Getting ready

Buntings being put up in preparation for the Swiss national day on August 1st.

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Two deux chevaux vapeur

Near the village entrance is this Citroën shop. Parked next to the building are these two 2CVs. That makes 3 red 2CVs in Villigen. Third one seen last year here and here. In addition, I've spotted a grey one but haven't photographed it yet.

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Before and after?

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Decay

The barn and the spiderweb. Both succumbing to the march of time.

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Onto the next thing

Firewood, maybe. If you're at all curious about the environmental impact of heating with wood, visit the Canada-based woodheat website.

A quote from there:

"Whatever energy source you choose, its use will have an impact on the environment. The best energy sources are renewable and the best of those are solar power and wind power because their environmental impacts tend to be low. As good as they are, though, they do have their problems and limitations. Wood is another renewable energy source with its own problems and limitations, some of which can be managed and minimized, others of which cannot. But when it is used effectively, wood is a fine fuel compared to the fossil fuels like oil, gas and coal, whose consumption leads to global warming. "

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Chair

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The remains

The remnants of some crop are being arranged into rows that will be gathered up by a different machine.

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Pallets for organic seedlings

The local agribusiness Schwarz has been featured on this blog a few times. This building is a new addition to their greenhouse for seedlings. A view from the other side of the greenhouse here.

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Fieldwork

A little play on words this Wednesday. Some intense harvesting going on, I think of leafy green vegetables.

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Two houses

Different eras, different styles. The concrete block house peeking out on the left appeared on my blog once before.

If you're curious to see what it looks like on the inside (not quite as hard and cold as it looks from the outside) you could visit the architect's website. A warning though: it's a Flash site and not very user-friendly and there's no direct link to the project. So, go to "Bauten" and then to "Haus Kern".

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Honey from our apiary

That's what the sign says. There are a few beekeepers around Villigen, which seems to be a good thing. Some old posts here (keyword bee) : the bee on a swing belongs to these people.

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Baustelle II

A public works construction site. This one in Baden.

I spent some time observing the goings-on while enjoying my Kaffee und Kuchen (coffee and cake) at the third-floor (US metric <- that's a curious combination) restaurant in the department store Manor. A bit vertiginous up there. This photo in an old post of mine shows the general area: the construction is going on to the right of that shot.

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Baustelle

Construction site.

Quite a bit of house building activity has been going on in Switzerland recently. Cranes such as this one can be seen in almost every locality.

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Excursion: Moosalp in Valais II

One last look before ending this excursion to Valais. Mountains and hills. A bit of glacier, some snow. Blooming alpine flora. This is the view in the opposite direction (more or less) to the one in this earlier post:
Excursion: Moosalp in Valais

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Wildflower 14: Black vanilla orchid

Nigritella nigra. Schwarzes Männertreu (in CH), Kohlröschen. The blossoms supposedly smell like vanilla but I couldn't get close enough to verify this or to take a better quality photo. They're somewhat rare orchids and are a protected species. Wikipedia entry in German here. Another photo on my overflow blog, here. Old botanical drawing here, click on the image to enlarge.

Photographed near Moosalp in the region of Visp in Canton Valais.

Update: Okay, I have to add this link to a site with gorgeous photos of this flower and other beautiful things: Marco Klüber

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Excursion: near Hellela in Valais II

There are few natural lakes in Valais that I know of. The region we've been exploring over the last week (around Visp) has one of the lowest levels of rainfall in the country and that necessitated a complex network of canals connecting sources of water such as natural springs and glacier run-off to the meadows where the cattle grazed. Shown here is one of the artificial reservoirs made as part of this system.

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Excursion: near Hellela in Valais

Plants thriving on the forest floor at about 1600 meters above sea level. Notice the twigs bundled up and placed behind the tree trunks (center left). In the woods around Villigen, the twigs are left where they fall, at least as far as I've noticed. Different forest management procedures in different places.

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Excursion: Moosalp in Valais

Cows grazing in Moosalp. The stocky black cows are from Hérens in Canton Wallis/Valais. They're prone to fighting. An old post of mine related to these cows and cow fighting, Swiss style (not to fret, no gore):
Excursion: near Saas Almagell in Valais

Two more cow photos from this trip are up at my overflow blog:
Bellicose cows

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Excursion: Hellela in Valais

An overnight trip and a lot of photos. A walking trail marker - Wanderwegweiser - somewhere in the vicinity of Hellela in Canton Wallis (Valais in French). Rough orientation here via Google Maps, be sure to zoom out to see the setting within the tall mountains.

