Author Archive

2020

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 […]

Spring?

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 […]

2019

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 […]

Morning on the Farm

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 […]

Deutschlandreise 2019 – Tour of Germany

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 […]

Welcome Betty

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 […]

Emu eggs!

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, […]

2018

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 […]

Winter fun

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” […]

My new ride

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 […]

RIP Jetta

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 […]

Happy Birthday, Patou!

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 […]

Julia’s latte art competition

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 […]

RIP Snoopy the goat

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 […]

Jacob’s High School Graduation

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 […]

255555 miles on Benz II

Wednesday, February 21st, 2018

Today, on the way to work, the odometer in my 1992 Mercedes Benz 300D rolled over 255555 miles. Pretty cool!  

Patou in January

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, […]

Brrrrr – crazy arctic cold

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 […]

2017

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 […]

Welcome home, Patou!

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 […]