Simply tree trunks

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Simply trees

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A straight stretch of road

One of those rare straight segments of road through the fields, as seen from a location on our village hill.

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Little lamb

I loitered for a while to see whether I could photograph it with its head up but it was busy eating, eating, eating. I don't know why its coat looks as scruffy as it does. Anyone?

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Blue sky, reflected

A barn facade, I think. The shapes and arrangement of the windows caught my eye.

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The right tool: die Haspel

Surely, it would warm the cockles of Martha Stewart's (in case you don't know who I'm referring to, click here) heart to see how nicely the tools are organized over by the Schwarz greenhouse (last seen here). Notice the stencilled label AND the helpful photo next to it, which is a little difficult to make out in this image.

At to what this object does, I'm at a bit of a loss. My guess would be that it smoothes the soil and removes pebbles and clumps in preparation for the planting of seeds. A postcard to the one to provide a good (as judged by me, hey it's my party!) answer.

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Another recyclables drop off point

We're about done with the various options available to us in Villigen for disposal of common unwanted material. PET (Wikipedia article) bottles and sundries can be dropped off at most grocery shops (including the small Volg we have right in the village, old post here.) Pictured above is the Coop (pronounced cope) supermarket in Würenlingen, just across the river Aare from us.

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Recyclables drop off location

The Gemeindehaus (parish or town hall) I mentioned yesterday is also the local drop off point for a few other types of unwanted products.

The red container is for steel cans (the wheel is a crank to run a press that flattens the cylinders.) Aluminum - cans, foil, lids from yogurt and other containers - goes into the yellow. The green is for oil, both motor and cooking. The grey, I'll have to get back to you on the grey as I couldn't read the sign from outside the fence (it's locked up on Sundays.) Barely visible way in the back is a container for old clothes. These are supposed to be items that still have useful life in them.

Not pictured in this photo are the containers for glass, batteries, flourescent bulbs, Nespresso capsules (old post here), some sorts of building materials and styrofoam peanuts.

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Paper pick-up day

Altpapiersammlung

Four times a year our paper is picked up for recycling. The various social groups in the village take turns to do the pick-up. Today the Freizeit Club (recreational club) performed this service. In this photo they're collecting the paper from the Gemeindehaus (parish hall).

A post from last year:
Altpapiersammlung

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Green waste pick-up day

While we're on the topic of garbage and refuse. Fridays are green-waste pick up days. In the summer it's every Friday while in the winter it drops down to every other Friday. If I understand it correctly, there's an electronic chip on the individual containers which is read out when the waste is collected and this information is used to calculate the charge for the transportation.

We (the residents of my building) share this container pictured here and we use it for both garden and kitchen waste. Some people have their own compost piles.

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Trash pick-up day

Thursdays are when our trash is picked up. Notice the orange rectangles on the bags? They're stickers that we have to buy to pay for trash removal. They come in different sizes: 35 liters, 60 liters, 110 liters.

The fountain is the one that was in this old post:
Fountain Villigen 1854

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Recycle

The old camper seems to serve as lodging for sheep.

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Under a willow sky

Living willow structures seem to be rather popular. Do you have any around you??

Update: Since I've now had a few comments from people who haven't seen these, I'm adding this link to a website run by an 'environmental artist' in the UK. This is about the best illustrated site in English that I've been able to find on the topic. Enjoy!
New Living Willow Sculptures

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PSI and beyond

The village in the far background is Würenlingen. The big buildings at the rear belong to the PSI (click on label below see other posts related to it.) The twin side-gabled buildings are some sort of farm buildings. The rock conveyor for the Holcim cement plant is visible to the right of those.

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View beyond Rein

A view looking beyond the village of Rein. The church tower to the left is the same as in this old photo.

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Yes, there are people in this village!

I have no idea what was going on, but I caught at least three horse-drawn carriages traveling down to Hauptstrasse a couple of afternoons ago.

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Sheltered farmhouse

Another view from the hill. A nicely sheltered farmhouse on the outskirts of Villigen. Distant mountains visible in the back.

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Wildflower 15: Hemp agrimony

A walk up our little hill Besserstein provided a few photo opportunities. Eupatorium cannabinum. Gewöhnlicher Wasserdost.

Moth: Jersey Tiger. Euplagia quadripunctaria.

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Excursion: Details in La Chaux-de-Fonds

Artistic details permeate through La Chaux-de-Fonds. This is a dog leash hook on the exterior wall of a restaurant. For a few more photos (a new shopping mall, an old bank building and an apartment building with a mural) please see my other blog:
La Chaux-de-Fonds II

This is the last in this excursion series. We shall return to our regular programming tomorrow.

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Excursion: Le Corbusier and La Chaux-de-Fonds

La Chaux-de-Fonds was the birthplace of a few people known by many such as Le Corbusier and Louis-Joseph Chevrolet (the Chevrolet bow-tie is said to represent the Swiss cross.)

