Christmas celebrations at the equestrian farm Lerchenhof

Do you miss a  White Christmas  this year?

Me, too!

The winter weather this Christmas season here in Germany is much more spring-like than the years before and we have been far away from snow and frost we generally can expect this time of the year.

So I have a kind of  White Snowflake  for you I took recently at the stud and equestrian farm "Lerchenhof" in the town of Muensingen.

The stud and equestrian farm Lerchenhof organized a kind of Christmas party together with all the kids and teenagers taking riding lessons there. And of course the families and friends were invited to celebrate together with their youngsters.

At the end of this varied day Santa Claus arrived on a horse-drawn carriage...

...and dispensed little gifts to the kids!

A Merry Christmas and
a prosperous and peaceful New Year 2016
to all of you, dear friends!

...a wee bit of Christmas decoration!

Are you already prepared for the Advent season,

are you already prepared for Christmas decoration???

The majority of people I've talked to isn't!

Maybe it has to do with our long and very warm late autumn weather this year - so somehow we are not prepared for winter, not prepared for the Advent season yet.

But: on Saturday morning we had two full hours of winter atmosphere in southern Germany - 

it was snowing in the morning at breakfast time.

So: doesn't matter if you are ready for the Advent season or not:

NO MERCY!

Here are my first 2015 photographs of "a wee bit" of Christmas decoration we've arranged in our living room... ;-)

This is why it's called "White Christmas" - even if the region you life is far away from getting any snow!

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Some red colour can't hurt...

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...aaaaand back to reduced colours again.

I hope you didn't suffer from an overkill of Christmas decoration too early this season!!! 

;-)

A pleasant, peaceful und happy Advent time!

Thank you very much SOMMERHAUS RAHMENMANUFAKTUR in Bad Mergentheim for letting me taking the photographs in your great and lovingly decorated Christmas exhibition!

The bell founder...

...on the first Christmas Market 2015 in our region.

Der Glockengießer auf dem ersten regionalen Weihnachtsmarkt 2015
im Park von Schloss Crailsheim in Rödelsee, Unterfranken, Bayern.

 Hi folks!

Last time but one weekend we still had a kind of great last summer temperatures and a lot of sunshine, this weekend we've got the first winter day here in our region with the first snow at higher altitudes!

So it was time to visit the very first Christmas market (worth visiting):

The Christmas market at Crailsheim Castle in the small village of Roedelsee (a population of about 1700 people).

One of the attractions of this small, but lovingly organized Christmas market was (in my view) the booth of a bell founder / belleter; a craft you don't find very often nowadays in public.

So I took my time to observe and photograph the handicraft activities of this craftsperson.

At first her had to prepare the sand moulds and melted the bell bronze at a temperature of about 1100°C. Thereafter he cast the liquid metal into the sand forms.

 After a cooling time of about 30 minutes (for big bells it can last up to three days!)...

...he separated the mould housings from each other and put the hardened bells with the cast-on section out of the sand mould.

The last work steps were cutting the cast-on section, cleaning and brushing to get the finished bell - not to forget to mount the bell clapper in the bell.

A happy and peaceful Advent season to all of you!

Ring the bells of peace!

 Linked to: THROUGH MY LENS

Night frost magnolias in spring season 2015

This year's blossoming of the magnolia trees in Southern Germany was affected by two days of night frosts short prior the first magnolia buds opened.

This is what I've hoped to find...

...and this is what I found last week.

The closer I came to the magnolia blossoms, the more I was able to see that this spring season

there was a third colour next to pink and white: brown ;-((

Especially the magnolia trees at the climatically priviledged habitats were affected, because the April night frosts occured when the very first blossoms flourished.

 

 The laggards among the magnolia blossoms were not affected that much...

...so all in all it really depended on the location and flourishing time of the magnolia trees

whether you were able to find a tree with ininjured flowers  - or not.

 But the cherry blossoms are great this season...

...but that's what I exhibit in my next post!

Partial eclipse of the sun in Germany

Did you see the partitial solar eclipse today over Europe???

Here are some of my impressions I took in the morning with my camera.

I put a neutral grey filter in front of the lens of my DSLR with a factor of 1000 that reduced the sun light dramatically.

In the second photograph you even can see the sunspot in the upper third of the solar disc.

The max. covering of 71% of the sun disc we had at 10:37 a.m. this moring; one hour later the whole haunting was over again.

The very first...

...almond blossoms in Germany 2015.

Found and taken yesterday.

Along the Palatinate Wine Route near Landau, Pfalz.

For a moment we thought that we wouldn't find one flower on the many almond trees in the Palatinate region - none of bushes or trees in thís region had buds or even green leaves so far.

But then it was like a colour miracle:

On 1 out of 100 almond trees we found the very first gentle almond blossom.

So after a whole day of driving and hiking through this blessed region we finaly found three almond trees where one or two of its branches have born some almond flowers.

In two or three weeks of sunny and warm spring weather

the almond alleys should look like on the painting we saw at the town of Landau.