Reminder for die Einwohnergemeindeversammlung

About twice a year there's a village meeting. One of the items under discussion and up for voting is approval of citizenship of foreign residents (Ausländer, like me). In Switzerland, things are organized at a very local level, and for the most part, foreigners become citizens through the community in which they live. Exceptions include citizenship through marriage, in which case the community that confers citizenship would most likely be the community of the spouse rather than the community in which the couple might reside in at the time of application. Switzerland doesn't grant citizenship jus soli, so there are many individuals who, although they were born here, have to meet certain requirements (of residency, etc) and then apply for citizenship if they so desire. These laws are under frequent revision and also vary from locality to locality, so things are always changing as they are in many countries around the world.

The Village Council recommended several individuals for approval at yesterday's meeting. I hope it went well for them -- I'll find out in the monthly village newsletter.

Addendum 1 Jun: The newsletter arrived today and all the people applying for citizenship were approved.

20070530

More of a house like this

Some readers referred to this as a Hobbit house in the comments to yesterday's post. That is exactly how I think of it. Here's a view from one of the sides. The overflow site has several more photos.

20070420

A house like this

I think I would like to live in a house like this... Photographed over a month ago, located near the fields where I saw the rainbow that I posted yesterday.

20070420

Double rainbow near Siggenthal

A double rainbow. (About secondary rainbows at How Stuff Works and at the University of Toledo). I took this photo 5 km from Villigen yesterday evening.

20070527

Red car in the Geissberg vineyards

Someone was tending to the vines yesterday morning and had parked his or her car just above the vineyard. This photo is from our balcony and I've uploaded a zoomed out photo showing the top of the hill, and also a close-up photo of the 2CV, on the overflow site. For a few other views of the hill taken at different times, but from a similar perspective, there were these old posts:
Early morning snow (20070320)
Early morning fog (20070319)
Blue sky over Villigen (20070209)

20071125 Edited to repair one of the links

20070526

First yield of the year

I bought a strawberry plant at Ikea several weeks ago and it has been very happy on our balcony so far. Here is one of the two berries that were ready yesterday. A photo of an unripe one can be seen here: Balcony strawberry, unripe. I also noticed that one of our tomato plants is flowering! Seems quite early to me, though it has been warm enough.

20070525 Nikon Coolpix 950

The old and the new (VI)

An intersection in Baden, showing the ruins of Schloss Stein (an old stronghold of the Habsburgs) that I've shown several times before and newer construction. The building on the far left was just recently completed. For a slightly more zoomed out (and worse quality) view, showing the street and the tunnel that goes under the hill the ruin is on, please visit the overflow site.

Other views of the Schloss Stein:
The old and the new IV (20070328)
Fasnacht takes over Baden (20070218)

20070519

The white goat

Several days ago, Richard in Zürich posted a photo of a white dog which made me think immediately of this goat. I've put a zoomed out view from a different perspective on the overflow site. I think there the similarity is stronger. The white goat: the big picture.

Did you notice the frog at the base of the tree? It was very bright when I took this, and I didn't see him until I looked at the shot on the computer.

The house this garden belongs to is in Stilli, and you'd pass it if you walked along Hauptstrasse away from Villigen. There's a bus top next door so the bus slows down here. I've been practicing taking shots from the moving bus. The photo on the overflow site is from that group.

20070414

Why yes, we have flour!

It's time to go shopping for flour, after all that crop viewing around Villigen for the past couple of days. Here are a few of the items that one can find in the flour aisle in the supermarket. I photographed these little sacks (1 kg, about 2.2 lbs, each) at the chain called Migros (pronounced meegro, itself a topic for several posts). The blue band at the top of the packages state that the flour was produced in Switzerland, using natural farming practices that are ecologically appropriate. If you click on the photo, you'll see a larger image (1125 x 1500 pixels).

I've never made bread. The bread selection at the supermarkets here is more than sufficient for me. How many of you make your own bread?

20070522

Untitled (to be determined after readers write in)

Sadly, I've done very poorly on identifying crops so far. I'll blame it on being a city person who never got this up close and personal with farming until moving to Villigen. In today's post, I'm going out on a limb and calling this wheat, based upon the information that my helpful readers have given me. The lack of awns is what I'm going by. What I had earlier identified as wheat seems to be either barley or rye.