Le Corbusier (1887-1965) spent only a small part of his career in Switzerland and there are only two of his villas in La Chaux-de-Fonds itself. This one pictured here is the Maison Blanche (white house) which he built in 1912 for this parents. It was his first project as an independent architect. The official website has an English version: Association maison Blanche. A couple more Corbusier related photos from lCdF on my overflow blog.

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Excursion: La Chaux-de-Fonds in Canton Neuchâtel

Next to Le Locle lies the city of La Chaux-de-Fonds, population 37,000. As with Le Locle, watchmaking was established there early on and La Chaux-de-Fonds remains the center of the Swiss watchmaking industry. An example: Rolex was registered there in 1908 though it is now headquartered in Geneva. Movado, Omega and TAG Heuer are some of the watch companies that are still based in La Chaux-de-Fonds. There is something weird about seeing the buildings carrying the company logos, right next to grazing cows.

Unusually for a Swiss town, La Chaux-de-Fonds is built on a grid plan, with wide boulevards as seen in this photo (the view in the other direction can be seen on my overflow blog.) How come? A devastating fire in 1794 burned down most of the town and the city planners decided to rebuild it this way, with special consideration given to natural light (important for the watch making process), resistance against the spreading of fire and space needed for gardens to grow their own food. (Much of the garden space now seems to have been taken over by parking spots.)

La Chaux-de-Fonds on the Swiss tourism website.

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Excursion: Underground mills at Col-des-Roches

About 2km from Le Locle is Col-des-Roches, where the river Bied has forced its way underground through the limestone by carving out a chain of caves on its way to the river Doubs. The formation of the Bied didn't lend itself to the use of waterwheels, so a few enterprising people figured out that they could install waterwheels inside these caves after chiselling out the rock. Not a trivial task, but necessity can be a strong motivator. Construction began in 1652 after the appropriate easements were secured. A long and varied history followed upto its closure in 1966. At its peak, 5 wheels operated in the underground mill. The last thing for which the caves were used is rather shocking: an abbatoir set up on the border to check imported cattle for disease in 1898 used the caves as their dumping site for the carcasses of those animals that had to be destroyed, and for sewage.

In 1973 a group of enthusiasts commenced on a cleaning and restoration program and now the facility is open to the public. We had an excellent guided tour in German, sadly I think there is no English version at this time. For a few more photos, visit my overflow site:
Excursion: Moulins Souterrains
Museum website (in French): Les Moulins

Trivia: Col-des-Roches is at 919 m above sea-level. Villigen is at 367 m. Even several hundred meters underground in the caves we were still higher than we are in Villigen!

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Excursion: Le Locle III

Maison DuBois, one of the oldest watchmaker houses in Switzerland, is now operated as a bed-and-breakfast. A different experience, to be in such an old house which is dated 1684 - I'm guessing the company DuBois was registered in 1785. (Even more odd to have Wifi access there!) It's difficult to say what's really, really old, what's really old, and what's just old. Link to related Swiss BnB site here.

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Excursion: Le Locle II

Here we have a close up of yesterday's scene, showing some of the details on the buildings. Note the palm tree, and the shades of lilac on the three buildings in front.

One of my readers yesterday made a comment about the green belt rules. I think that is an important factor in the zoning and use of land. There are sharp boundaries between the built-up areas and the surroundings. I rather appreciate it; nicer than sprawl.

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Excursion: Le Locle in Neuchâtel

Le Locle in the Jura mountain range in Canton Neuchâtel (Neuenburg in German). The original center of the Swiss watchmaking industry. It is somewhat unreal to me, the way the new part of town rises up sharply from the surrounding fields. Some more pictures over the next few days. Click on the photo for a 2240 x 1680 image.

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Llamas in August

A few of the Villigen llamas have been moved to (higher) pasture. Old posts mentioning llama listed here.

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Organic

Organic - or Bio as they call it here - fertilizer being applied to the fields. Give thanks that olfactory properties don't convey over the Internet (yet?)

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Tractor amongst the grapes

Well camouflaged.

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With apologies to ...

... the now-trite motivational poster.

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Rappen - centime - centesimo - rap

One-twentieth of the Swiss franc. The 4 different Swiss language groups have four different terms for the subunit of the franc. Rappen (Swiss German) - centimes (French) - centesimo (Italian) - rap (Romansch).

Click on the languages label below to see other posts related to languages in Switzerland.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, Rappen is derived from Rappe (raven). First documented appearance in an English text: 1838 Murray's Hand-bk. Travellers Switzerland.

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City daily photo theme day: Metal

The first of the month is theme day for the daily city photo blogging community and this August the topic is metal. As August 1st happens to be the Swiss national day, I wanted to combine the two.

Helvetia is the Roman name for the region of Europe between the Alps and the Jura. She personifies Switzerland, as seen on these coins. The Swiss confederation, Confœderatio Helvetica, was formed on August 1, 1291. For those of you who might have puzzled over it, that's the reason CH is the country abbreviation for Switzerland (source: Wikipedia). Incidentally, the typeface Helvetica? Developed at a Swiss type foundry in 1957 by designer Max Miedinger.

Click here to view thumbnails for all theme day participants

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