Christmas song

I've got a bit of bronchitis right now, so my voice isn't so great. But here's a song I recently learned:

Best 12 seconds of my Birthday Party!!

Best Birthday Card this year!

Hey Tooth Fairy!

Nice aerial views of our village

Our neighbor, Mr. Toepfer, went for a hot-air balloon ride in August. Here are some photos -- and don't forget you can click on them to see them larger.

In this picture, you're looking south towards Switzerland across Lake Constance. We live in Esseratsweiler, or "E-Weiler" as we call it. Makes it sound hi-tech.

Here you are looking south right down our street, with Lake Constance in the background.

This picture is looking west across the village. I've marked the important things. The Dornier factory makes industrial machines to stretch foil and cellophane, but they work quietly, we never hear a thing. It's much more common to hear saws from the various woodworks in the area.

Here's our house! You can see how many trees we have, lots more than most. The Toepfer's cherry tree in front is huge, they gave us about 15 kilos of cherries this summer. At the bottom of the picture you can see the yellow old-folk's home, it's between the 'Landhaus' restaurant and an old silo factory. The tee-intersection in the lower left are the main streets to and through the village.



A warm November day, let's go for a walk!

Here's our house. The neighbor's cherry tree is about halfway done dropping its leaves.

The cows are still out, usually by this time of year they've gone inside for the winter.

Light sweatshirt weather, mid 50's, warm in the sun.

Fall means long shadows.

Someday...

Biggest oak tree around. I bet it's older than Grandma Margie. See me in the photo?



It's been so warm the last weeks that the trees are late turning.

Happy cows come from southern Germany.



Special thanks to Uncle Tom for the Canon camera that made these great photos!

The trail behind me starts at the end of our street, about 100 yards south from our house. The cows are just over the hill, and the big oak tree another quarter mile further on. It's not far.  If you want to see our village on Google Satelite view, click here: http://g.co/maps/mtavd . The big oak tree is the dot that stands alone in the very center of the picture, two-thirds of the way to the bottom, just a bit south-southwest of our house. 

Boo! Happy Halloween!!

We found a hedgehog!!

We found a little hedgehog near the busy street though the village. We took him home and called the animal shelter, which is what you're supposed to do, but the girl there didn't know what to tell us. We set up a little fenced area in the garden to keep him safe, but he wanted out so badly we finally let him go.

We just hope he stays in our yard and doesn't go out in the street and get hit by a car.

Hey Tooth Fairy!

Just in time for Halloween.

I got a Barbie!

My friend gave me her old Barbie, and I'm in love! 

(But I still like playing with all my little plastic horses best of all.)

Skywalk Allgäu

Today we went to the Skywalk Allgäu in Scheidegg, a town up in the mountains just east of where we live. It's a massive structure with a tower and an elevated walkway. And two playgrounds! You can see the Allgäu to the west and north and the Alps to the south and east. It's cool!

Did a lot of swimming this summer!

I learned to do the backstroke!

And I learned to do this...

Our Summer Holiday on a Farm

That's a mighty big tractor - and I got to ride in the cab with the farmer, too!

And here's why we're here at this farm!!!

The big one is Kahedo and the little one is Timmy.

Papa said the farmer reminded him of Uncle Pete.

It was my job to put the bunnies in their lawn cage every day

Ponies, swings, see-saw, trampoline, wide open land...heaven!

I carried the bunnies to and from their hutch every day in this bucket

Oma and Opa stayed at the nearby campgound in the motorhome.

I think I could live here forever with Kahedo

I tried to get Papa to let me ride Kahedo home tied to the Honda. I was so sad to go home!

Turns out I love farm work, so the farmers loved me!

Dinosaurs!

Papa took me to an exhibition of about 60 life-sized prehistoric animals.
I love dinosaurs, and I already knew the names of about half of them.  

At first I was a bit shy about getting too close, especially to the meat eaters.

I'm in love with the Dipoldocus. He's so tall!!!

I don't know who's scarier!

The T-Rex did not want to bite me so I went over and touched him, but just a little.



Don't worry -- he didn't really eat me!

What I did today

When Papa got home I told him about my day. He got out the camera and made me say it all again. He's silly!

Ol' Blue

Papa thinks Ol' Blue is a motorcycle but I know that he is really a nice horse. I always help Papa saddle him up before he goes riding.

Heavy traffic in the Village

Papa and I went for a bike ride around the village this evening. We had to pull over for some heavy traffic, one guy was even blowing his horn. Watch this:

(Actually, this is an historic coach of the postal service, it is on tour around Germany and just happened to pass through our village. This is how the mail used to be delivered!)

Admiring the neighbor's flowers

..and I like how they used silver duct tape to cap the fence posts. Looks like a princess crown!

The neighbors have some new cats!!

I Want Tomatoes, an ad-libbed song by me

I dropped a tomato on the floor and had to ask Mama to wash it and to bring some more. I love tomatoes! So I just started singing. Good thing Papa had the camera nearby! Here is my song:

Just a reminder...

...you can click on any photo  to enlarge it, or click on the lower right-hand corner of a video clip to view it in full-screen mode.

Good question

I went for a walk with Papa today, and while we were on the road between villages a man came past us on a bicycle, travelling pretty fast.

Papa said, "Did you see that bike? I think it was electric. See how slow he's pedaling, but how fast he's going? Notice how quiet it is? That's why I always tell you that you have to look both ways when you cross the street, because in the future there will be more and more electric cars and they will be quiet like that bike, the only noise they'll make is the sound of the tires on the pavement, and that's pretty quiet. So you can't just listen for cars, you have to look, too."

I thought about it for a long minute, then I asked, "Papa? How do you know the future?"

Papa just started laughing, and he laughed for a long time.

Not-So-Wild Animal Park

There is an animal park is in a village called Wildpolzweiler about 10 minutes from home, we go there pretty often. It's free to go in, and a big bag of animal food only costs one Euro. I like to feed the ponies, sheep, and deer, and play with the rabbits. They also have a playground. It's fun!

Here I am feeding the ponies.

Ooh those wild pigs stink!

Here's the view to the Alps and a nice little lake from the hill of the park.

This is about the biggest animal there, and we petted him!

Degersee, the lake near home where we go swimming

"We're at Degersee, there's our swim mattress, our chairs, our blanket, and there's the dock. There's the water, and we always come here in summer to go swimming."

http://maps.google.de/maps?q=degersee&hl=de&ll=47.613657,9.654193&spn=0.017329,0.041199&t=h&z=15

Pony Riding at the Festival in Niederwangen!