A final day on the beach: Nebel und Sonne an der Ostsee

We've had more than our fair share of cool, foggy weather during our time on the Baltic. This, however, does not deter German beach goers in any sense:

Fortunately, two days ago, the sun began to break through:

And early the next morning it looked like this:

It was time for us to hit the beach!
The first thing that will catch your eye on the beaches of Germany are the hundreds of "Strandkörbe" (Beach baskets). People can rent these, by the hour or by the day, to sit in, relax and have a bit of shade:

We rented "Lucky #13" Strandkorb:

Here's the view from our Strandkorb...
Straight ahead:

To the left:

To the right:

We settled in for the day and I began my observations in earnest.

This is my kind of beach. There's a small cafe every few hundred yards directly on the beach:

This guy is straight out of Baywatch:

Seriously:

As a relatviely impartial observer I noticed that...:

There are many very creative sand artists:





There are many exciting things for kids to do here:




People from all walks of life come to Heringsdorf:




...and "Speedo" type swimsuits remain very popular with the men here:

Here's my obligatory (but heartfelt) post card:
Having a wonderful time, wish you were here! ♥ ♥ ♥

A trip to a German market

One of my favorite things to do when I travel outside the U.S. is visit local markets and grocery stores. It gives an outsider like me a fascinating glimpse into a culture and local preferences, interests and tastes:

Cold cereal, for example, is not a traditional German breakfast food. Since the last time I was here, however, they have really branched out in their cereal choices. Nougat Pillows, anyone?:

The Wellness Flakes with chocolate might be a healthier choice, though:

I could amuse myself for hours in these stores, wandering around and looking at all the things I never see at home in our stores. Like this, for instance. I can honestly say that I've never had the option of purchasing a banana flavored drink before:

Or a chocolate covered banana, for that matter:

How about some raspberry flavored "wobble pudding" (Jello) with vanilla sauce?:

And why don't we have pear yogurt in the states? It actually sounds pretty good:

Last time I checked, we Americans don't put kernels of corn on our pizza, whether we're "western" or not:

And then there's this. I just don't know what to think about this. It's "pigs' head jelly":

No, really. You need to see this:

This stopped me for a second. When was the last time you saw German flag napkins at YOUR local supermarket?:

Then there's this naughty pumpernickel bread. What kind of message is this package trying to send me?:

I notice that chocolate has gotten bigger since my last visit:

But who isn't made happy by big pacakges of chocolate?:

A trip to the Baltic Sea

When I last blogged, my mom and I had safely arrived in Berlin. After an overnight hotel stay and suffering from a nasty case of jetlag, it was time to pick up our rental car, get my aunt and all her luggage in, and find our way to the Autobahn:

With cars flying past me at 220km/hr, I tried to appreciate the countryside. With my car as heavily loaded as it was, going any faster than 140ish was out of the question. These windmills are an extremely common sight along parts of the Autobahn:

We stopped at a roadside cafe for a bite to eat:

Of course, a wurst and a brötchen was the best choice possible. With a great deal of senf (mustard):

As we left the restaurant, we noticed a pile of books (available for borrow) stashed in the corner. My aunt, my mom and I almost laughed ourselves to tears over this book. Have you ever wondered what the "Scent of Passion" smells like? Apparently this book wants to tell us all about it:

We hit the road again and from here on out we drove on a Landstrasse instead of the Autobahn. It was very pretty:

But, as pretty as the roads were, jetlag was rearing its ugly head, making me extremely drowsy and I was very happy to see this sign:

The hotel was kind enough to have my slippers waiting for me:

And they gave my rental car a lovely front row parking spot. My car is the third one from the left:

Kidding. Here's my rental car. It's a diesel VW Touran. I've not seen these in the states:

The hotel has been very accomodating so far. Every morning, an agenda for the day awaits me at the breakfast table:

Peppermints remind me to "Exhale. You're on vacation":

The toilet paper is extremely pretty:

The weather has been overcast - my first glimpse of the Baltic was very gray and chilly looking:

Hey, have you ever seen ducks swimming in the ocean? I hadn't:

The shells on the beach are very small:

Do any of these look like hearts to you?:

Ice cream is very popular here. I found a giant blackberry in my first cone. Yum:

This could easily become a habit. But hey, it's vacation!:

Assorted images from a very long day: Air travel, Frankfurt and Berlin

Why I was late getting to the Portland airport:

Emergency instructions courtesy of the headrest video screen in front of me:

Movie that I watched while flying over Greenland:

