Saturday March 22nd : To the farm and beyond

Looks like Christmas, not Easter.
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Today we woke to a 1 to 2 inch blanket of snow around us. And a glorious sunny day with clear blue skies. Freezing cold still but beautiful. The pond has a layer of thin ice and the whole place looks like a Christmas card. The kids knew to rug up this time before they went out to play. We shopped in the nearby town of Freunfeld and headed for Rosina’s brother’s place. We didn’t have an address but I thought Hauptwil was a tiny place and I would remember their place – I have been there three times before this. Hmmmm. After taking a few likely looking roads out of town we asked at a farmhouse and discovered that they had in fact moved from the house I had thought they were in and lived just up the hill from the place we asked at. Within view in fact.

Snow covered yard
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We made our way to the top of the hill and were greeted by Werner, Gabi, Nicole (16) and Corinna (11). Only Nicole speaks some English so it was a challenge for us all. We began with the international language of food by giving Werner two icecream cakes – he and Andrew have a history of teasing each other about food (as well as being either idiots or capitalists – and often coming to the conclusion that they are the same thing).

We had coffee and ‘talked’ and then went to visit the cows in an amazing shed just as Reto (18yrs) arrived home. He also speaks some English. Ernst, another brother dropped his 8 year old daughter off for a play and arranged for us to visit his family later in the day. There were 10 calves in a pen (4 days to three weeks old – little darlings). We put the kids in with them and they discovered what it feels like to have your whole hand sucked on by a cow. Lots of squeals, laughter and slobber.

Our house for maybe seven weeks.
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Pirmin (9yrs) arrived home and took the boys off to play with the race track in his room. Apparently car noises have and international language. Tess, Kate and the girls played dominos and then Monopoly. The kids loved running around and discovering the chooks, the dog, cats, more calves and cows. All of them except Kate managed to try out the electric fence. We had planned to stay for perhaps half an hour but it turned out to be about four and a half hours. It was lovely and we plan to catch up for a meal some time.

Snow covered yard
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We followed Ernst to his home and met the whole family – Franziska (his wife who speaks about the same amount of French as I do), Eveline (15 –speaks some English and is into netball), Olivia (11 with a smattering of French and English – plays the guitar), Florien (8 – started out shy but soon he and Isaac were great mates) and Flavia (also 8 and who seems to be a live wire – she had the girls playing piggy in the middle in their room in no time at all). Had a lovely talk over an impromptu supper of freshly made bread and hard boiled eggs. They had a huge basket of these with designs on them. They had been dyed in onion skin dye and were a reddish brown colour. You each took and egg and with the pointy end one of you tried to smash the point on the other person’s egg. Then they got to try to smash your rounded end with their rounded end. If you each won a round you got to smash the intact ends together to see who won. Lots of fun and lots of eggs eaten.

Kids in the yard.
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Lovely time chatting and then home. On the way home all the children said that they are very keen to learn German so that they can talk with their new friends. When we got home we discovered that our neighbours had left an incredible basket of Easter goodies for us. Six of everything. Homemade bread bunnies, chocolate chickens and bees, hard boiled decorated eggs (more smashing to come) and lots of little chocolate eggs. We are just blown away by their thoughtfulness and generosity and the children are especially touched. They say they have had the very best day and they list the huge number of special things.