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!