Mineral water with lemon. Nice touch, Lufthansa!:

Real cutlery, tasty food...feeling pretty happy right now:

I had to get up to use the bathroom at this point in the trip:

Making a ball of yarn:

Sunrise:

Brrr....it's really cold out there:

Critter Farm travelling truck gearing up for the landing:

Frankfurt: delight in being in the back seat of my uncle's car again:

"Fresh strawberries", "fresh asparagus from farmers":

German coffee...Mmm...:

Frankfurt train station, rebuilt after partial destruction during World War II:

Passing out from exhaustion on the train, but desperately still wanting to take photos:

Guess where I am now:

Street scene:

You don't see these old bugs very often in the big cities anymore:

I think this almost every day :-) :

And might I just say that there are some terribly nice cars here? I take pictures of these like some people collect matchboxes. Here's a beautiful Audi:

A flashy Mercedes outside the train station:

The BMW dealership:

An elegant Mercedes parked outside a nice hotel:

My first German wiener schnitzel in five years:

with this for the fries:

This, of course, to wash it all down:

The new release arriving next Friday:

"Die Dinosaurier sind los!":

...And now, for the first time in almost thirty-six hours, I will sleep in a bed. Jet lag is always so interesting. I'm not very sleepy now. It's only 4:15PM at Critter Farm after all, but it's 1:15AM here in Berlin.

Tomorrow, we drive to Heringsdorf on the Baltic Sea. Good night!

An adventure away from the farm

In just a few hours, my mom and I will be leaving on a two week adventure together.

The two of us are going to Germany to visit our family there. It's been a long time since I've travelled just with my mom. I'm nervous and excited at the same time.

Our flight to Frankfurt will be ten hours and ten minutes. It's an awfully long time to sit on a plane, but the blessing is that it's a direct flight and there will be no stops or layovers.

To hopefully make the 610 minutes of air travel time pass more quickly, I've asked my mom to teach me to knit. Fortunately, most airlines allow knitting needles aboard their flights. Roxy helped me gather my knitting stuff yesterday:

Once we arrive in Frankfurt, we'll take the train (a five hour trip) to Berlin to meet up with my mom's sister. The following morning, we will drive up to the Baltic Sea, about 3 1/2 hours northeast of Berlin, to a town called Heringsdorf to spend a week at the beach. This town is so far east, it's practically knocking on Poland's door. See the little red "A"? That's where we're going:

I'm conflicted about leaving my sweet farm. So much is going on around here....my goat boys are entertaining, the chickens are laying, my garden is growing before my eyes and it's a tough time to just disappear. My raspberry bushes even gifted me with a handful of ripe berries yesterday evening:

Ah, but...a once in a lifetime trip, just mother and daughter, lies before us. Nervous/excited, excited/nervous...

Assuming that Germany has the Internet (lol), my little Critter Farm travelling red truck and I will try to post a few updates from there.

Snake....in my kitchen

It's a really good thing I don't have issues with snakes.

Imagine my surprise when I walked into my kitchen yesterday afternoon and this caught my eye...:

Coming out from between my kitchen cupboard and baseboard:

At first, being the mom of two boys, I thought someone was playing a joke on me:

But I was home alone. Yet here was a snake slithering across my kitchen floor:

He had no problem with me taking my fill of pictures - he just lay there, occasionally flicking his tongue at me. Here he is giving me a slight smile:

But then it was time to go outside. Seriously. My kitchen ain't big enough for the two of us:

He was quite heavy but very docile:

I definitely would not have been so calm doing all this all by myself had I not already researched this guy when we found him last week curled up in the ivy outside...:

Er, uh, well, what I *thought* was him last week. Do you see two snakes in this picture?:

Wow, last year we didn't see any of these and now we've got two. My google queries tells me they are rubber boas, common to Oregon and Washington, and are completely harmless. They are commonly used to help people who have a fear of snakes to overcome that fear, because under no circumstances will this snake bite a human. They eat small rodents which makes me very happy, given the damage those little buggers have been causing around here. Supposedly rubber boas are nocturnal, but this has clearly not been my experience:

The one we found last week is still here, hanging out in the ivy. He looks even bigger than the guy I found today:

Anyway, as much fun as kitchen snake and I were having together, it was time for us to part ways:

He didn't even look back:

Hopefully, he'll prefer it here to my kitchen.

The cough

So, maybe you are wondering how Pete the baby goat's cough is doing?

