Nature is signaling that we’re done with winter around here, but that may be a lie. We often get a cold snap or two in March, which can be really bad. But for now we’re enjoying the warm spring weather.

We have started going to the Art Market at the Durham Farmer’s market again, now that the weather is nice and people enjoy shopping outdoors, again.

With the warmer weather, our bees have become quite active, again. We’re very grateful that they survived the winter. Many experienced beekeepers lost many hives this winter. We inspected the hive yesterday and saw drones, so we decided to split now (which is really early). So we separated half of the hive from the queen and made sure they have brood and resources. That should prompt them to start raising a new queen. Fingers crossed that all goes well!

This winter we had a fair amount of snow. We got about an inch or two (3-5 cm) in early January and almost 4 inches (ca 10 cm) in late February.

Snow is a bit of a problem when you’re trying to take care of farm animals. The horses themselves are OK if they have blankets, but the pasture turns into a mud pit as the snow melts. The goats are not fans of the snow, and prefer to stay in their shelter (or in the hay shed, which gets more sun in the mornings). The emus are just perplexed, every time, and stand around shivering. We try to encourage the birds to go into the shelter, but only with mixed success. Patou, on the other hand looooves the snow. when she goes out in the morning and there is snow on the ground, she get the “puppy zoomies” even though in general she is now more of a middle-aged lady at this point.

Back in 2009, when I started running barefoot, I also tried running barefoot during cold weather. I did not enjoy it, because my feet went cold and numb pretty quickly, and that increases the risk of injury. So I pretty much only ran during warm weather spring thru fall and used a treadmill at the Y during the winter months. But then we had some fairly mild winters and I kept running, and I discovered that here in North Carolina, I can keep running if I am a bit strategic. Our winters are not one long, cold, overcast season of snow and ice like some parts of the world. We have cold spells – we just finished a week of freezing temperatures and there is even still some patches of snow on the ground. But after the cold spells we also get warm sunny days in the 50s (+10C) when it’s no problem to run a few miles barefoot. Like this upcoming week. So I just have to be flexible and use the opportunities that the weather presents for a nice mid-day run.

2024 did not have much major excitement (good or bad) for us personally. Yeah, the country is falling apart and the world is going to shit, but that’s nothing new. The most significant change for me last year was getting U.S. citizenship and voting for the first time – after living in this country for 30 years. This change was prompted my Germany changing its citizenship law and allowing dual citizenship now.

The most fun thing Laura and I did in 2024 was a trip to visit the oldest trees(s) on the US East Coast – including BLK 227, the 6th oldest living tree in the world! This truly ancient bald cypress sprouted in the year 626 BCE in what’s now known as the Three Sisters Swamp near Wilmington, NC (see photo above).

The saddest event for our family was the sudden, accidental death of our female emu Mel. It was a freak accident that prompted a whole new emu adventure acquiring a new female emu – Adie – bringing her home from Rocky Mount, and a long, fairly dramatic journey of attempting to pair her up with our male emu Sidney.

Both Jacob and Julia started new jobs in 2024. Julia completed her Americorps service at the Durham Habitat for Humanity and was quickly snatched up by the Orange County Habitat, where she now works as a volunteer coordinator. Jacob quit his job at Freudenberg and started working at BioMerieux in the production of microbial test kits. So far they are both happy with their new jobs.

Laura was busy developing new products for her business using her new laser cutting machine. She created some very cool new products: Fridget Spinners, 3D bird puzzles, the Setting Sun game and various Christmas tree decoration – all made from laser-cut decoupage wood. In the fall we went to craft markets around Durham to sell the new products as well as some of the old best-sellers. Throughout the year, Laura also did a lot of work for the Artisan Market and Womencraft working on their websites and inventory management systems. In addition to all of this, Laura was also very active on the Amazon Vine program, where she requests free product samples in exchange for an honest product review. She get a lot of her craft supplies and tools from Vine, and she can provide detailed reviews for other customers, since she uses these products frequently.

Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the USA has died at the age of 100. What an amazing journey he had, and what a legacy he leaves behind!

Also, this means that flags will be at half-staff at the next President’s inauguration! How fitting.

