October 13 blog 2013
Fall came rather early here in this part of Germany with a cold, rainy September which on the end drifted into "Indian Summer" better known here as "Alt Weiber Sommer" among other names. Because it comes at during September is the reason that "Oktoberfest' in Munich takes place in September to take advantage of the warm sunny weather. The last week or so has been around 40 to 50 degrees during the day going down to the 30's at night. I have been in each of the 2 gardens that I have here picking a bumper crop of plums, tomatoes, peaches, grapes and that most interesting berry actually a nut called Sea Buckthorn. The yellow orange berries are packed into clusters on the thorny branches making picking them arduous and sometimes painful, the long thin thorns being hard to see pricking the unwary gardner's fingers. The yield is made into many different things from jelly to health products, Schnapps, and so on. I make jelly, the sour juice making a tangy jell with vitamin benefits. The last of the grape juice is in the fridge waiting to be converted into a ruby red jelly which interestingly has a Fox Grape taste. Yes I checked the label still clinging to the vine planted over 4 years ago and aside from the German wording states that the grapes have a "Fox" taste. I remember picking wild fox grapes with my father some 20 years ago in Roseland, NJ before the developers bulldozed what was left of what used to be forest to build "McMansions. " On Friday I attended a meeting of the Niederländters, a society that mostly active in Bavaria and is a men only club that gathers once a month to recite poetry, essays, sing, drink, eat, and mostly have fun with words as only the Germans can with this very rich language. This website is in German but can be quickly translated with such browsers as Google Translate. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geschichte_der_Geheimbünde
There is even several groups in the USA.
My contribution to the group is to accompany the singing on the piano which makes up for my language abilities as the wordplay can be quite linguistically advanced for this person.
Today the sun is shining for a change and I will harvest the last of the tomatoes ending the afternoon with good long run accompanied by my pooch.
