My neighborhood part 3

I completed my walking tour with these pictures.




     

This is the protestant church again, up close showing that odd irornwork design in the stones.



     

Apparently built in 1788.



     

Across the street is the one city park. It has some lovely fountains.



     

And unattended grave stones. In Germany grave plots are maintained, if they're  in a cemetery. Families put little plots of flowers and shaped bushes on the graves. If a family cannot take the time to do this, they hire a grave service to do it. They'll put a little sign there saying, "This grave is cared for lovingly by...."

Obviously this is not a cemetery, but there are graves nonetheless. Like at J's church. Old graves as deco.



     

Old, but not that old.

I was recently very disturbed when I found a gravestone, J's grandfather's, in his parents' garage. WTH. They said it was given to them because it was expired. Yah, burial places expire in Europe. There is not enough space to bury everyone, so they dig them out and rip out the stone. Your loved one gets what you can afford to pay for, and usually that's 40 years. I was appalled because J's father is still alive, but his father's father's grave can no longer be visited. It lies in the garage. Strangely, it has mostly my name on it. My name starts with a BE, like his, and ends with the same German last name. So it was like I was looking at my own grave there.

As I've said before, I want no garden on my grave if I happen to die here. I want just grass like in America. I guess that means someone will have to bring a mower and mow it. Or not. I really hope to die in America, cuz a gravestone is all I'll be leaving behind.



     

Our town's flag.



     

Schiefer.



     

The red strikethrough means "end of" which is different from America's "not allowed". In Germany, not allowed is a red circle border. (Which I defy a lot.) This sign means you are leaving our town. The signs in the background point to nearby cities - including Koeln, (Cologne). I wanted to take the chance to explain that the word Cologne/Koeln is simply Roman for colony. So, of all the hundreds of colonies the Romans built, they didn't even give this one a name. Just colony. I do wonder if it had a number, like "Colony 145." I dislike Koeln enough to not waste my time looking this up, but you're welcome to: )



     

My favorite house in our town. Cuz look how much trouble they go to to trim that ivy! Respect!  Also on the light post in the foreground you can see a sticker D2, which is one of hundreds in the region showing the hiking paths. In this case, you're on D2, which I think refers to the watershed trail. I've tried to do many of them in their entirety with a GPS, and it's fun. I am always dismayed when one is open to horses, but only part of the way. Ugh. And as you know, all trails eventually go through towns like this image shows. There don't seem to be any "pure trails" in our region. You get a bit of trail, a bit of town, repeatedly. But it is nice that someone took the time to map out friendly little routes. And they're all online so you can pick how far you want to walk that day. I intend to do the "Water mill" route soon so I can show you photos of the water wheels.



     
So freakin orderly.



     

Just past my favorite house are the fields that lead to my home. They are vast and undulating.



     
I got busted lunging Mara here once. The owner was screaming at me, "This is a HAY FIELD!" OK sorry, ok....



     

It just keeps going on.


     

Almost home, I can take a shortcut through the trees. You can see the very beginnings of Spring as the trees have their tiniest palest leaves. This is NOT a western Washington wood. I saw a photo almost exactly like this today on an east coast endurance blog. My memory of America's east coast was, wow, just like Germany. You can ....walk between the trees!



     



     
Almost home, this is my next door neighbor's home, which has been added onto for another family. They inherited this home from parents, like so many people. Home ownership made easy is common here.

So many people live in their parents' inherited homes in Germany. What I know of America, this is not so common.


     

They have a little dog named Walter (and they say it wrong) but even if they leave the gate open, he never leaves. And he never barks, he recognizes me when I work in the yard. He doesn't even bark at passersby. For some reason they have amazing dog training skills here and both Walter and Spanky, their former dog, never barked nor left the yard even through the huge holes in the fence between our properties. I'm curious what magic they have over dogs.




     

Our home, Schiefer side. Our property ends at the telephone pole, so the rockery is the neighbors.



     

The rockery shows their sense of humor. These are gnomes but....this one is sitting on a gnome toilet.



     

This gnome has a knife through its back. Sometimes people think they are our gnomes. No, I can't stand fake things in my yard.



     

Mag always walks up to the windows and looks at his reflection, entranced. And I let him eat the roses cuz roses are basically weeds, you can't kill them. The rose bush against the house is exactly where our front door was from 1890- to 19???

I guess that's it for this tour, but I hope to get some water wheel tour photos later, when we make our way over to them.