In early July, while turning the big compost pile, I found a clutch of snake eggs. Laura and I decided to try to hatch them, and she set up an incubator. After about 2 months, one of the eggs actually did hatch and a pretty rat snake baby emerged. We got her some frozen pinkies from the pet store and over the following 3 weeks fed her all 6 of them. She had no trouble with the warmed-up pinkies and grabbed them quickly when we dangled them in front of her. So after 3 weeks, we returned her to the forest, and we hope we gave her a good start for a nice snake life. Here is a video of the release.

After 8 years with us and approximately at 10 years of age, our female emu Mel died in a tragic accident last weekend. On Saturday evening, as I went out to feed the animals, I saw that Mel was throwing a fit (which she sometimes does), racing around the pasture and doing her crazy dance, when she suddenly started attacking the horses. Emu attacks are scary and they can do some real damage with those claws. So the horses ran away, but she kept going after them. I rushed into the pasture to see if I can intervene without putting my self in too much danger. But at that moment one of the horses had had enough and kicked out and her hoof connected with Mel’s head and she collapsed. Within 30 seconds it was over.

We can’t be sure what set her off, but some neighbors down the road had just started a party and had set up a very loud PA system foe some sort of karaoke, and Mel was always very sensitive to noises. The July 4 fireworks were absolute torture for the poor bird. So the unusual noise may have set her off. The horses had always been very tolerant of her antics, but that was just too much. I really can’t blame the horse.

Mel, with all her quirks, was a good bird and an excellent layer. She did the best she could with that tiny brain of hers. We will miss her. And her mate Sidney does miss her, too, I think.

I applied in June online on the grounds that I had been a legal US resident for more than 5 years (30 , actually), and I was approved and sworn in on Sept. 9, 2024 at the RDU field office. The process was really straight-forward, but then so was my case. The vibe at the office was actually nice. The CIS officers I interacted with were really nice, and the applicants overall were a bit nervous and a bit excited. Only the security staff were a bit grumpy. The process was really efficient – at least for those of us with straight-forward cases. My interview was actually remote, so I sat in an office at the field office with the CIS interviewer on an iPad asking me all the questions. After 1/2 hour, that was done, and the officer told me she was recommending my case for approval, and congratulated me. I then waited 5 minutes and was called in for the swearing in with 4 others. That took 15 minutes, then voter registration, and I was done in just under an hour! Welcome (again) to the Home of the Brave and the Land of the Free!

ENGLISH in a nutshell: Germany now allows dual citizenship! Yay!

Ab heute gilt das neue Staatsangehörigkeitsgesetz (StAG) für Deutschland. Das Staatsangehörigkeitsmodernisierungsgesetz (StARModG) wurde am 26. März 2024 erlassen, und es erneuert das StAG in drei wichtigen Punkten:

1. Erleichterter Zugang zur Einbürgerung: Die Residenzpflicht wird von 8 auf 5 Jahre verkürzt, bei besonderen Integrationsleistungen auf 3 Jahre.
   
2. Hinnahme von Mehrstaatigkeit: Die Möglichkeit der Beibehaltung der ausländischen Staatsangehörigkeit nach Erwerb der deutschen durch Geburt im Inland (Ius-soli-Erwerb) wird zur Regel. Die bisherige Optionspflicht entfällt.^[2] Auch bei Einbürgerungen ist kein Verzicht auf die bisherige Staatsangehörigkeit mehr nötig.
   
3. Wegfall der Beibehaltungsgenehmigung: deutsche Staatsbürger benötigen keine Beibehaltungsgenehmigung nach § 25 StAG mehr, wenn sie eine weitere Staatsangehörigkeit annehmen und die deutsche beibehalten möchten.^[3]
   
   (Quelle Wikipedia)

Diese Modernisierung war dringend notwendig, vor allem für Menschen die schon lange in Deutschland leben, aber keine Deutsche Staatsangehörigkeit haben. Für uns Auslandsdeutsche ist allerdings der 3. Punkt sehr wichtig, denn wir können jetzt viel leichter die Staatsangehörigket unseres Gastgeberlandes erwerben, und uns dort besser integrieren, ohne unsere Bindung an unser Geburtsland kappen zu müssen. Dankeschön!

