Mr. Natural

This afternoon we drove out to B's parents place, where she has a little garden spot in the backyard. About six by six, 36 square feet. A few tomato plants, some strawberries, an eggplant, a cucumber. Pepper plants, too, but they didn't give much this year.

The tomatoes gave, though, and still are. We pruned them back, harvested about 4 big ones and a lot of little yellow cherry tomatoes, and planted four new strawberry plants. I picked up about 20 fat garden slugs and tossed them over the fence into the alley. They may crawl back, or they may get squished. I'll let the God of the Slugs decide these matters.

Afterwards, B's mom made grilled ham and cheese sandwiches for us and we watched slides of the family's vacation to Italy in 1967. I saw some of the places I knew, and was surprised at how much 43 years of change can affect a place, even Italy, which we mistakenly tend to think of as timeless.

----

I've been following Lloyd Kahn's blog for a few years now, and have purchased three of his excellent books. Lloyd is the kind of guy I want to be if I ever grow up. 75 years old, lots of energy, rides a damned skateboard (!) and is sharp as a tack.

Below, a short film (actually shot on 16mm film!) some students did about Lloyd, and the ultra-cool house he built north of San Francisco. Lloyd really is one of my heroes, and I hope I get to meet him some day.

SHELTER from jason sussberg on Vimeo.

Arche Noah / Kittenberger Gardens

Another drive Tuesday, about an hour outside of Vienna, to Arche Noah.

It means "Noah's Ark" and they specialize in preserving heirloom seeds, biodiversity, and organic gardening / education. It was the most impressive collection of vegetable and herb gardens I've ever seen. There's a shop where you can buy all kinds of gardening books, heirloom seeds, or plants. B bought some strawberry plants.

The place is set in a tiny village overlooking a beautiful valley (where the next village is---easy to see from the gardens.) There's a cool old building on the grounds, which originally was probably used for storing stuff when this area was part of the castle garden (there's a castle right across the street, as opposed to sitting high on a hill like most other castles in Austria.)

Part of the garden at Arche Noah.

Chilies! They had many varieties, including habaneros.
Surprising, because I thought chilies liked hot dry climates.

Well planned gardens, with plenty of space to walk between them,

and plenty of space in the gardens themselves to get at the veggies.

Cool old building on the grounds---used as a classroom / meeting place.

Interior. Note exposed woodbeam roof.

A smaller version of this building would make a great living space.

The gourd garden. 

Each garden had informative plaques telling about the plants, and each plant variety was identified.

I like the way they did these tomatoes. Each vine was supported by twine,
tied to the ground with a stake, then twisted loosely around the vine and tied at the top to a wire.

Note also the plants aren't really bushy with leaves---more pruning = more fruit? Dunno.

Bell peppers.

How'd you like to have this in your back yard?

There were orchards behind the house---apple trees, plums, etc., all bearing fruit. There was also an interesting bee hive. Arche Noah cut part of an old tree trunk in half lengthwise, then covered the cut with a Plexiglas window. Then they put a door over that, to keep the hive dark inside. You could open the door and look at the bees through the Plexiglas, working inside. There was a warning posted inside the door about showing the bees "respekt," which is a good idea if you don't want your ass stung off. I looked inside for a few minutes and the bees ignored me. I kept my movements slow and easy and didn't make loud noises. Respekt.

----

We drove to the next village to take a look at the Kittenberger Gardens. This is essentially a display of more than 20 back yards, all done in different styles to show you what kind of landscaping / gardening options are possible. There was some great stuff there and I got a lot of ideas.

A cozy Japanese garden.

A view of the village from one of the many "back yards."

A little backyard house with benches and table. Made from an old wine barrel.

Creative use of a framed-in woodpile as a yard divider.

Rooftop garden on a patio building in one of the "back yards."

A "fire art garden." The "matches" were purely decorative but there were steel fireplaces.
I think it would be neat to light three or four fires at night in these fireplaces, grab a chair, and watch the fire.

 Pendulum House. It's suspended about six inches off the ground.
They explain that when you step inside, you're kind of independent of the rotation of the earth.

Which I more or less feel more or less all the time, anyhow. Neat sensation, though.

The idea here is, a wall covered with these planters helps keep the house cooler, while giving the plants a place to thrive (southern exposure) and providing beauty / edible stuff. Smart, I think.

Yard art. Painted and stacked wooden chairs.

Interior of a space made of living willow trees, planted in a circle and woven together.
A pit in the floor holds aromatic evergreen branches, which are kept fresh by a drip system.
You lay in the hammock, hear the wind blow through the branches, and smell the evergreens. Nice!

Exterior of the willow house.

Fire pit made of old plate steel.

A pond full of carp. Nice deck, nice view.

Nice (expensive) grill. A competent welder could custom-make an approximation of this for about 1/4 of the price. I like the curved arm the pot is hanging from, allowing you to position it just where it needs to be for proper cooking of the yummy goodies within. See pic below for closeup.

The grills adjust up or down over the firebox, and you can hang a pot over the whole works to keep the beans warm, or whatever. The firebox needn't be as fancy as this one; a simple barrel or box would do.

I guess I'm getting to be an old fucker, with all this interest in gardening and yard art and all that shit. Next thing you know, I'll subscribe to cable so I can watch Home & Garden TV, and B and I'll be going to the fucking Home Depot every week to buy shit we don't need so we can "fix up" whatever it is about my shack that needs fixing.

