Wednesday morning, 8:00 am (flash post)

Raspberry sorbet streaks across a moody sky. A slash in the gray glows aquamarine. Beyond the village, day asserts itself after a long December night. Tightly packed buildings block my view, so I walk away from the rising light into the western fields where openness and distance give me sight. I stride down the straight paved path, along fields combed and troughed for next year's potatoes, past soil now grassy with next year's grain. Behind me the sky is molten orange. Ahead of me, clouds wear my faded memory of children's liquid pain reliever, shaken and frothy in a tiny cup: cherry brightening to pink bubblegum then warming to Motrin orange. The clouds furthest from the sun are indeed the reddest. Long waves of warm light arrive first; cool blues and greens balance the palette of day only after the sun moves overhead. Now the cloud that blushed so pink is merely whiter than the grayer ones. As I loop back, the sky over the village is skim milk spilled on Prussian blue, grape Tylenol tracing the shadows.



Further reading:
What Determines Sky's Colors at Sunrise And Sunset?--Science Daily

If you're in the mood for sunset/sunrise photos:
Sunset to sunrise, slide show 7

Windy Sunday afternoon ride (flash post)

I was back on my bike this afternoon, and I took Markus along on a jaunt through the vineyards and fields southeast of Flein. Grapes are a-growing: bushy plants and small, hard-looking fruit. We saw fields of rapeseed (some harvested), corn, wheat, rye, strawberries, and raspberries.

Up along the southern edge of the vineyards, we passed the big red frame, Flein's outdoor "movie theater." The color has faded considerably since we first encountered the frame in 2010. The photo shows Miriam and me with both sets of grandparents. A lot has changed. For one thing, Miriam's several inches taller than me now.

Open Air Cinema of Flein, where we are encouraged
to stop, rest and watch the world go by (October 2010)

Markus and I found the "Ausschank" open. It's a hut out in the fields that serves wine and snacks on Sunday afternoons in the summertime. We stopped for a glass of Sekt and a cheese sandwich and chatted with our across-the-street neighbors. We learned a lot about the history of Flein. They came in 1958 when the population was 3,000. We came in 2010 at 6,500. Now it's 7,000 and growing. (The three of us weren't the only new arrivals.)

On the downhill straightaways toward home, I coasted through the wind with my loose linen top flapping against my back and sides like a fabulous torso massage. More than enough reward for the bramble scrape on the back of my hand and the dead-ends, gravel sections, and pant-inducing uphills.

Now we look with all of Germany toward tonight's action in Brazil. I'm glad (after the USA left the World Cup) to have a decent back-up team to cheer for. We're already drinking more Sekt.

[Sekt is sparkling wine that's made like champagne, but it's illegal to call it champagne because that's a protected name. Our bottle tonight is rosé, from grapes grown around about where we were biking today.]

Out through the fields near Flein (flash post)

For a chance to move my legs and breathe and look around me, I got on my bike and rode with Miriam across the fields to Sontheim, the next town over. She was on her way to the gym to work out on the elliptical machine. I looped around from there and followed a no car/no motorcycle sign onto a path that soon became a grassy, unpaved groove.

From there I popped back out onto a familiar asphalt path, where I could curve around the Deinenbach creek, the newly growing fields, the fruit trees dotted here and there, the expanses of yellow rapeseed, the bursts of lilac spearing the sky. I believe it was Goethe’s Farbenlehre (color theory) that dictates proportions for complementary colors: half red : half green; one-third orange : two-thirds blue; one-quarter yellow : three-quarters purple. Things seem to be the other way around at the moment, with yellow everywhere and dots of purple now and then.

It’s the Saturday before Easter, sunny and pleasantly cool. The paths are popular. We each thread our own particular way through the space. Most of us live nearby, with our own particular reasons for being out there. Many walk. With dogs and without. Singly, in pairs, in larger groups. A few march along with Nordic walking sticks. Bicycles. Baby carriages. Scooters. Roller blades. Now and then there’s a car or a tractor crowding the rest of us briefly off the path. They’re only supposed to be there if they have official business. I’m often skeptical.

Overhead, birds (mostly crows) course through the sky carving paths that don’t follow the lines cut through the fields for human traffic. I’ve been lucky enough to see an owl and a heron a time or two picking their way along the fields under the cover of dusk.

Welcome spring! A few weeks ago my legs grew tired, my breathing hard as I pumped my bike up the hills. Today’s ride was gentler, but I felt readier for the rises, for the up and down shifting, for the pleasure of working my way forward on a bike.

Fields deeply furrowed, probably for carrots (photo March 2014).

Short grass-like plants in tidy rows will be wheat or rye
by harvest time (photo May 2013).

Looking toward Flein and grocery discounter Lidl with the red roof
from the Talheim side (photo May 2013).

Strawberry fields getting ready
(photo May 2013, but this year's plants are close).

Sunday afternoon bike ride

I took a sunny bike ride around the vineyards at the east end of Flein. If you look at the map, you can see how the L1100 splits into a Y in the middle of the village of Flein (population 7,000). We live at the northwest edge, where the village meets open agricultural fields (wheat, rye, corn, potatoes, rapeseed). East of Flein you can see a small blue lake. Around there the vineyards spread over rolling hills. My route took me to the wooded edge (the green strip).



Up near the woods on the winding paths, I encountered signs of spring. Some creatures inspire me to speak a friendly greeting, like butterflies and birds (and dragonflies, when I see them). Other buzzing creatures remind me to bike with my mouth closed.

Butterflies flew near me, and I had glimpses of their chestnut brown bodies and wings warmed with orange. They were too dark to be monarchs, but they reminded me of them. As I rode, suddenly certain "wood chips" on the asphalt roused to life and took flight. I believe they were out there to catch the sun. In pairs they flew amorous, playful dances in the sky. If they're like the monarch, they have precious little time.

The vineyards stand ready. Above gnarled stems, the plants are reduced two naked branches each, bent or bowed sideways on the wire trellis along each row, ready to sprout this year's new growth. The vintner's winter tasks involve pruning back to the two best-looking vines emerging from the stalk. Bending them takes careful molding in the hands to avoid breakage. I tried it one year, and I felt a few snap despite my effort.

Two main branches kept from last year.

Rows of bent vines.

The grape vines seem skeptical of this very early spring. You can't tell they're growing until you get close and see new growth budding out like tiny white bits of popcorn.

Beginning of new growth.

Spring outside the vineyards is fully here. Flowering fruit trees and magnolias stretch white and pink blossoms toward the sky, forsythia paints hedges yellow, daffodils and hyacinth are giving way to tulips, and—my favorite sighting yesterday—a lobelia-like flower pours like purple pillows from stone walls.

And, because I can't resist, here is my favorite willow tree tucked between the creek and the open fields where I walk near our apartment (about a week ago).

[Returning readers may notice the slight update to the design of this blog. What do you think? And also my attempt to "keep at it" with the shorter posts! The new photo of Alexanderturm (instead of the grapes, remember?) is part of a forthcoming slide show about visiting Berlin.]