Happy New Year to the Sri Lankan Community on the island and around the world! April 13 Sri Lankans (Sinhala and Tamil) celebrated the move of the sun into the sign of Pisces, which traditionally marks the the beginning of a new year for them. My friends in the local Sri Lankan community here in North Carolina invited me to partake in the rituals and traditions marking this auspicious time at the local temple.

At the appointed time, first we lit the candles on the decorated stand in the photo below (instead of the traditional oil lamp). Then they lit a small, traditional cooking fire while the monks recited auspicious passages from the Buddhist Suttas (sacred teachings). Then they brought a pot of milk to a boil on that fire (see below in the center right of the photo).

This is the Three Sisters Swamp in North Carolina. It’s a flooded bald cypress forest along the Black River. The large trees in this picture are likely over a thousand years old – possibly around two thousand years even. Laura and I went on a kayak tour through the swamp at the end of March to visit this amazing place. We went with a local tour guide, who was part of the research team that determined the age of a few of these ancient trees by taking core samples and counting the rings. They found several trees that were older than 2000 years!

This is BLK 227, the 6th oldest living tree in the world! It sprouted in the year 626BCE, so this year this tree is 2650 years old! And that’s Laure in the green kayak next to it. You can see that the tree no longer has a crown. A huge storm about 800 years ago ripped off the crowns of all the old trees. Yet, they survived, and put out new branches. This 2650 year old tree had branches with green leaves and seed pods.

The tree behind Laura and me has a huge, hollow buttress where (when the water is lower) 10 adult people can fit. In this photo the cypress “knees” are also clearly visible – the pointy, vaguely cone shaped tree growths sticking out of the water. Laura is actually holding on to one. These “knees” are part of the root system of the cypress trees, and help anchor “their” tree as well as interlocking that tree’s root system with the surrounding trees’ roots. This interlocked root system is the reason why the storms these trees experience may rip the their crowns off and twist the trunks into bizarre shapes, but the winds cannot topple them.

This ancient, battered tree is a great example of how a couple millennia of storms at the coast will twist these trees into corkscrew shapes, rip off their crowns and split them in half, but cannot kill them. This tree still puts out leaves every spring and makes seeds.

This is a recording of the first hour of the broadcast of the Apollo 11 moon landing. A YouTuber bought a 60-year-old video tape on eBay, and it turned out to contain a recording of the moon landing broadcast. The live feed from the moon start at around minute 40 of the video.

For us, last year marked a return to (a new) normal, after the COVID pandemic and after my mother’s illness and death in 2022. I am back in the office on a pretty regular basis, and we were able to travel without public health-related restrictions. Although COVID is not “over,” it has become integrated and more normalized. People call in sick for the flu or COVID. I had a cold in late October, and just did a couple of COVID home tests (negative) to inform my management of the illness. Other than a cold, we were all in pretty good health this year, and we are grateful for that.

However, both Laura and I had a bumpy start for 2022 in that regard. On Jan. 2, I went for a run in the neighborhood and encountered a dog who had gotten away from his owner. When I tried to help the owner catch the dog, the dog bit me in my left hand. I got stitched up at Urgent Care, and was fine. Just a week later, on Jan. 10, Laura’s horse bucked her off during a canter in Hill Forest. Laura fell off backwards, but managed to roll on the gravel road. She did hit her head and may have briefly lost consciousness. Julia was with her and called the emergency dispatch, who sent an ambulance their way. Julia also informed me, and I rushed out there, too. Laura was able to walk to the road where the EMT examined her and decided to take her to the hospital. So the ambulance took Laura to Duke Regional hospital, and I arrived as they were leaving, and Julia and I took the horses back home. Then I went to the hospital to check on Laura. A few hours later, she was discharged from the hospital with some pain meds. The only damage from one of her worst riding accident in all these years was a mild concussion and some bruising. We are very grateful for that!

Her horse’s reaction was also very remarkable. Madison was clearly confused by what had happened, and had had no intention of bucking Laura off. When Laura was on the ground, Madison came right over to her to check on her. And when she saw Laura for the first time the next day out in the pasture, Madison whinnied and ran up to Laura to greet her – apparently relieved to see her. Both horses are very bonded to Laura and see her as the “lead mare” in the group. They would never intentionally harm her, but sometimes they do unexpected things that can be dangerous to the rider. Lessons were learned.

