October 10 Black Forest

Today, like yesterday was overcast and rained off and on most of the day.  I have been right in the Black Forest, I am told it is quite beautiful, but I have not been able to see very much of it. 

Thomas picked us up just before 8 this morning and we began our trip through the Black Forest in the rain.  The area is known for their Coo Coo Clocks, so we were going to stop and look at a few, but the stores were not yet open to go inside so we just looked through the windows.  We did see the worlds largest Coo Coo Clock, and the largest toilet on our drive.  We also stopped for a short time at the tallest waterfall in Germany and hiked around for a few minute I'm sure it would have been beautiful on a clear day, but with the cloud cover we could only guess what it would look like.  The Black Forest is an interesting place.  The homes, which lasted for hundreds of years, are built against a hill so that the animals can live in the bottom, the livestock feed can be loaded directly into the second floor from the back, then the family and extended family lived on the top floors.  Because of the harsh winters the people did not want to have to leave their house any more than necessary they prepared to be snowed in.  Some of the old homes remain and most newer homes are built in the same style as the old one, although I think the animals are now kept outside.  Cattle are very important for the area because they keep the grasslands open; if they left the forests would return and cover the region, if this happened the tourism industry would be really hurt.  The area is way to steep for farming so livestock is the only option for Ag.

On our drive we picked up Stefan Leichenauer, a member of the BLHV (Farm Bureau) board and past McCloy Fellow.   He took us to a new bio-gas plant, we have seen several now.  I was intrigued by the discussion that we had about the Bio-Gas, originally the environmentalist wanted the "green" energy.  The government has a program that insures the owners of the bio-gas plants a high price for the electricity they produce; it is very profitable for the plant.  Now the Environmentalists are mad because of the amount of fuel that is required to raise and harvest the corn to feed the plants.  So now after billions of Euros have been spent to create this industry which is based off an artificial energy price there may be a movement by the same people to close down the industry.  Once again we see the problems with government involvement in the environmental movement.  If bio-gas is such a great idea it would have started on its own.  Much the same situation as the American Ethanol industry.

We continued our drive to Bergpracht, a privately owned cheese plant Tettnang.  They produce about 3000 tons of cheese per year, mostly Cannon bier and other soft cheese.  I would compare this plant and the owner, Karl-Georg Gessler to Gossner foods in Logan.  Not as big, but much the same  business  philosophy.  All the dairies providing the milk are small, some very small.  He has no intention of growing bigger just continue to make good quality cheese.  They make many mold ripened cheese, I was interested in how they keep the mold from infecting the other cheese.  Thee room they package the no mold cheese has air blowing into it at all times so that when you open the door air blows out and the mold can't get in.  Simple idea, but he says it works.  I was also intrigued with the fact that they freeze much of their cheese to prevent it from aging before it gets to the consumer, it is all fresh cheese.

After sampling too much Cheese, I don't even like the kids of cheese they make; we drove just a short distance to a hops farm.  I knew nothing about hops, they grow on a very tall vine, probably 20 - 25 feet tall and require a framework of wires to support the vines.  The harvest is very intensive, they take the hops, vines wires and all to the processing shed where the hops are separated out and loaded into a kiln to dry, once they are dried they are packed into a 500 kilo bale and ready to be sold to beer makers all over the world.  This is a very labor and energy intensive process.  We had an English tour of a small museum on the farm and a video of the process.  Then down stairs for the tasting.

 The Hops grow on this network of hanging wires, 20 or so feet high  

We drove an hour and a half to our hotel where we had dinner with Thomas, Stefan, and Katherina (a local young farmer).  The hotel we stayed at is owned by a local farmer and butcher.  Dinner was a full tray of ever kind of cold sausage and smoked meat you can imagine.  Probably 25 pounds of meat and a loaf of bread for seven people.  We all eat as much as we could but didn't come close to finishing it.  They said it is a typical farmer’s meal, and were very proud of it.  The hotel and is one that is used frequently by he BLHV, and they made sure to treat us right.  Thomas stayed the night at the hotel as well.