About a week and a half ago, both goat boys received a 3 day course of antibiotics during which time Pete's cough lessened somewhat. Unfortunately, it returned with a vengeance this last weekend. Another call to my small town vet was in order and, this time, we decided that a worming medicine appropriate for the treatment of lung worm would be in order. Goats naturally get worms, a number of different kinds, and need to be regularly de-wormed to keep them healthy:

While my property is neither low-lying, nor does it have the standing water that frequently accompanies this particular diagnosis, the nagging cough that is brought on by activities such as jumping, running, etc., makes it a strong possibility.

You can imagine how happy I was that the treatment didn't include a needle this time. It's a squirt-in-the-mouth type of application:

My son, Aidan, vet assistant for the day, promised the boys each a cookie if they took their medicine without fuss:

Reggie, appreciating anything that goes into his mouth, had no problem going first:

Pete took his medicine like a big boy, too, and even asked me for a bit more:

Pete then climbed onto Aidan's lap and promptly had a coughing fit. Since his mouth was already open from the coughing, he also took the opportunity to yawn. You can tell here that Aidan wasn't quite sure what was coming next:

Reggie thought the whole display was just ridiculous:

Ultimately, both boys were unanimously unimpressed by the whole thing. Pete quickly went to his bench to take a rest:

And after a minute, Reggie climbed on, too. It was nap time:

We'll worm them again today and tomorrow and hope this finally addresses Pete's cough.

Cakes of Love

Cool title, huh?

Are you wondering what this post will be about?
Well, it's about cakes. Made with love.

I don't profess to be a baker - and I'm most certainly not an artist. However, I like to make creative birthday cakes. They don't always turn out like the images I have envisioned in my mind, but I've learned to live with this and, instead, try to enjoy the creative outlet it provides for me.

For many years, every time one of my kids had a birthday, I would order a themed birthday cake from the specialty bakery in town. They were always very lovely cakes, quite yummy tasting, but also very formulaic. No style, really. Too perfect.

Then Aidan, my youngest son, told me that his biggest wish for his birthday one year (I think he was five) was for a homemade birthday cake. Guilt feelings from the working mom ensued and I immediately agreed that this was what he would have.

"What kind of birthday cake would you like me to make you, Aidan?" I asked. "A wedding-cake birthday cake, momma", he replied. Wow. Really? I wish I could find the picture of what I wound up making for him, but since I can't, let me just say that my memory tells me it turned out quite well. It was a two-tiered wedding cake that had the second tier resting on pillars. The lower level had a dirt bike scene recreated on it and the top tier was a skiing scene. I used props. PlayMobil was my best friend.

And so, with this one request, a new family tradition was born. Each birthday thereafter, both my boys would try to outdo the other with their request for their homemade birthday cake. They would try to think of the kookiest thing imaginable and thought it was hilarious to try to stump their mom. Here are a few examples from the years:

It's hard to tell in this photo, but this is Piglet and some lizard and snake pals playing soccer on top of this cake for Aidan:

Teagan asked for the "dinosaurs playing football on a volcano with a river running down the side" cake for his 15th birthday:

Here is the life-size electric guitar cake I made for my oldest son, Teagan's, 16th birthday (I was so tired by the end of this one, that the white guitar strings are more than a bit crooked):

This was the "purple monster with wings and sharp teeth cake" Aidan requested for his 14th birthday:

Aidan requested a "half rhinoceros, half alligator cake" for when he turned 15 and this is what he got. If I recall correctly, he was rather unimpressed but I thought I pulled his request off quite nicely:

I can't remember what the specific request was here, but obviously it had something to do with aliens fighting each other. Teagan has always liked aliens. I made the cupcakes individual spaceships:

I really have no excuse for this next one. I must've been really tired and did not receive my "instructions" in time:

My apologies for this next one. This was the "severed zombie head" cake:

It was, afterall, Teagan's 18th birthday. I pulled out all the stops:

He was surprised that I actually pulled it off:

So, when my sister asked me about three weeks ago to make a cake for her son, my nephew Andrew's, 10th birthday, how could I say no? Andrew wants a snake cake.