Speaking of horses … the highlight of the year for Laura and me was our trip to Iceland in August/Sept. We spent 2 weeks in Iceland, and did 6-day horse tour on the Snaefellsness peninsula. The tour was amazing, and we really got to experience the stamina and character of the Icelandic horses. It was a wild ride in terms of weather conditions, with sunshine, fog, rain, and hail; including spectacular sunrises and hurricane force winds that were pushing the waterfalls back up onto the mountain.

From August 26 to September 8 this year, Laura and I went on a little adventure to Iceland. First we spent a few days with my dad and his partner Marion exploring the area around Reykjavik, then Laura and I went on a 6-day horse riding tour on the Snæfellsnes peninsula. Finally, we drove South and visited the Vestmannaeyar archipelago for a couple of days.

Reykjavik area, Þingvellir

Ever since we visited Iceland in 2005, Laura and I had the idea of going back for a longer vacation. So after an exhausting 2022, we decided it was time. Then my dad suggested we should come to visit him for his 81st birthday, since he was not really feeling up for a trip to the States. Half joking, I suggested we should meet halfway, and surprisingly, he was game. So Günther and Marion booked a week-long stay, and we caught up with them on the 26th and spent the weekend with them.

Traveling to Iceland has become super-convenient for us, as we now have a direct flight from RDU to Kevlavik. So Laura and I arrived early in the morning, checked into our vacation home in downtown Reykjavik and then took a bus to the Sky Lagoon to relax after the short night on the plane. In the afternoon we met up with Günther and Marion for a walk around town and dinner. Sunday morning, I picked up our rental Tesla from Blue Car Rental and we went on a day trip around Reykjavik, visited the Leiðarendi Lava Cave, the Raufarhólshellir lava tunnel, the port town of Þorlákshöfn, and the fumerols at Krýsuvík.

Monday was Günther’s birthday, and he wanted to spend the day at Þingvellir, one of the most popular, and most spectacular places to visit in Iceland. Þingvellir is a national park and a historic site. It’s one of the places where the effects of plate tectonics are directly and spectacularly visible, as the entire valley is riddles with deep cracks and fissures, many filled with glacial melt water, and all the direct result of the North Atlantic plate and the Eurasian plate pulling away from each other by a few centimeters every year. It is also the location of the historic Alþing, the parliament of Iceland from the 10th to the 18th centuries.

After walking around Þingvellir for a hours in the sun, we were hungry and headed back to Reykjavik for dinner at a Thai restaurant downtown to close out the day with a nice meal. After dinner, we said our good-byes and went our separate ways. Günther and Marion headed back home the next day, and Laura and I got ready for our next Iceland adventure in Snæfellsnes.

Riding Horses in Snæfellsnes

Tuesday morning we left our AirBnb, returned the Tesla and then we had a few hours to hang out in the city before embarking on our riding tour. So w hung out at the old harbor and ended up going on a whale watching tour. After that, we went to the bus station where we were picked up by the bus that took us to the horse farm where we spent the next 6 days.

The farm is called Gröf, and it is situated on the southern coast of Snæfellsbær, between Búðir and Arnarstapi. Our tour went along the coast eastward for about 50KM (35 miles) and then back to the farm. We rode about 20KM (13 miles) a day and then left the horses in a pasture for the night and were shuttled back to the farm. So we did a fair amount of intense, fast-paced trail riding every day – in amazing and very unique landscapes and along long stretches of beautiful sandy beaches. But we were also pampered with great food, hot tub and sauna and very comfortable rooms every day before and after the ride. Amazing experience.

Last week, the Fagradalsfjall volcano in southern Iceland produced a new eruption near the Litli-Hrútur mountain. There is lots of beautiful drone footage of the eruption, but this is some of the nicest I have seen, so far. Here is a link to a live webcam of the new vent.

On April 25, our 18 year-old Russian Blue cat named Koklo died. She had been sick for a long time, but recently her health got worse and worse, and on Tuesday she passed away peacefully at home.

Koklo loved – nay adored – Laura. Koklo always wanted to be near Laura and sleep in her bed, sit on her lap or at least be in the same room with her. Koklo’s second favorite was our youngest cat, Azi.