Author Archive
Sunday, January 24th, 2021
Uncertainty was a worldwide theme for 2020 and last year, we too felt the hot breath of that unpleasant reality much more strongly than usual. We were lucky, and we did not experience the full brunt of that aspect of reality, unlike so many people who lost their livelihood and/or health and are facing uncertainty […]
Posted in years | Comments Off on 2020
Friday, January 31st, 2020
A couple of weeks ago we had several days of warm weather, with high temps around 70F (21C) and the pear trees started budding! So when the inevitable cold-snap came I fully expected them to loose all those buds, but several night of lows in the 20s did bot keep them from flowering. Nice splash […]
Posted in Mother Earth, North Carolina, photographs | Comments Off on Spring?
Wednesday, January 1st, 2020
For me, 2019 was a good year. No major complaints. I am healthy enough, I am happily married and no major crises happened to our family (except for one of our horses getting very sick). I got to do some interesting things and work was busy, but not overwhelming. Laura was hard at work keeping […]
Posted in years | Comments Off on 2019
Tuesday, December 31st, 2019
This is some drone footage from this morning and a previous December morning of our house, me feeding the horses and emus, and a fly-over of our property. Enjoy! Dieses Video habe ich heute Morgen und an einem früheren Dezembermorgen mit einer Drohne gefilmt. Es zeigt unser Haus, das Füttern der Pferde und Emus und […]
Posted in Deutsch, Emu, horses, North Carolina | Comments Off on Morning on the Farm
Sunday, September 29th, 2019
(Deutsch hier klicken) Once in a while, I like to take a trip back to the “old country” to visit friends and family. This year I traveled from Sept. 12 to Sept. 23. I flew into Frankfurt airport and picked up my rental car there – a brand-new BMW 220d. The car was really comfortable […]
Posted in Adventures, Deutsch, Germany | Comments Off on Deutschlandreise 2019 – Tour of Germany
Friday, May 31st, 2019
On Easter Weekend, our newest family member, Betty the Goat, came to live with us. She is a Nigerian Dwarf Goat and she is only a few months old. We bought her from a guy down the road who felt sorry for Sassy when we told him that her sister Snoopy died last year and […]
Posted in General | Comments Off on Welcome Betty
Thursday, January 24th, 2019
Yesterday Laura found our very first emu egg out in the pasture. So finally, after 5 years of taking care of emus, we finally have a breeding pair! It was quite the journey to get there, but here we are. We had observed Mel mating with both of the male birds, Sidney in particular lately, […]
Posted in Emu, flavors | Comments Off on Emu eggs!
Tuesday, January 1st, 2019
For us, most of 2018 was about staying on track, being patient and putting in the effort required to reach our goals. The year also seemed to pass rather quickly, probably due to the persistent effort we had to invest into our activities. The weather was one of the noteworthy features for North Carolina, with […]
Posted in years | Comments Off on 2018
Monday, December 31st, 2018
We had a relatively early snow day this year on Dec. 09 with 8 inches of snow (20 cm) over 12 hours. With my 11foot8 camera footage I created a nice time-lapse of the snow “storm.”. For Christmas, the weather was nice and so Julia got to try out the inflatable “Ginormous Rainbow Unicorn Sprinkler” […]
Posted in horses, Our gang | Comments Off on Winter fun
Friday, November 30th, 2018
After the Jetta’s demise, we were looking far and wide for a suitable replacement. We almost decided on a 2011 BMW X5 diesel, but then we learned that in order to run that engine on biodiesel, we really have to delete the diesel particulate filter and the EGR, an the delete kit costs $2000! Just […]
Posted in cars | Comments Off on My new ride
Sunday, November 18th, 2018
On September 12, Laura got rear-ended in the Jetta on her way home. She did not get injured, but she did have a sore neck for a while from the whiplash. Jacob was riding in the passenger seat, and he was not injured, either. The car was in pretty bad shape. In the collision, the […]
Posted in cars | Comments Off on RIP Jetta
Wednesday, October 31st, 2018
Last Friday was Patou’s first birthday! For this occasion I made her a ground-meat cake with sardine decoration and a candle. Freitag war Patou’s erster Geburtstag. Zu diesem Anlaß habe ich ihr eine schöne Hackfleischtorte gemach, und mit Sardinen und einer Kerze dekoriert. Patou is doing really well on her raw-meat-based diet. Most evenings she […]
Posted in dogs | Comments Off on Happy Birthday, Patou!
Sunday, July 29th, 2018
Last Thursday, Julia participated in her first barista competition – the Thursday Night Latte Art Throwdown at Durham’s Cocoa Cinnamon, where she works as a barista. Great event – lots of creative energy in the room! Also very interesting to see some the Triangle’s masters of latte art in action. Painting with milk in coffee […]
Posted in Deutsch, flavors, Warm/Fuzzy, word up | Comments Off on Julia’s latte art competition
Sunday, July 15th, 2018
Yesterday, July 14 at 11AM, Snoopy the goat passed away after a week of severe illness, despite our best efforts to cure her. She was born March 18, 2014 and she had lived with us since August 2014. Gestern, am 14. Juli um 11:00 Uhr starb unsere Ziege Snoopy. Vor einer Woche war sie plötzlich […]
Posted in Deutsch, goats | Comments Off on RIP Snoopy the goat
Saturday, June 30th, 2018
On June 13th, Jacob graduated from Durham School of the Arts High School. Here he is … the fresh-baked graduate and the proud family! Am 13. Juni feierte Jacob seinen High School Abschluß von der Durham School of the Arts. Hier ist der frischgebackenel Schulabgänger mit der stolzen Familie! The Durham School of the Arts […]
Posted in Celebrate!, Deutsch, Our gang | Comments Off on Jacob’s High School Graduation
Wednesday, February 21st, 2018
Today, on the way to work, the odometer in my 1992 Mercedes Benz 300D rolled over 255555 miles. Pretty cool!
Posted in cars | Comments Off on 255555 miles on Benz II
Sunday, January 28th, 2018
We got about a foot of snow on Jan 18 and Patou loved it! She romped through the white fluffy stuff for hours with true puppy exuberance. The snow was deep for her, yet she plowed through it tirelessly. Patou had her first visit at the veterinarian, […]
Posted in dogs, photographs, Warm/Fuzzy | Comments Off on Patou in January
Sunday, January 7th, 2018
Auf DEUTSCH hier … Last week was crazy cold here … this morning RDU recorded 3 deg F and it was 6 Deg F at the house at 7 AM. Almost the entire week, temperatures stayed well below freezing, and the on the only slightly warmer day we got snow! Taking care of all the […]
Posted in Adventures, Just plain nuts, North Carolina, photographs | Comments Off on Brrrrr – crazy arctic cold
Monday, January 1st, 2018
2017 has been a year of transitions for us. Julia and I have started working as volunteers with a group of local political activists – the People’s Alliance of Durham. We started going to the meetings as a reaction to the current political reality in this country and we are working in community organizing around […]
Posted in years | Comments Off on 2017
Sunday, December 17th, 2017
Saturday, we drove to Kittrel, NC, to pick up Patou. Here she is, this morning on her first day of training. She was born October 26 to a pure-bred Great Pyrenees dad and a mom who is half Great Pyr and half Akbash. She was one of five pups for sale and with her slightly […]
Posted in Deutsch, dogs, Our gang, photographs | Comments Off on Welcome home, Patou!