Waldführung mit Andreas Schäfer und Ente

Wir sind heute bei einen Wald gegangen. Wir treffen mit einem Mann heißt Andreas Schäfer und er hat über der Schwarzwald gesprochen. Er arbeitet bei Städtisches Forstamt als ein Förster. Zuerst hat er über der Schutz Wölfe gesprochen.  Wir sind ihm durch den Wald gefolgert. Er zeigte die verschiedenen Bäume, Erde und Pflanze auf und er sagte woher die Pflanzen kommt.

Hiking through the forest and getting a first hand experience with the trees and how they grow truly helped. We reached a clearing toward the beginning of our tour with tiny pine trees. Andreas explained about the difference in chopping down a section of forested area instead of creating a controlled catastrophe. Chopping down all the trees to steal their wood, making them into rocking horses, is basically destroying the land and ruining most of the chances for that plot of land to regrow in a healthy and natural way that improves the environment. Instead, if we needed to clear the land for natural purposes, it would be burned in a certain section or somehow brought down by natural sources and some of the natural plantation to be left there. He didn’t really talk most about it, but he loved to talk.

That was really something I learned from taking this tour with him: The Germans love to talk when they can. Or least Andreas did. He would just go on and on about all the little details about each individual plant. What was lineage of the plantation in Germany? He knew that in excessive detail. When was the last time a wolf was spotted in Germany?  He’s got that info. What’s the difference between a pine, spruce, oak, tadpole, chopped wood, “Zukunftbäume,” rocks, and water? He probably knows. And the similarities between them all. I would say that trees and nature would be his nerd rant.

Otherwise from being a short day, today was quite fantastic. Sam had a chance to meet a very close bunch of spiders, which my post won’t even be close to relating. Read her blog here! But for tonight, we might go try to figure out how the Pfand machine works.

A Pfand machine is basically a recycling machine that literally pays you for bringing in the correct recycling bottles. There’s just a hole in the middle of the machine and you chuck all your empty bottles in there. A receipt will spit itself out when you’ve finished putting them all in there with a certain amount of store credit. This gives every citizen that extra incentive to recycle their things, considering they make you pay for the bottle first. Once you’ve returned the bottled into the machine, they pay you back the same amount you paid for the bottle in the first place. Almost everywhere pays an up-charge of .25 Euro. Tonight I’m going to try to get some of my money back from all the pretty inexpensive beers we’ve bought from Penny. recently. Penny. is one of the grocery stores here that reminds me a lot of Aldi, but more like a Walmart version of Aldi. It’s so cheap that I feel the need to buy everything just because I won’t be able to find it cheaper anywhere else. Beers for only .29 Euro each? That’s under .50¢! Living off the food markets and cheap grocery stores can be pretty easy here.

Also look at this cute duckling.