Or maybe it's a backlash against the rush of technology we've all been riding through for 35+ years----a desire to watch things move slowly, instead of at lightning speed...like seeds to seedlings to plants to vegetables to harvest to eating / preserving. 

Maybe it's the idea that creativity doesn't have to involve time spent on a computer with Autocad or Photoshop or Garageband or Final Cut Pro, all the while viewing insipid "Tweets" or checking that stupid fucking Facebook every five seconds----sawing and gluing lumber, or hammering / welding steel, or re-purposing old junk into "art" can equally satisfy your creative urges.

Sunday: Thayatal National Park

About 10:30 we drove north and west about 80 kilometers from Vienna, up near the Czech border, to the Thayatal National Park.

The Thaya River runs through this park and divides Austria from the Czech Republic.

There are several hiking trails that begin in different towns within the confines of the park. We started near Merkersdorf and went into the woods, walking mostly along the banks first of a quiet stream, then eventually of the Thaya, across millions of exposed tree roots.

This is the ruins of a small mill (or something) near the stream.

We began walking along this pleasant stream.

Eventually we came to the Thaya and walked along its banks.

In this part of Austria, the middle of the Thaya divides Austria from the Czech Republic.

In the Commie days, this area was heavily guarded on both sides and no doubt mined on the Czech side.

We had a hiking map we'd purchased the day before at the Erntedankfest, from a booth promoting Austria's national parks. But we didn't really need the map, as the trailheads had good maps and the trails themselves are well marked with small metal signs---which I was glad to see contained no goddamned grafitti.

B had talked to her dad on the phone the night before. He's walked these trails and gave us a good suggestion as to which end of the trail to start with. B, as usual, had done her Web research and had a great idea of what to do when we reached the end of the trail, in a town with the unappetizing name of Hardegg. Unappetizing name, but a beautiful little town. Did I say little? In fact it is Austria's smallest town.

And the idea was: take the local cab back to where we'd parked the car. This ended up saving us another two hour walk, on top of the 2.5 hours we'd already spent schlepping ourselves and our rucksacks up and down some very steep trails.

Mushrooms! The woods were thick with them---but not any we knew to be edible.

The skies were overcast and the area had experienced very heavy rains in recent days. The trail was wet and the rocks and tree roots were very slick. But from time to time the sun poked through and lit the woods with that peculiar other-worldly light. 

We found a place to eat lunch, on some large rocks on the river bank. It was quiet. Like a lot of thick woods, you didn't hear birds singing. But we did see a happy little bird flitting from rock to rock, back and forth across the border, skimming the water looking for whatever it is he eats. We, meantime, ate a sandwich.

There weren't too many people out. We passed a few on the trail, but mostly we had the woods to ourselves. Which was a little surprising. Austria is one of the most outdoor-oriented countries around. Everyone likes to take to the woods, the Alps, the various swimming holes, etc. In winter, of course, there's skiing and snowboarding and winter hiking. It makes sense for the people of a beautiful country to want to enjoy nature. I think about this every time I'm on the bus and pass a local "fitness center" and see the drones in there literally running on treadmills. WTF? There are plenty of places even in Vienna to exercise outdoors. Run along the Danube, take a hike somewhere.

After a very steep climb, the trail spit us out in the town of Hardegg.

This footbridge spans the Thaya. On the other side: the Czech Republic.

What you see if you walk across the bridge. Note Commie-era roadblocks, still in place but no longer used.

Burg Hardegg. Yes, even the smallest town in Austria has a fucking castle.

We walked through Hardegg then sat on the curb for a rest. B called the cabbie. About 25 minutes later he showed up from whichever village he'd been in and drove us several kilometers back to our car. B pulled out €10 and asked me if I had €5, which I misunderstood to mean the total was €15. So I dug around for the money and handed to the guy and got out. I figured B had already given her share to the guy and we were done. But after he drove off, I found out I'd misheard----it hadn't been €15 but only €5, total, and she'd only been looking for exact change for the guy. €15 was a bit much so I didn't feel inclined to throw in a tip, but €5 was way too little, I thought, so I felt bad for not tipping the guy. When my paisan Mod hears about this, he'll ream me good because he already thinks I'm a shitty tipper. But it was an honest mistake.

Then we drove to a beautiful little town called Retz. It's known for its local vintners and in fact we ate outdoors on the patio of a place that had a fantastic selection of wines and was ultra-modern inside---the food was very reasonably priced, too, this far from Vienna.

Then we took a little walk around town. By now the sun had come out and the sky, instead of a sick white, was a pleasant blue.

Ancient church tower in Retz.

Old door in Retz.

A view through the old city gate to the old center of Retz.

After Retz, we drove through the countryside and into villages on our way back to Vienna. Fall is coming; we saw smoke tumbling out of a few chimneys. The vineyards are bare of grapes now, though the vines are still lush and green. The sunflowers in the fields are all withered and brown. 

A few miles outside of Vienna, the usual Sunday afternoon traffic jam on the highway. Everyone's coming back from wherever they were, doing whatever outdoor thing they were doing. We were one of them.

Tired from the hike through the woods, and through Retz, but a good tired. Home, some leftover chili, some wine. This place, Vienna, feels like home.