John Deere and Stihl

Over coffee this morning, I was trying to find excuses not to go to the gym. It was too sparkly a Sunday morning to want to get into the car and drive to somewhere to be inside. I suggested moving the pile of firewood in front of the house, but Lorenz claimed that he first had to move the firewood already in the house. He said if I really wanted to go outside and do something, I should take chainsaw and tractor and do firewood in the back 40. However, he knew full well that I can operate neither, and possibly he sensed a pout coming on but more likely he was also trying to find excuses to avoid sitting inside himself, working on apprentice guidelines and job descriptions. Consequently, he had his safety gear on in no time flat, and I trudged off to the bush to meet him near the carcass of the goat (don't ask).

The idea was that Lorenz would cut deadwood into manageable chunks with the chainsaw, I would pile them into the tractor bucket, and then they'd be taken back to a pile by the house where they'll dry for next year's firewood. The only problem was that cutting the deadwood and driving the tractor back and forth was about 90% of the effort, while loading the bucket was, at most, 10% - and Lorenz helped me with that! The first time the tractor went back to the house, I entertained myself by throwing snowballs for the dog (Boris loves being pelted with snowballs, he thinks they're candy and eats them), admiring the contrast of moss and snow, and piling the next load in one spot. As you can no doubt surmise, that sort of excitement wears off pretty quickly - and then, with the new load already pre-piled and Lorenz helping, I was down to about two minutes of work every half hour (if you're keeping score at home, that's now less than 10% of the time...)

What to do? I'm terrified of chainsaws, and Lorenz is incredibly possessive of his tractors. But wait! In the next few minutes, I was allowed into the secret little club of people who have driven one of Lorenz's tractors! With little warning, he started talking about clutch, gas, brake and the hydraulics of the bucket, and showed me a bunch of things with orange knobs and reminded me of the "sag" in the bucket and next thing you know, the switch was flicked to four wheel drive and I was on my way to the house on the tractor! My excitement was pretty much exactly the same as the time I was put up on the tractor when I was eight years old to steer it back and forth across the field while other people tossed stones into the trailer - but this time, my feet reached the pedals! In my excitement, of course, I forgot about the hydraulic sag and dumped my first load of wood in the middle of the path. Fortunately, I did remember the caution to put the bucket all the way down when I stop the tractor (because that's the parking brake!) and I remembered which orange knob stops the engine. From then on, remembering to keep tilting the bucket back, I made it to the house without mishap.

The next three trips were full of potential screw-ups - for example, I could easily have dumped the bucket by mistake again, hit the blind donkey (she tried her best to step in front of the tractor), whack the bucket on a tree if I turned too sharply while backing up or do some of the things depicted on the warning label. Fortunately, though, I did none of these things, and merrily went about my new job while Lorenz felled dead trees and other intimidating things (Boris stayed far away from chainsaw, falling trees and tractor-driving trolls). I didn't want to stop: Lorenz was letting me drive the tractor!

My tractor-driving excitement is matched, by the way, by Lorenz's delight in his new toy. He went to some farm show this week, and came home with tales of a root washer. Just in case the toy's name hasn't tipped you off yet, a root washer *washes roots*. You dump the roots in the washer, lower the top half into the water-filled bottom half, turn it on and the motor drives a belt and rotates a synthetic brush - the roots are pushed up towards the brush by the belt, which pushes them back down, and, in theory, gently cleanses the delicate roots. I say in theory because for now, we've only seen it sit there - on Lorenz's to do list this week is to buy the necessary ingredients to do the wiring for the motor. Tarrah is already hoping to wash carrots on Tuesday - and that's the first time I've heard someone looking forward to washing carrots, especially in winter when the barn is very chilly.

But it will be a while before there is a new crop of roots. For now, the greenhouse is slumbering in the snow next to my peaceful drifted-in garden. Lorenz needs to do his seed inventory and order this year's varieties soon, though, because it will be time to start the plugs before we know it. I've been doing some research of my own using gardening magazines: my plan is to make like a cuckoo and secretly seed flats full of flowers and then smuggle them into the greenhouse and let Lorenz and future interns take care of them. Then, before anyone figures out they're not tomatoes, I'm going to transplant them into the garden!

Pretty and sparkly as the farm is with all this snow, I can't wait for spring! Soon, it will be warm enough to sit in the adirondack chair on the south side of the barn on sunny Sunday afternoons. Soon. I hope. Otherwise, I too will go batty and start making strange faces at the oddest moments.

Red Barn Troll Abroad

When I have phone mail, my landline starts flashing a blue light. Obnoxious as it is, it's the only way for me to notice it. Unfortunately, several times over the past months, the blue flashing has meant I missed H.P.'s call *again*. It seemed like a neverending game of phone tag, except that I was never "it". 'Tis true, I'm terrible at returning calls. And H.P. was getting increasingly used to talking to a machine...

Well. What was I going to do? The obvious answer would be, start calling him back. But the obvious path is not nearly as much fun as the unexpected one: I decided to go visit him. Lorenz has been skipping off to Germany so frequently, there must be something good to be found there. So, time to launch the Stuttgart Edition of the Red Barn Troll. Never let it be said that I'm not a superb snoop: if I spy on a farm, I spy on the farmer, and now, it seems I spy on the farmer's extended family as well.

This is the part where you get envious, because I can assure you, last Thursday night, I had more fun than you did. Trust me on that one. In September, I hung out with Til - who, if you will remember, is Lorenz's older brother. I had big fun, and not just because Til was such a good tractor picture model. So, I wanted to see Til, and finally meet the famous Gia: after all, H.P. sings his sister's praises, Lorenz think she's the coolest thing ever, and Til said all kinds of wonderful things about his wife. I felt left out! She was the only one of the clan that I had never even been casually introduced to. You know what? She's as cool as they say.

And hey, while I was at it, I also got to make the acquaintance of H.P. and Gia's mother, and Til and Gia's sons, Karl and Falk. And no, I don't think it's at all weird that I go out for dinner with what amounts to a large chunk of my landlord's extended family. Nor did I think it odd that I spent the night at Til and Gia's when I have family of my own in Stuttgart. But then, I'm the same girl who thinks it's perfectly normal to take pictures of the warning on cigarette packages. If by now you're concluding that it was a late night and there were items that you get good deals on in duty free stores involved, you'd probably be right.

What I do, however, find strange (and unexpected) is how truly nice the Eppinger clan is to Lorenz's barn trolling tenant. Lorenz's mother took us all out for dinner, and then, when it was already quite late, we trooped into the Eppinger senior house to chat with Lorenz's father (who was, at the time, busy researching trees for his private park of a backyard). At this time, I also met a particularly important member of the family: Boris, version 12 or so. See, the Eppinger dogs are all named Boris, so the Greenfields ball of fur actually is part of a bigger tradition. I guess it's much like hiring only Taras and Simons: you never have to bother learning a new name!

Now, spying mission accomplished, I have one small problem: I want to go back! But, alas, I am here in a rainy Tuesday. Though you don't need to feel sorry for me: I'm still as spoiled as ever. There's a German expression, "von nichts kommt nichts" - and perhaps an idiomatic translation is "like family, like son". Last night, I plunked myself down at the kitchen table and ate lasagna courtesy of Lorenz. I even made a token protest when he opened a bottle of wine, saying it wasn't really worth it - but that's when he invited me for dinner again tonight. It's Malcolm's birthday soon, and there is a birthday dinner, which means I better get back to actually working so I can get enough done so I can skip out of here in time to go pick up the cake and spy some more.