Cow Appreciation Day

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Today, July 12, is Cow Appreciation Day.

When I volunteered at the Franziskusgemeinschaft community in Austria last autumn, I certainly appreciated the cow.
Her rich milk was made into butter, cream, and cheese; the fresh raw milk was also great to drink. 

She loved to eat the mash that was left over after we pressed apples.
Ah, I do miss the good folks and the friendly animals there at the farm.
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(Linking to Camera-Critters and  ABC Wednesday.)
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Burying carrots in the cellar for winter, Europe style

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Today is International Carrot Day.
It brings back memories of my wonderful month with an Austrian farming community.
It was October and some of the root vegetables had been harvested and were awaiting further attention in two colorful wheelbarrows. 

Look, a three-fingered carrot!

Ready for longtime storage in the big underground cellar.

But THIS was new and exciting to me (although common knowledge for Europeans)!
They bury the carrots in this sandy ground in the floor of the cool cellar!
The old and true ways of food storage during the winter.
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(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)
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In the tomb

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This, my friends, is THE picture for today, the day Christians call Holy Saturday.
The day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday when Jesus lay in a dark tomb, hidden away, here in my country, in Jerusalem.
Although not a Christian I can't help but wonder what the feeling of Christians is on this heavy day. 

I entered this silent, dim, empty 18th century church in rural Austria alone.
How stunned I was to suddenly discover a life-sized dead "body" lying below the altar.
Such a life-like statue! 

It was almost too life-like.

And look here -- how often do you see a pieta with Mary holding his hand?

A Way of the Cross ends on top of Mount Calvary, with three crosses as the final station.

The old Baroque church is called in German Kalvarienbergkirche.
Next to it was built (in 1984) the Franziskusgemeinschaft, the communal farming community where I volunteered last October-November.
It was a wonderful experience, all of it.
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(Linking to inSPIREd Sunday.)

Tell A Fairy Tale Day

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Tell A Fairy Tale Day is being celebrated today!

What better time than now to tell you about a unique experience I enjoyed while staying with the Franziskusgemeinschaft in Austria last November.
The community invited Eva Meierhofer, a professional storyteller, for an evening of fairy tales!

Eva came with a thick book of  "the world's most beautiful fairy tales."

Also a strange little book, "Tales of Idiots, Poor, Beggars, Jews, and Gypsies."

Since I didn't understand all that much of the German, I could concentrate on Eva's pointy shoes and special umbrella.

The Feenhaar, literally fairy hair, played with a bow, gave ethereal music.
I think it is also called a psalter.

You can hear a sample of its music and see beautiful photos of how the instruments are made in Switzerland here: http://www.klangkunstwerk.ch/Feenhaar-Fairy-Hair

All the members of the Franciscan farming community gave it a try.
It was really a magical evening in rural Austria.
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You can look for Eva Meierhofer on Facebook and see more of her special work.
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Juice fresh from the apples

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A is for apple juice, straight out of the apple press, in Austria!
Helping with the apple picking and pressing was a favorite Arbeit for me last October at the Franciscan community farm.
At noon and evening meals together, endless bottles of our homemade juice and cider and the fermented cider the Austrians call Most were always on the table.
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(Linking to ABC Wednesday, today entering its 9th year with Round 18!)
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Mistletoe, fresh off the tree

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Since National Geographic published a nice article about mistletoe today on their News site, I figure it's time to blog about my mistletoe experience.
No, mine had nothing to do with kissing under the plant ... in fact I had no idea about these Christmas-time customs or even what mistletoe looked like.
The very last day that I was at the farm community in Austria last month, several of the men went off to the forest to cut some mistletoe off the trees.

Bruder Fritz, who founded the lay Franciscan commune in 1984, was kind enough to show me a cluster and explain about it.
Especially that the white berries are poisonous!

 

It is a parasite and  "it keeps that lively green color by stealing water and soil minerals from its host tree," as the National Geographic says. 

The article has nice photos of clusters in a tree and of various species and of birds eating the berries.  

And the surprising news is

There’s also evidence to suggest that some species of mistletoe can be used in treating cancer—something that people have actually used it for since the 1920s. Doctors today can prescribe mistletoe in Europe. And at Johns Hopkins’ School of Medicine, doctors are performing the first rigorous, I.V. study of mistletoe’s effects on cancer patients in the U.S.

 Here is a funny tidbit from the Oxford Dictionaries blog:

The custom [of Christmas kisses] seems to be restricted to England and the USA. I’ve asked friends from Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Spain, and even from Scotland and Ireland. Bavarians bring mistletoe into their homes and put it in vases but none of my fellow Europeans came across kissing under the mistletoe as children. Their countries know of the custom now, but from Hollywood, and they think of it as an English or American eccentricity. 

UPDATE: Make sure to read readers' input in the comments.  All kinds of interesting things coming in from USA, Canada, and Europe!

UPDATE Dec. 24: 

BBC earth just published about mistletoe, including this interesting info about a good plant-animal symbiosis: 

Pairs of mistle thrushes will often set up a territory around individual trees and defend their stock of berries. But mistle thrushes are not actually very efficient at distributing mistletoe seeds. They eat the berries whole, defecating a sticky mix of pulp and seed half an hour later, when the birds are likely to have moved on.

Much more efficient are blackcaps. These little birds eat the skin and pulp of the berry, but discard the sticky seed first, wiping it off their beaks against the bark of the tree. This is perfect for the mistletoe, as the seed is placed firmly against the branch ready for germination.
Interestingly, in recent years we’ve seen many more blackcaps migrating to Britain over winter, and this could be beneficial for mistletoe.
There is evidence that mistletoe is increasing in some areas and some of this could be down to blackcap activity, although this is likely to be a combination of factors, including better protection of the ancient apple orchards that are the most important habitat for mistletoe.