I took this shot near the location of an earlier post at the entrance to Villigen. Here's a link to that old post if you would like to compare.

20070521

Wheat (or barley) Some type of cereal field

Wheat or barley Some variety of cereal growing next to Hauptstrasse between Stilli and Villigen. This field is close to the broccoli or raps/canola field in my post from April 12th. The greenhouse visible at the top of the field is part of the Schwarz agribusiness that I've mentioned a couple of times (1, 2).

Addendum: A couple of readers suggested that this looks more like barley than wheat. I'm putting the following links (which I had initially just put in the comments section) to illustrations and description of wheat and barley at the Cereal Diseases Laboratory website, so that you all can weigh in:
Barley (die Gerste)
Wheat (der Weizen)
and an additional crop to consider:
Rye (der Roggen)

More on this tomorrow. By the way, the bristle on the ears (the seed-bearing head or spike of a cereal plant) is called awn.

20070520

Going through the receiving line

Sunday 19 May 2007, Baden. We were sitting at an outside cafe, next to a church where a wedding had just taken place. It seemed an interesting mix of formal and casual, and what I liked most was when a dog demanded to greet the couple.

I did some jiggery-pokery, as Richard in ZH calls it, on the original photo to pull out the bride and the dog and I have mixed feelings about the result. Please take a look at the original and be my evaluating panel ... Going through the receiving line II.

20070519

Farms viewed in the early morning

There's another photo of the view in a different direction at the overflow site. Farms viewed in the early morning II.

Addendum: I'm reposting this as I had turned the comments off by mistake.

20070516 at 05:46 in the morning

Poppies in fields of wheat green

It is really quite lovely, to see the bright red spots in the green fields which surround us. Usually the flowers are clustered around the edges, but it is possible to find a few in the middle of the field.

I had a tough time deciding which photo to post although they're all similar shots. I couldn't even narrow it down to just two. The reason I chose this one is that I like how some of the stalks are lit while the rest are in shadow. The three others that were contenders are at the overflow site: as always, I would be very pleased to hear what you all think.

To those of you who were interested in the apiary shot from yesterday: I'll try to get some more photos, to show how and where the bees actually have their hives.

20070513

Apiary

These bee apartments are scattered around the fields in the area and we have local vendors who sell the honey. I wrote about one in the post from 16th May.

20070307

Honey for sale

Geraniums are very popular in window boxes here. Especially red ones. In a few weeks, these planters will be overflowing with blooms. This place is several houses down from the car dealership. The big sign reads "Honey from our own apiary" while the little one says "Apple vinegar with honey". For a look at one of my attempts at photographing bees on flowers, please visit the overflow site.

A daily blogger, Abraham Lincoln from Brookville in Ohio, has had a wonderfully illustrated sequence about bees (go here only after you've checked out my bee photo, otherwise you're going to laugh at my lame efforts) showing how they collect pollen from flowers. I wasn't aware of the shortage of bees in the US until I read one of his posts. To read more about that topic, visit the following:

- A plea for bees (from The Vegetarian Times (US) June 2005)
- Species under threat: Honey, who shrunk the bee population? (The Independent (UK) March 2007)

20070512

The fountain across from Vogt

Past the tulips in the yesterday's post, you'll come upon this fountain. The fourth one on this blog so far. There are several more to come.

For a full view of the fountain, visit my overflow site.

20070304

Vogt Mazda

Let's resume our walk along Hauptstrasse. I've fallen out of sequence a little bit, but that doesn't really matter. We have a car dealership in Villigen as you can see here. They sell and service Mazdas.

20070429

Lawnmower

What better way to advertise a product than to have a permanent demonstration? Located on Hauptstrasse in Villigen.

20070512

Für alle Batterien gibt es ...

A public service message about the proper disposal procedure for batteries on billboards around the area. The text says "There's a clean (or clear) solution for all batteries". The image made me do a double-take.

