13 April 2015 - Mole hills and glacial questions

Tim and I enjoyed a brisk morning walk at he back of Bermatingen, past the pond and through the budding orchards.  I don't think I would ever tire of that route for a morning walk.  It is so beautiful and subtly changes each day as spring takes hold.

Magnificent magnolias!

And so Term 2 began, without a real break unless we count the week when we were skiing.  No matter how hard we tried to "buy" some time off school, it was really tricky to set aside another week and keep up with the work.  We are getting the idea of the distance education and some of the earlier stresses about submitting work etc are now no longer big issues.  It was a productive school morning followed by another walk to channel wriggly energy, some lunch and some more school.

When there's something to climb....

Mid afternoon we headed off for a 10km walk through our local forest exploring some different paths.  We had noticed that the fields seemed to be full of little smooth rocks.  As Karl (and Luke ) have been doing an online Geology course and they thought this must be a glacial area.  When we researched it we found that it is indeed a glacial area and that the Bodensee is an example of a "zungenbecken" or tongue basin lake formed by the hollow left behind by the ice as the glacier recedes and eventually forms a "finger lake".  It was formed by the Rhine Glacier in the Ice Age.

Which path to take?

Sharing the love!

Beautiful wildflowers...and a beetle!

Wild violets and other flowers make a lovely carpet on the forest edge.

The other thing we have noticed are little humps of earth in fields and paddocks.  We suspected them to be mole hills and indeed they are!!  Moles are a protected species here in Germany and are probably about as welcome as "protected" possums are in our backyard in Australia!  Luke enjoyed researching moles and we found out that they eat worms, which they pull apart before eating to get the dirt out of the gut of the worm!  They don't actually eat roots of plants but it is their digging that destroys fields and gardens.

Mole hills  - patches of dirt!

Another random cross

Little twittery bird as yet unidentified!

In the forest there are so many bird songs but birds are hard to spot as they dart in and out of the shadows of the trees.  There are an increasing number of butterflies as spring takes hold and we saw a beautiful peacock butterfly who kindly posed for a photo before flitting off!

Peacock butterfly

Pond at Rimpertsweilerhof

Busy bees at Rimpertsweilerhof

Passing the farmyards with great names such as "Rimpertsweilerhof" and breathing the aroma of livestock is what country living is about.  We got back to Bermatingen at the perfect time to cook dinner and when I asked Tim (who usually wears a watch) what time it was, the church bells spontaneously tolled 6 times, so it was a perfect time to put the dinner on the table!!!

Love the names

.