Sonnenhof

"Hey Burble, wanna help me catch the chickens? Be careful, the brown ones have no fear..."

I know it's spring here because there are bugs everywhere.

My day here at Sonnenhof farm is taken up with things like catching the bunnies and arguing with the male duck who doesn't want to go to bed because he's fighting with his mate. He has to be gently encouraged into the duck house at night and I always feel bad when I hear his mate quacking agressively at him as he enters the house.

We met Sylke Fredricks through the German WWOOF site. This is a site that hooks up people who want to work for short (or long) periods of time on a farm with people who have need for workers. It has been one of the best ideas I've had for a while and I'm debating ditching my scheduled work in France in July and coming live here forever. The longer I'm traveling, the less responsible I find myself and Paramedic school seems like a far away dream that doesn't need to be accomplished at any point in the future.

Sylke and her five-year old daughter Clara are fantastic. The Burble and I are staying in a luxerious guest room and eating three wonderful meals a day all in exchange for work on her farm. I'm finally around animals again which is awesome. The town is tiny, only one church. The bell rings every quarter hour but I've almost stopped hearing it. And the weather is amazing, it rains when it's sunny and there are incredible sunsets.
It's right near the town of Colditz where there was a famous POW camp in WWII. We went to visit it. It was really interesting because it was during Hitler's "let's not let everyone see that we're killing loads of people" phase and they strictly respected the Geneva Convention. (America can't follow it, but hey, Hitler could...) The prisoners were treated really well but they were really bored and there was no penalty for escaping, the police would just bring them right back to the camp. So they used up their time desiging all sorts of crazy schemes to excape like building a plane in the attic and sewing themselves into milk crates and etc.The camp is within walking distance from Sonnenhof.

These are the inhabitants of Sonnenhof:

Clara is five. This means she has a lot to say and she really doesn't care that I don't understand a word of it. She babbles on happily while holding my hand and I nod and sometimes say, "ya?". She is deliriously happy that Burble can draw and demands he draw her princesses. Burble, who usually draws dying thalidimide babies and junkies killing each other is really put to the test here drawing something wholesome and sweet. I think it's good for him. I draw her ponies and she draws me fish that look like boxes.

Clara has two rabbits names Flecky and Flocky. I gather this means Snowflake and Spotty. They are secretly evil. I am actually a little afraid that they plot to take over the world while they lie complacently in the sunny window of their house. As soon as I let my guard down they make desperate breaks for freedom. They are cute, which gives them an extra advantage as they plot our demise.

Next to the rabbits is the paddock containing the an ancient horse and a small Shetland pony named Max. The horse is a wonderful creature named Chatoo who follows me affectionatly around as a muck his stall. I have gotten to ride him once and despite being my age he attempted every trick in the book and took advantage of me at every point.  The pony, in traditional pony fashion, is adorable and malicious, waiting to shit in his stall until the very point it is spotless. I plan to steal him and bring him to my friend Nour to break her of the habit of asking for a pony all the time.

Next there are a pair of Indian Runner Ducks who, I'm told, specialize in slug eating. There is not a slug in sight around here so I guess they're effective. They are bizzar creatures who look like they're going to fall over all the time. They're having marital issues at the moment and she doesn't want him in the house, so every night I have to coax and bully him into the duck house for another night of marital doscord. I feel it mimics my parents relationship and when I see them next I'll have to tell them they can do better than a pair of slug-eating ducks.

Then there are the chickens who, while good at producing eggs, are also adept at escaping and they do this several times a day. The brown ones know no fear and you have to tackel them and carry then back to the hen house while they look at you balefully and grumble. They are very helpful when you want to dig a hole, they come right over and dig with you because they love worms.
Supervising all this eight days a week in the amazing Sylke. Sonnenhof is also a Bed and Breakfast and in addition to unruly animals and a small child she also has to deal with city folk who come out here for a "taste of the country". Sylke has told us that her dream is to run a B&B, and 10 years ago she bought a run-down farmhouse and has been fixing it up bit by bit. It is now a beautiful place, filled with painting she did herself. She is like supermom, taking care of everything and I am really glad to try to help her. I have adopted her as my temporary mother.