My creative juices began to flow.
First, I baked three chocolate bundt cakes. Andrew loves chocolate:

I covered a long piece of plywood with foil so my finished product would have something big to lie on for transport. Then, I looked up pictures of snakes online. I'm ready:

This is always the nerve wracking part: making the cuts and piecing things together:

Aidan assisted by preparing the frosting. We were trying to get a portion of the frosting red, like blood, for the inside of the snake:

Sadly, we got mauve instead. This will just have to do:

Aidan's next assignment was to grind cookies into "dirt" for around the base of the cake. He's such a great assistant:

The crucial moment: attaching the head:

Once I was finished, we moved him downstairs to my basement pantry where it's only 61 degrees. This will help his frosting harden a bit until tomorrow:

If I were to straighten him out, he would measure almost 54"...that's 4' 4" long:

I used those candies called "runts" for the teeth. Mmmm...banana flavored! Aidan cut a tongue out of "fruit by the foot". Everything's edible on this guy:

The tradition continues. I hope Andrew's as pleased with his snake cake as I was to make it for him!

A trip to the vet

My Nigerian Dwarf goat, Pete, has a cough. It's not debilitating, but it's a nagging one. It's concerning because he's had the cough for almost as long as I've had him, which is six weeks now. That's a long time to have a cough.

After consulting with my local vet on the phone a few weeks ago and giving an antibiotic shot of Tetradure to both Pete and Reggie, Pete's cough still has not gone away.

Activity seems to aggravate it. When he jumps down from things, runs down a hill or I give him a good pat on the side of his chest, he makes this croupy sounding, hacking cough. Definitely time for a vet visit. Chronic pneumonia can be a slow killer. It creates abscesses in the lungs and is very resistant to antibiotic treatment. I decided to take my other goat, Reggie, along, to the vet, too, for comparison purposes. Reggie is four days younger than Pete, but is significantly larger (fatter) and more robust than Pete.

Knowing how much I hate going to the doctor, my friend Marcee, a.k.a. frugalmom, flew in from Illinois to help me:

Not really. I mean, she did help, but she was already here and I was glad. Getting two teenage goats into a carrier, out of a carrier and into an unfamiliar place is quite a task:

Once inside, though, Pete was quick to investigate his surroundings. The reading material immediately caught his eye:

Reggie was a bit shyer. But, after a quick kiss from Marcee for luck:

Reggie set off to explore, too:

Everything needed a sniffing:

Then Reggie decided to piddle on the waiting room floor:

No problem. The barefoot vet assistant cheerfully cleaned it right up:

The vet listened to Pete's heart and lungs. He (Pete) was such a good boy:

The diagnosis: not chronic pneumonia. This is a very good thing. Pete does, however, have some lung congestion. Reggie, who also received a "once over" from the vet sounds a bit "nasally":

The vet felt that a course of a different antibiotic was in order. The treatment: 1 cc of Baytril every other day for the next three days:

When we got back outside, the sun was shining:

It was a successful first trip to the vet. Pete and Reggie made some new friends and I feel better knowing that Pete doesn't have anything chronic:

I wonder if these boys will learn to love the car as much as Roxy:

Roxy doesn't think so:

Distracted in June

Distraction

dis⋅trac⋅tion  /[di-strak-shuhn]
–noun
1. the act of distracting.
2. the state of being distracted.
3. that which distracts, divides the attention, or prevents concentration: The distractions of my husband interfere with my farm duties.
4. that which amuses, entertains, or diverts; amusement; entertainment: Having Jim around is a major distraction.

Distraction is the June word-of-the-month for me so far. If you haven't noticed, when I'm distracted, I don't blog. In my inimitable style, I completely blame my man, Jim, for this. He took the entire first week of June off from work. While we didn't have any big plans, we spent a lot of time doing all the things we love to do together and none of the things I should have been doing. So, I've got a lot to share. Try to stay with me now, because I'm going to jump all over the place with my story.

Here we go.

We took a day trip to one of our favorite beaches:

Roxy loves it here as much as we do:

Somebody really needs a haircut:

While there, we went to our favorite cafe:

My coffee was WAY bigger than Jim's:

The drive back home was eventful:

Back home, I encountered the biggest, grossest slug of my life on the way to the garden:

Poor, misunderstood, disgusting, little fella:

We noticed our friend, wee little bat, is back in the barn:

My man played with his new toy:

Have you ever noticed that almost everything's bigger in the country?:

Then we went kayaking. I generally spend the entire time looking at the back of my husband's head on these excursions:

This is not the approved kayaking position:

The weekend, then, was all about Dragon Boating. My son, Aidan, is on his high school team. That's him with the paddle:

Their team won the high school championship for the second year in a row!:

They were very happy. Shyness doesn't really run in the family. My boy is the one in the center, holding the trophy:

It was an incredibly fun first week of June. Jim's back at work now. Maybe I can concentrate again.