This blog collects notes from Höfen, a small village in Southern Germany, where Kathrin from public works was living and working for a year.
The (kind of no) fruit situation and my perosal task to make some schnaps whilst I'm here have led to a new food route: two bags of elderflower berries from the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (as part of myvillages.org starting the Vorratskammer project) in Berlin have travelled with me to Höfen - by high speed train. I am waiting for some sunnier weather to match them with some rural berries, and to reach the crucial 100l volume that is needed to take it to the official distillery.
Andi very kindly drives us around the fields on his tractor once in a while. The kids are superhappy - all bouncy and bumpy and no safety belts - and I got a good update on the latest Land Rationalising Programme (Flurbereinigung). Can you see how wide and solid and mud free the lanes now are? This is obviously not part of my memory of a rather unorganised and romantic landscape around my village, where you could wander around overgrown lanes and flooded meadows. Those lanes and landscaping is rationalisation and engineering on quite a level, and listening to Andi is a good lesson in avoiding nostalgia about the countryside that I never even used as a farmer.
Swapped a cucumber and some peppers for a bucket full of blackberries with Waltraute Müller - arrange by my mother Heidi Böhm.
It had never occured to me until today, that my ambition to make some of my own schnaps in Höfen might be cut short by the fact that there is simply not enough fruit. A very long and very cold spring, and a cold and wet summer mean that there isn't any of the surplus fruit that normally fuels local wine and schnaps production: apples, pears, plums.
After a walk around the fields I can report that there are luckily some trees with fruit, and it's now a matter of who owns them and if they harvest them, in order to rescue my schnaps plans. Otherwise I will have to divert to elderflower and rosehip, which are both classified " specialist" schnaps - probably because it's incredibly timeconsuming business - which means my Schnaps would indeed be for very special occasions only.
I come from here and I've been here so many times during the last 20 years that I can't quite tell the difference of arriving in order to stay for a few months - rather than a few days - yet.
We had "welcoming' gifts - very sweet from Erna and from Ingrid and her daughter. There was a village fete in the next village called Freudeneck (that's "corner of joy" in english) with another version of a pop up village shop, and I had silly amounts of meet.
Kathrin - that's me - from public works and myvillages.org is moving back to her home village of Höfen in Southern Germany for the next few months. We are moving there with the whole family and will increase the village population by 2.5% - that's amazing.
From there I'll be working on a number of projects such as Ourvillages and Höfer Waren which I started with myvillages.org in Höfen a few years ago, and other interlinked projects such as Rhyzom, the International Village Shop.
For updates on rural life and work check this blog, and if you want to get in contact just e mail, phone or simply visit!
Höfen 22
96179 Rattelsdorf
Tel (00)49 9547 8732 206
