2018 week 29: Grazing cows

A very faded Swiss flag, and some cows on the pasture. If I'm not mistaken, these are the Wagyu cows that Chlopfi's farm raises.

76. Idyll

28. A tribe of llamas

I couldn't find a proper collective noun for llamas, so tribe will have to do.
(Photo from 2011).

27. A brood of chickens

(This photo is from 2011).

26. Plough, from the old days

An old workhorse, now an ornament.

Composition in blue and green

The greenhouses of the Schwarz company dominate the area near the entrance to the village.

The view from the hill can be seen in this post:
View from Besserstein IV

Cow grazing

Yes, we've got lots of grazing cow shots.

Nice mix of types, from the black-and-white to the mousey-brown.

Grazing cows

A few dairy cows grazing just outside Villigen.

Crates

These are the crates that are used to carry the farm produce from the fields to the Schwarz processing center. I've written about Schwarz a few times before -- search in the archives if you're interested.

The style of this photo was inspired by Michael Wolf's photos of Hong Kong high-rise apartment buildings in his series "architecture of density".

Corn/Mais

I found the following statement on the agronomy department website at the Iowa State University in 'Origin, History and Uses of Corn'. Link here.

The word "corn" has many different meanings depending on what country you are in. Corn in the United States is also called maize or Indian corn. In some countries, corn means the leading crop grown in a certain district. Corn in England means wheat; in Scotland and Ireland, it refers to oats. Corn mentioned in the Bible probably refers to wheat or barley.

In German the word is Mais.

Transporting the bales

The electricity pylons stand guard as the bales of hay are loaded onto a tractor trailer for transport.

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Bales

These are the stalks of cereal plants that have had their grain removed. At least, that is my assumption.

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Fields of gold

Looking at Villigen as one drive in from Brugg. The little S-shaped "cloud" at the right is from Leibstadt, one of the handful of nuclear power plants in the vicinity.

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Cows in the corner

I don't know if you can even see the animals in the upper left corner. Perhaps you can make out some flecks of brown and white. For shots like these I do miss my old power-zoom point-and-shoot.

There are these bits of land around Villigen that are used to pasture animals during the summer months. I should try to find out more about how the system works.

Today's side topic is lab-grown meat. I quote from The Independent newspaper (link) in the UK, to describe how it came about:

... the culmination of years of work by Mark Post, a medical physiologist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. 

And about the points in favor of the stuff:

One assessment, published in 2011 by scientists from Oxford University, estimated that cultured meat uses far less energy than most other forms, apart from chicken, and some 45 per cent less energy than beef, the most environmentally destructive meat.

They also found that synthetic meat needs 99 per cent less land than livestock, between 82 and 96 per cent less water, and produces between 78 and 95 per cent less greenhouse gas. In terms of relative environmental damage, there was no contest. 

I think the greatest challenge will be to get people to eat it. But for the sake of the world, I hope something will change in the meat business.

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Two trees in Thalheim

Thalheim is a village of about 800 souls 11 km from Villigen.

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Harvesting

Here's another one for you city folks: a potato sugar beet harvester.

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The SLS viewed through a field of corn

I seldom mention it, but Villigen is home to Switzerland's largest national research facility. It is called the Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI) and there are almost two thousand people who work there.

Here, the SLS (Swiss Light Source — click here —) building rises above a field of corn.

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Hay bales on a truck

It's that time of the year. Hay is being collected and stored for the winter. Tomorrow I'll show you how cylindrical bales are wrapped.

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Barn

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Tractor and tree

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