Wild garlic. Allium ursinum. Bär-Lauch. Pesto, anyone? To see a blossom opening, check out my overflow site (link).
Update: I replaced the original photo as I like this one better. The old one is at the link above, with the sprouting photo.
20080504 Nikon Coolpix 950
Geranium pyrenaicum, as far as I've been able to determine. Corrections always appreciated!
20080424 Nikon Coolpix 950
The two artisans in the photo are making triangular bowls ("Foglio"). A finished bowl can be seen on the left of the photo, and a glowing-hot one is near the center.
The Glasi in Hergiswil was founded in 1817 by the Siegwart family and it flourished for over a hundred years. However, by 1975 it was no longer competive with the modern automated manufacturing plants abroad and there were some dark years when it looked as though it was doomed altogether. It was saved through the efforts of the glassblowers, the community and, most importantly, the vision of Roberto Niederer (1928-1988), a glass designer originally from Naples, Italy. Robert Niederer, his son, is the current head of the factory.
The Glasi is now well-established and employs about a hundred people. They have a little museum on site (free!) which opens onto a gallery where visitors can observe the glassblowers at work (location from which I took the photo).
Some tidbits:
- Glasi doesn't use lead in its glass. The resulting glass has a higher melting temperature (thus hardens in less time than leaded-glass) and the artisans have to work quickly to form the pieces.
- The furnaces have a lifetime of 5 to 8 years (24-hour operation), cost CHF 3 million each and require 2 months to assemble. The temperature in the heart of the furnaces is 1500 deg Celsius.
- The artisans currently at work at the Glasi come from Portugal, Italy, Spain und Switzerland. They work in 2 shifts from 05:00 to 21:00
20080426
The Vierwaldstättersee (lake-of-the-four-forest-cantons aka Lake Lucerne) is a favorite destination on beautiful days. This is at Hergiswil, a little town that is home to Glasi Hergiswil, a prominent Swiss glass manufacturer. This glass seagull is one of their products and I took this photo from a small exhibition area at the factory.
Previous posts from around the lake:
Brunnen, Vierwaldstättersee, Weggis
20080426
I posted a photo last year, but maybe a reminder isn't too unwelcome. These little flowers are about 1 cm (0.4") across. Birdeye Speedwell. Gamander-Ehrenpreis. Veronica chamaedrys. Entry on plant-identification.co.uk here.
20080425 Nikon Coolpix 950
Sunshine today! Lots of little flowers to photograph. I haven't identified this one yet.
Update: Thanks to my readers, I now know this to be forget-me-not (Myosotis scorpiodes, or maybe alpestris, though at Villigen's elevation of 367 m, not so likely). Wikipedia article here. Common name in German: Vergissmeinnicht (same as in English).
20080424 Nikon Coolpix 950
It's raining even harder today, so I went digging through my old albums to see what the weather was like around this time last year. This is from Solothurn.
20070428
I had to make a short trip to Geneva today and my photo ops were at high speed, through the plastic of the windows. I couldn't get rid of a white balance problem, so I decided to just go to greyscale.
20080416
Warm-cold cycles typical of spring can make it difficult to figure out when to turn off the heating system. N. B. I'm not a fire expert, but I'm pretty convinced that a clean-burning, efficient fire burns hot and clear, with almost no smoke. This one doesn't seem to fall into that category...
20080415
Perhaps you're familiar with the Bernese mountain dog? These Villigen residents are not "pure-bred" Berners, rather they're referred to as Swiss mountain dogs. On a related topic, here's an old post about the St. Bernard dog.
P. S. To the nice couple who let me photograph these two: Thank you!
20080412
Some high pressure water cleaning, a new coat of paint... This is the Villigen post office. Click on the 'post' label below for other posts about Die Post.
20080412
Definitely not black, so perhaps a female or a juvenile. There was a black one in Brugg some time ago.
20080405
Out in the fields around the village. That's the steeple of the Rein church in the background.
20080316
Another one from the Auenstein/Rupperswil area as yesterday. Could be the Aare or the Gislifluh..
20080330