My daily chores can range from simple (muck out the stalls, let out the horses, turn a bed in the garden to ready it for planting, dig a hole), to bizzar and complicated (supervise Clara while she crawls around the bunny cage catching Flecky and Flocky, argue with the duck, groom the horses and help take little girls on pony rides, build a bench out of sod).

The bench of sod is actually a pretty epic project. It still looks like a huge pile of dirt but after a little rain Sylke thinks it will be beautiful. I hope so since it's take days and a lot of skin off the palms of my hands.

Sylke also has arranged for us to do fun stuff too and next week me and Burble are going to take out a friend's boat on the river. We also got to stay in Leipzig for a night to get off the farm which was totally awesome. Liepzig is beautiful and has some amazing architecture. The university is built on the ground where they tore down a church when this was the GDR. In memory of the church they built the building to look like a church, and it's incredibly beautiful. Also their town hall is a castle. Like an actual castle with a tower. (No princess unfortunately.) The coffee here is serious. Burble ordered an ice coffee and they brought him a massive ice cream coffee sundae thing. He was bouncing off the walls. 


We rented a kayak and explored the city from the water. It took a lot of brother-sister cooperation, most of which involved me shouting at my brother.  We worked it out eventually.

Burble is doing well here, he loves the farm life but hasn't quite endeared himself with the neighbors. Not everyone understands Burble-humor, which has caused some slight issues.  He has taken to taking long walks to photograph things but in true Burble fashion he sometimes brings along a styrofoam head on a stick with a long orange feather boa hanging off it. A neighbor came by here to tell Sylke that there was a strange man taking pictures of cars in the village with a head on a stick. She was pretty shaken and Sylke had to explain that this was her that that was probably her Amercian WWOOFer who is sometimes strange.

I'm so thrilled to be here, it's really nice to have jobs to do but the more people who ask me what I want to do with my life the less I know. Returning to the States seems like less and less of a good idea as people here talk to me about how silly we Americans seem. "But I don't understand, tell me again why Bush was president? Didn't he not win the election? But why didn't anyone do anything? But I don't understand..." Or "Do you really think they'll elect Mitt Romney? Do they really support all those insane things he wants to do?" People picking us up on the side of the road are better informed about what my country in doing than I am about my own country. I'm so frustrated with the political situation there and feel like I should take advantage of my EU citizenship and just stay here. Is it better to just leave a country that is moving in a direction that seems to be worse and worse, or is it better to come back there and try to change it for the better? And if I do come back what on earth am I supposed to do with my life? I think the Burble is rubbing off on me. There are things to come back to but there are so many places to see as well.

So we stay here a week and then move off the The Czech Republic to spend a week in Prague. Couchsurfing is saving our asses, I have couches set up in Prague, Vienna, Bucharest, Istanbul, Thessaloniki. After that it's anyone's guess since I have sworn I will work in France in July and I may be able to get the lovely Natalee Burnett to come visit, which will encourage me to be back in France by that point and semi-responsible.

Also a quick update on the Daily Burble.
Now my brother wants to turn down all the schools he got accepted to and study auto mechanics. He also wants to learn to spin fire. Then when he can spin fire and fix cars he's going to fix up an old bus and drive around in it giving people food and light shows. I'm a little concerned but I take comfort in the fact that he will change his mind in 15 minutes. Already today he decided to go to UC Berkeley and become an English teacher and then he decided to move to Washington and go to Evergreen. It's kind of like traveling with a bunch of different people but you only get them one at a time. There's Introspective Burble, Violent Anarchist Burble, Peacefull Hippy Burble, Squatter Slacker Burble, Academic Burble, Nialist Burble, Rebel Against His Mother and Society Burble, Artist Burble, Musical Burble, etc. It's quite a large group.