Previous post about advertisements: Public health ad campaign (20070211)

20070509

Rabbit

At least, I think it's a rabbit. No, I don't want to know its fate -- and yes, I can be a little ostrich-like (at least, what they're allegedly like). The rabbit pen is next to the llamas. I had gone over early in the morning to photograph the llamas, but they were still inside their shed. For an earlier llama photo, check out my post from 20070122.

20070510

The obligatory cow post

I had trouble choosing an appropriate photo for this post. This particular shot had potential. I just don't like that I cut off the feet and got that piece of grass in front of his face. The runner up to this one is over here at my overflow site. Take a look at both and tell me what you think.

20070429

Lambs

At Schloss Wildegg last Sunday.

Addendum: I'm going to copy Isabella (in Naples) and Gerald (in Hyde) and ask you to come up with a caption for this photo. The one that makes me laugh the longest will win a postcard. N.B. lambchop is taken. :-)

20070506

Pro Specie Rara seedling market

Yesterday I wrote that I went to an heirloom seedling market at Schloss Wildegg on Sunday. The exhibition ran over the weekend, and it seems that many items were already sold out on Saturday. Anyway, there was still quite a selection of fruit- and vegetable- seeds and seedlings when I got there. Not all heirloom though, judging by the fact that not all the tags had the little red Pro Specie Rara logo you can see in the photos here. And not all Swiss heirloom either. Can you make out the Amish Paste tag (1st column, 2nd row)? That's from Wisconsin, though given the Swiss-Amish connection...

One interesting thing for me was to find that a large fraction of the selection was composed of plants that were brought from the Americas. Can you -- those of you not in the Americas -- imagine what life would be like without things like potatoes, tomatoes, chillis/capsicum peppers and CHOCOLATE?! What would the Swiss do without cacao?

20070506

Goats

This week is shaping up to be animal week. In all fairness, these goats were not in Villigen. I caught them at Schloss Wildegg -- link to the English version of the Swiss national museums website -- 20 km (12 miles) from Villigen. I was there on Sunday, to visit an exhibition and market for rare and heirloom plants organized by the Pro Specie Rara group (not in English, unfortunately). Seed Ambassadors has a little write-up on PSR in English here. (Map)

20070506

Sheep

Well, we've had a nice little jaunt around Switzerland the last few days and now it's back home to Villigen. It seems that every little piece of land is utilized for something, even if it's just something such as growing grass to make hay. There's an area between the houses with the bear mailbox and the phone booth set back from Hauptstrasse where these sheep were parked last week.

20070503 at 06:18

Excursion: Blausee in the Bernese Oberland

The small Blausee (the English version of the website is a bit dodgy at the time I write this) is an interesting and quite beautiful place in the Bernese Oberland. This photo doesn't do justice to what it really looks like and I couldn't get the color of the water right, at least as far as it appears on my screen (Google map, notice the color of the lake in the hybrid, that's not right either).

There's a nature park incorporating the pond, with a restaurant, a hotel and an information center. We stopped there for lunch just as they were opening for the season earlier this year. It might interest some of you to know that the restaurant carries 14 Gault Millau points. I can't speak to that, but I can say that our dishes were very good. If you look near the bottom of the photo, you'll see fish in the water. They raise "organic" (Bio is the term used in Switzerland) trout for distribution all over the country.

Addendum: For a photo of the interior of the restaurant, go to the appendix to this blog that I'm going to try to maintain for the extras. Villigen overflow. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

20070325

Excursion: Scuol in Graubünden

Allegra! as they say in Graubünden. Kanton Graubünden is home to some of the best known Swiss ski resorts. St Moritz, Davos and Klosters are all located in this beautiful place, as well as the home of Heidi in the eponymous tale. The canton website (there's a "choose language" with English as an option) does a nice job of talking about all the sites and interesting things to do there so it's worth a look if you're interested. There's just so much to say, but I'll just mention that the local language is Romansh, which is unique to Graubünden. I chose this photo I took in a town called Scuol because it shows lettering on the wall. This type of ornamentation, designs and lettering carved out of the stucco-like facing, is typical of the canton. Based on the online Romansh dictionary available here, I think that the inscription says something like (literally) "we fall over without the will of God" (Google map showing Scuol).

