October 16 Bonn

Today we saw some things that we have not yet seen on our trip.  We started with a tour of Otto Schmitz-Hubsch, a large apple and pear orchard.  They have nearly 80 acres of orchards with many different varieties of apples, and a few pears.  Apples are their largest crop with about 15% of their apples going for juice and the rest being sold in their own store.  They don't sale any products outside of their own retail store.  We were surprised that they can be successful selling that large of volume of apples in a store that predominantly just sales apple products, but the whole time we were there the store was busy.  It was interesting to see them picking the apples.  All the apples are covered by hail covers, white retractable coverings that prevent the hail from hitting the apples while allowing rain and sunlight in.  The trees are only allowed to grow about 8 ft tall so all the picking can be done from the ground, no latters.   Some of the apple had stickers placed on them which cases them to stay yellow on those spots while the rest of the apple turns red, leaving a design, a smiley face or a hart for example. 

We decided that they have the same problems as we do in America when it comes to forecasting the weather, it was supposed to be sunny today but it rained most of the morning and was cold and windy in the afternoon.

In the afternoon we visited a large large tree nursery, Wilhelm Ley.  They raise nearly 300 varieties of trees on 1100 acres of land.  Their trees are harvested and sold all over Europe.  We were taken on a tour of the farm and watched the workers dig up and "bale" trees in preparation for sale.  It was a fascinating process, a team of four people, and the right equipment, could do one (20 foot) tree in about 4 minutes.  We were all fascinated by the process and impressed by the efficiency with which they worked.  We also visited their Garden Centre, a large store that not only sold their trees and shrubs, but also many other items from clothing and home decor to a small coffee shop.  A very interesting store that was developed as a way to market their trees but has now grown into a separate business all of its own.  Again the store was busy the entire time.

Tonight Sefan took us to dinner at Hofgarten restaurant in Derneu (just outside Bonn).  We had an authentic German dinner in a old time German small town setting.  Narrow Cobblestone Street, beautiful shops and homes on each side.  We ride in Stefan's Scoda car that was never intended to hold five adults, we laugh as we squeeze into the back seat, Stefan is a good sport about it and laughs along with us, he was comparing it to a sardine can today.  We will see Stefan at breakfast in the morning but will not spend any more time with him after that.