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Excursion: Bundesplatz in Bern

Enjoying the fountains at the Swiss parliament square (Bundesplatz) in Bern.

The building in the back is the parliament building and it has recently had all its renovation-related scaffolding removed. The square with the 26 fountains representing the 26 Swiss cantons is a big hit with children (and dogs) in the summer. In case you were wondering, the water is collected in an underground tank where it is cleaned before being recirculated (source).

To see a couple more photos that I took, visit my overflow blog.
Here are two old posts of mine about the parliament.
To see some pretty photos from the architects' website, go to Lee + Mundwiler.
To see movies of the fountains in action (Wasserspiel - water play), visit this Bern website (look in the red box on the right).

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ARA Schmittenbach

In the vicinity of yesterday's area. ARA = Abwasser (waste water) Reinigungs (cleaning) Anlage (facility). The waste water from Villigen and a few surrounding villages is treated here before being discharged into the river Aare.

Total number of residents served by this facility: 6040
Volume of waste water handled in 2007: 999000 cubic meters

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Dry stream bed

Schmittenbach runs through the village and I've done a couple of posts on it (I may even have called it something else by mistake). It actually flows through the area behind our building and here's another related post. It seems to be fed by rainwater and we had had a few dry days a couple of weeks ago which might be the reason behind this low water level.

P. S. I had written up this draft for Thurday and I accidentally published it on Wednesday so some of you might have had a ghost of this on your readers.

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Entering Villigen

Not exactly the boundary of the entity that is Villigen, but this is one edge of where the built-up area starts. The speed limit on the road correspondingly drops to 50 kph (31 mph) from 80 kph (50 mph). The highway speed limit is 120 kph (74mph).

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Milking shed

This is the building housing yesterday's cows. Some of the cows sauntered out casually after being milked while others, like these two, hoofed it out of there.

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Eighteen cows

I happened to walk by just as these cows were pastured after being milked. It was interesting to see them walk out of the milking shed one by one and head to this patch of land.

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Planned and unplanned

The first time I saw how the planted fields run into wildflower patches, I was surprised. It is possible that it is done intentionally, to attract pollinators such as bees. There are certainly a lot of them and butterflies buzzing and flitting around the area.

The deep shadow in the foreground makes it difficult to appreciate the wildflowers, so I've uploaded a 1280 pixel x 1024 pixel photo (more than 40% of my visitors have monitors of that size) to allow a slighly closer look. Click on the image to see it.

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Destination unknown

Unknown to me at this time -- I'm trying to find out a little bit of what happens to Swiss crops and specifically what happens to the stuff grown around here. Since this is probably barley rather than wheat, it's probably headed to become food rather than a fuel of a different kind.

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Crops with chapel in the background

Addendum: I think many of us have had the issue of food shortages and food price increases on our minds. I came across this story in the Guardian about a leaked secret report from a World Bank study that estimates that it is the diversion of crops to biofuels that has increased food prices by more than 75% (the US government claims that the push for biofuels in the US and the EU has contributed to only a 3% increase).

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Wildflower 13: Brown knapweed

Flora: Brown knapweed (IMHO rather a dull name for such a pretty flower). Centaurea jacea. Wiesen-Flockenblume. Looks like I incorrectly identified it as cornflower last year.

Fauna: Marbled white. Melanargia galathea. Damenbrett or Schachbrettfalter.

A week ago when I posted a photo of a small blue, Tash of Palos Verdes DP made the observation that butterflies are difficult to photograph with their wings spread out. I had never thought about this as I had never tried to photograph butterflies with any dedication so I decided to give it a shot. I now completely agree with her!

And finally, those of you who have an interest in old botanical drawings might like this. The following book has been scanned and is available through the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research: Flora von Deutschland Österreich und der Schweiz (1885)

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Perish the thought

The sign makers were determined to cover all the bases. This sign hangs in our partially-underground garage. I wonder why the pipe isn't fuming.

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No horses

Seen at the entrance to a path down to neighboring Stilli. Today, is theme day for the CDP community. Please visit the portal to find out what members all over the world have selected to show as forbidden activities in their areas.

Some of my visitors were tickled by an earlier post showing a 'no tank on bridge' sign. If you missed it, you can see it by clicking here.

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