20060810 Canon Powershot S410

Excursion: Pyramides d'Euseigne in Valais

The pyramides d'Euseigne in Val d'Herens in Valais. The dark rocks atop the spikes are composed of some (relatively) erosion-resistant material which has shielded the softer material below from rain leading to this strange sight (map). The road actually goes under an archway formed by this stuff, click here to go to a photo of the formation and the road that was not taken by me. Edit (20071111): the link I had provided before now goes to a different image, sorry!

20060712 Canon Powershot S410

Excursion: Lago Lugano

I've been inspired by yesterday's theme day to show you some places that I've visited in Switzerland. Ticino (Tessin auf Deutsch) is the Italian-speaking canton in the south east (old post briefly touching on the languages of Switzerland: 20070127). There are two large lakes there, Maggiore and Lugano. I've been to the town of Lugano twice (it takes 4 hours to get there from Villigen with public transportation). Once in the winter (top photo) and once in early summer (second photo). Simply gorgeous both times!

The first photo was not actually taken in Lugano, but in one of the smaller towns around the lake. If memory serves it was Morcote (map), on the way to Montagnola (map) where Hermann Hesse lived from 1919 until his death in 1962. It was in Montagnola that he wrote Der Steppenwolf and Das Glasperlenspiel (The Glass Bead Game), among others. The Hermann Hesse museum (website has an English version) is located there.

The photo below is from Lugano, taken at the Parco Civico on the waterfront (map).


20061103 and 20060602 Canon Powershot S410

Daily Photo theme day: city exchange

The theme this month is "City Exchange". There is some disagreement in the community as to what this means. Some are of the opinion that it should be a local photo that makes the visitor think that they're at the wrong place. Others opine that it should be photo taken in a place other than "home". Since I regularly post photos from places other than Villigen, I thought it would be more interesting to go with the first group and post a photo from Villigen. I decided to do a B&W shot, to emphasize the feeling of disorientation. For the rest of the week, I might post photos from places around Switzerland other than Villigen.

I've shown other foreign sights around Villigen before. Here are links to them:
Americana: Route 66 (20070207)
Anglophilia: Red telephone box as garden ornament (20070223)

City exchange around the world:
Monte Carlo, Monaco | Rome, Italy | Singapore, Singapore | Tenerife, Spain | Rotterdam, Netherlands | London, UK | Montréal (QC), Canada | Melbourne, Australia | Naples (FL), USA | Bastia, France | Hong Kong, China | Mazatlan, Mexico | Buenos Aeres, Argentina | Manila, Philippines | Arradon, France | Madison (WI), USA | Evry, France | Seoul, Korea | Shanghai, China | Bucaramanga (Santander), Colombia | Sequim (WA), USA | Singapore, Singapore | Budapest, Hungary | Baziège, France | Hamburg, Germany | Toruń, Poland | Nelson, New Zealand | Madison (WI), USA | Vantaa, Finland | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | Mainz, Germany | Dubai, UAE | Saint Paul (MN), USA | Cork, Ireland | Stockholm, Sweden | Menton, France | Tel Aviv, Israel | Albuquerque (NM), USA | Kitakami, Japan | Stayton (OR), USA | Szentes, Hungary | Stavanger, Norway | Grenoble, France | Villigen, Switzerland | Paris, France | Hyde, UK | Moscow, Russia | Joplin (MO), USA | Jakarta, Indonesia | Greenville (SC), USA | Cape Town, South Africa | Asheville (NC), USA | Seattle (WA), USA | Kyoto, Japan | Tokyo, Japan | Madrid, Spain | Auckland, New Zealand | Oulu, Finland | Lubbock (TX), USA | Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina | Baton Rouge (LA), USA | Sydney, Australia | Maple Ridge (BC), Canada | Vancouver, Canada | Seattle (WA), USA | Selma (AL), USA | Chandler (AZ), USA | Sharon (CT), USA | Manila, Philippines | Lyon, France | New York City (NY), USA | Los Angeles (CA), USA | Brookville (OH), USA | Hayle, UK | Wailea (HI), USA | Saarbrücken, Germany | San Diego (CA), USA | Boston (MA), USA | Saint Louis (MO), USA | Cypress (TX), USA | Anderson (SC), USA | Torino, Italy

20070428