those hedgerows that you mention remind me very much of England, and they not only are necessary for wildlife but are so beautiful to see, even when you can see them from the air from an airplane!
And, my DEAR, I love your DEER photos!
I have had computer problems but we had a new part delivered late yesterday afternoon, so hopefully, that will solved our problem! (I can look at posts, but when I try to comment, the computer would go down!)
You are right, Kay, I am sure you and I could be put on a plane blind-folded without knowing where we're going, and then they could make us look down and guess where we are... and we'd instantly recognize England, wouldn't we :-)
DeleteI hope your computer problem was solved with the new part.
Hello Meike:
ReplyDeleteYou are indeed so very fortunate to be able to make such a walk through beautiful countryside where there is always, we imagine, so much to be noted and to see. But how lovely on this particular occasion to have come across so many deer and so much else in the way of wildlife. The heron at the water is wonderful, but equally we love the donkeys - such affectionate [usually] animals.
Hello Jane and Lance,
Deletethose donkeys always come to the gate as soon as we call them, they expect a treat (but we never give them anything) and don't mind us touching them, but I am always a little cautious around them, since they are not "mine" and therefore I don't really know their characters and temperament.
There was indeed a lot more to see on both walks, but this post got longer and longer and I did not want to stretch my dear readers' patience too far.
Views of a charming landscape indeed. I'm not sure where exactly it is you live, is it in the south of Germany? (guessing because of the vineyards) Nearly thirty years ago (and at this time of year) I travelled in the area of the rivers Lahn and Mosel, the village also reminds me a bit of there.
ReplyDeleteHello Monica, you guessed right, I live down South, near Stuttgart. My hometown, Ludwigsburg, often features on my blog; maybe a good introduction is this post from May of this year: http://librarianwithsecrets.blogspot.de/2012/05/catching-up-on-top-of-world.html
DeleteThe pictures are lovely, Meike. The deer, the distant views of the town, the fields. And the grape photos are de-vine! (Sorry, couldn't resist the bad pun!) xoxo
ReplyDeleteYour "bad pun" made me smile - thank you!
DeleteI am glad you like the pictures. You were probably not a regular reader of my blog when I posted very similar pictures last year, so this post was not too boring for you :-)
It's true I've only been reading your blog posts for about a year -- but they've become one of the ones I try never to miss. xoxo
DeleteThe pictures of the deer are lovely. And I do agree with you about feeling for the country where one lives - when I've been abroad I love the last bit of the journey, flying over English countryside and feeling that my soul is being refreshed.
ReplyDeleteThank you!
DeleteImagine how excited my sister and I were when, upon our return from England in May, we actually flew right across our home town - in spite of the many times I have been flying to and from Stuttgart, I have never before had such a perfectly clear view of Ludwigsburg, the palace and the park. It was the best "homecoming" flight I've had so far!
Such lovely pictures bringing me happy memories. I love hedgerows and have let them grow around my yard with lots of berries and tree fruit for wildlife. But I also feel great pleasure seeing such thing in the wild. I live near a National Park (Cuyahoga Valley) and other wonderful parks. We don't have the sorts of paths you do in Germany and England very much. And I love the idea of " I could be put on a plane blind-folded without knowing where we're going, and then they could make us look down and guess where we are... and we'd instantly recognize England, wouldn't we :-)."
ReplyDeleteKristi, I am glad my post brings happy memories for you!
DeleteMore hedgerows are needed, since they often provide the only place where small animals can find cover on the large fields that have been adapted to modern agricultural machinery with no room for wildlie.
Yes, yes, yes, it is a beautiful country, which I now see only when I watch German TV. It breaks my heart that I never visit my Heimat any more. You live in a very pretty part of it and I would love to come for a walk with you along the vineyards, woods and fields and have a piece of Apfeltorte and a coffee in a pleasant little Wirtshaus somewhere on the way. One of these days I am going to pack my bag and come back to explore the beauties of my lost land.
ReplyDeleteDo it, Friko - I'll go with you for that walk any time! And since my Mum makes great Apfelkuchen (among many other things), I suggest we have hers and not go to a Wirtshaus :-)
DeleteA nice post and looks like a lovely walk. I like to go out at different times of the year actually to see how everything changes - it always IS changing quite fast, even though the seasons seem to move slowly....
ReplyDeleteI do give great, great thanks that I live in a peaceful country. It is almost one of the most important things in the world to be able to do.
You are right, Jenny; if that (the outer circumstances) are alright, the rest is truly just up to us.
DeleteI, too, like to look at the same place in different seasons; hence the frequent pictures of the view from my kitchen window here on my blog. Always similar, never entirely the same.
I always enjoy your walks Meike and I always run the photos through on large format as well.
ReplyDeleteFriko's use of the word Heimat reminded me of the television series in the early 1980s of that name which was one of the most compelling that I can ever recall watching.
Finally, as it is a Thursday when I am reading this, I shall use the last paragraph of your post as my Thankful Thursday theme.
Oh, Heimat! I have the book by Edgar Reitz on which the series was based; we absolutely loved it and watched every episode, the characters almost becoming as familiar to us as real family members.
DeleteI feel honoured that you should choose something I wrote as a theme for one of your posts, thank you!