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Happy Children's Day today!

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Happy children playing ping-pong on the marble table under the linden tree in the courtyard (Hof) of the Austrian Franziskus community (where I just spent a peaceful month).

Happy Universal Children's Day today! 

"The United Nations' (UN) Universal Children's Day, which was established in 1954, is celebrated on November 20 each year to promote international togetherness and awareness among children worldwide. UNICEF, the United Nations Children's Fund, promotes and coordinates this special day, which also works towards improving children's welfare."
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Unter den Linden

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What a relief -- no more raking leaves in the courtyard.
(Can you tell it's R day at ABC Wednesday?)

The leaves have all fallen and now is the time for community members here in Austria to clean the gutters and sweep the roof.

The one tree in the courtyard kept me busy raking the grass this past month.
The linden tree is about 110 years old!

Austrian reflections: churches, candles, and muddy pants

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Austria has given me a few pictures for James' meme, Weekend Reflections.
First, in the entrance to the St. Vincent old people's home, which has a nice modern chapel of its own*, you see steeples of the two big churches of Pinkafeld.
The Evangelische Pfarrkirche and the Roman Catholic church were both built in the 18th century.

In the door of the Rathaus, Pinkafeld's city hall, the main street of the old part of town is reflected.
Notice the "1639" above! 

Back at the Franziskus community where I am spending the month, the candles in the little gift shop (where everything is made by the 18 members) show through the window, while on top the courtyard and house are reflected.

And near the window, a telltale sign that this is a working farm.
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*One of the nuns was sitting in the chapel praying, so I didn't take pictures there at St. Vincent's.
Too bad, because they have an interesting modern wooden "crucifix," but the cross has no crossbar so Jesus simply has outstretched arms.
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Sister Moon and stars of wonder

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One of the advantages to living in rural Austria this month is being able to see many stars in the very dark night.
Another awesome thing is seeing this cosmic trio for the last few mornings on my way to the chapel as the community of St. Francis gathers for 6 a.m. prayer and meditation.
Near the moon is Jupiter and below is Venus pairing with Mars!

As St. Francis said in his Canticle of the Sun --

Laudato si, mi Signore, per sora Luna e le stelle:
in celu l'ài formate clarite et pretiose et belle.

Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars;
in the heavens You have made them bright, precious and beautiful.
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(Linking to SkyWatch Friday.)
Also see The Night Sky Guy about this phenomenon.
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Ephemeral snow poles appear

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I was working in the field yesterday (here at the Franziskusgemeinschaft farm in Austria) when I heard a tap-tap-tap down the road apiece.
Soon this truck drove up and workers from the nearby town hammered a snow pole into the ground.
Something new for me, an Israeli from the desert!

These Schneestangen show drivers how deep the snow is and where the sides of the road are, and they even have reflectors for night driving.
These ephemeral snow poles are here today and gone at the beginning of spring.

EPHEMERAL is the subject for City Daily Photo bloggers' Theme Day for November 1.
Visit the CDP portal and see what others have come up with for this challenging theme.

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A cat warming up by the firewood

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Siamese cat sunning on a bench by the woodpile on a chilly Austrian afternoon.
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(Linking to Camera Critters.)
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Kraut in the afternoon sun

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The late afternoon sun was warm here at the Franziskusgemeinschaft in Austria.

A good time to harvest the cabbages.

In German cabbage is Kraut.
The kitchen has served Kraut in many different recipes in the ten days I've been working here, and they are all good.
Krautfleckerl was today's noon meal.  It is a typical Austrian dish of square pasta and carmelized white cabbage. 

Two community members cut the remaining row of purple cabbages in the front garden.
I followed them and uprooted each plant, shaking the rich dirt from the roots.
That's a first for me.
I love learning new farming things from the dedicated people who have tended this land since the early 1980s.
We wheelbarrowed the harvest back to the courtyard (Hof) and worked on cleaning up the cabbages and selecting which would head to the cellar and which would be cooked the very next day. 
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(Linking to SkyWatch Thursday.)
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Jausenbrote -- breaking bread in rural Austria

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This evening some 15 of the community members walked five minutes up the road to this Gasthaus for a nice supper.

A common sight in Austria. 

Lots of  geese in a big pasture.
The neighbor farm also raises cattle, pigs, chickens.

The menu is overwhelmingly pork but I found one smoked beef dish.

They make every time of beverage imaginable from their apples.
It is high season now for the apple pressing. 

The meal comes on a thick slice of bread, served on a wooden cutting board.

Everyone gets a sharp knife to cut it into manageable sizes.

I took a backwards stealth picture of the one side of the cellar.
There were more happy Austrians on the other side.

Here between two guests is Mr. Luif, the nice man who owns and manages the whole farm and restaurant.
Four generations live and work together.
See more at their website, in German.
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The bounty of the earth

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This afternoon we took advantage of the sunny day (the first I have seen in my 9 days in Austria) and worked outside.
Nice how the beets are color coordinated with the wheelbarrow, no?

We prepared the freshly harvested root vegetables for storage in the cellar.
 There was parsley and some other herbs too.

Here I'm showing off a 3-fingered carrot.
The food here at the Franziskusgemeinschaft  is great.
The community of 18 members is self-sufficient in meat, dairy, vegetables, and fruit and nuts.
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