Crow with an Ermine On Sunday I walked along the way by the lake.The first part of the way leads through a little wood. On the right side lays the lake. On the left side is a steep slope. I was nearly out of the little wood as I heard a crow repeatedly cawing angrily. I heard the crows wing beat. It took time until I was aware that there was something wrong. The crow should have been up in the sky or at least at the treetops and not behind me at the ground. So I looked back over my shoulder and what I saw made me turn around. The crow was chasing a little animal. The little animal was running in panic from one side of the road to the other. It was running the slope up and down. It could not choose which way to run. The crow had confused it totally. Eventually it ran up the slope into the forest. First I thought the little animal was a squirrel, but then I noticed: the tail was wrong, too small. I guessed, it would be a weasel like animal. When I came home I looked up the weasel like animal on animal identification sites on the internet. It was an ermine. I thought ermines were much bigger, like on the painting Lady with an Ermine by Leonardo da Vinci. Ermines must have become much smaller since 1490 or Ladys much bigger. Another possibility is that ermines were bred bigger at that time because they were kept as cats for the hunting for mice and rats as I've learned.

Grandma´s Fairy-Tale The German fairy tale that a relative majority of the Germans can retell relatively correct and you probably don't know is grandma´s fairy-tale from Woyzeck. Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella are known much better, nominally . But the content can be retold only in very general terms: Little Red Riding Hood brings her grandmother something to eat. She is taken away from the right path by the wolf, then the wolf eats the grandmother, and afterwards the Little Red Riding Hood. Little Red Riding Hood survive somehow . But should be a fairy tale retold, complete and correct, other fairy-tales will be chosen: Three Nuts for Cinderella or Harry Potter. You have to count this out by the condition: fairy-tales without copyright. Thus, this fairy tale from Georg Büchner will be told: There was once a poor child it had no father and no mother, everything was dead, and no one was in the world anymore. Everything was dead, and it went and searched day and night, and since nobody was on the earth anymore, it wanted to go up to heaven, and the moon was looking at it so friendly, and when it at last got to the moon, the moon was a piece of foul wood and then it went to the sun and when it got to the sun, it was a wilted sunflower and when it got to the stars, they were little golden gnats. They were stuck up there as if the butcher bird sticks them on the blackthorn and as it would go back to the earth, the earth was a turned pot and it was all alone and it sat down and wept and there it still sits and is all alone.

Cooperatives The cooperative (Genossenschaft) is a common form of organisation in Germany. A friend of mine lives in an apartment owned by a housing cooperative. He is a member of this cooperative. He owns three cooperative shares. You have to own at least three shares, if you want to rent an apartment in a house owned by the cooperative. If you purchase the shares for 150 € each, an apartment is vacant and you rent it, you are going to have a lifelong right to live there, as long as you follow the rules (mainly: keep paying the rent and keeping the cooperative shares). The cooperative almost completely uses the surplus for the houses and pays only a small profit, if any, to the shareholders. They have among other things a boul ground and the extremely clean dustbins have their own houses. One out of four in Germany has a bank account at a cooperative bank. It's the same principle. You have to buy at least one share for about 60 € then you can open an account. The dividende is about 6 % per year. Other popular sectors for cooperatives are agriculture and energie. EDEKA, the largest retailer in Germany is a cooperative.

Adventures Parking Yesterday I went downtown. When I was parking in the underground car park I was unfocused and drove in the wrong angle into the parking space. I wondered briefly if it's still going, but then thought: no, the car next to me is hard to park out of the parking space. When I backed up I saw a woman in the rear view mirror. Suddenly she was beside my car, pounded repeadetly with her fist against my side window while she shouted several times: "hold it!". I stopped my car´s snail-like move and let down the window. She pointed to a spot about 3x3 mm in size. Then she tore open my driver´s door and pulled the door against the side of her car and said: „It doesn´t fit“. In retrospect, I know that dark spot was a hole in the car paint. Was she gifted whith hawk eyes an fixated on her new ivory coloured Mni or was she in want of someone to pay.

Guinea Pig Walking When I came back from my break, I heard a robin sing. I looked for him and spotted him. He sat on top of the little cherry-tree on the playground. He sang with great skill and all his strength. When he paused, his robin colleague from the park began to sing. While searching for the robin I noticed a girl on a bench. She was holding something in her arms and caresses it. I could not tell what it was. While I kept on going, I saw a guinea pig on the ground next to her. These guinea pigs enjoyed the gently warm spring air and felt the real on the ground grown grass under their feet. It came into my mind the scene in Men in Black. The scene with the little people in the locker and the image of all the many lockers as Will Smith opened the "wrong door".

The Iceman Spring is here. The iceman cometh. Again, he rings right in time for the coffee break of the sheltered workshop, the time when even the large children's playground has the highest number of visitors. The hunter knows his hunting ground. He stops at the side of the turning bay where the elderly people of the sheltered workshop live. His point of sale is right in the middle of the line between the playground and the workshop, which is located behind the homes in the park. A scoop ice for 1 €. Hourly wage for real work in the slaughterhouse or at a landscape gardener: 3,80 €.. There is no such thing as general statutory minimum wage in Germany – and the landscape gardener is paying “Tarif”. This means collective labour agreement.

A big deal in Germany The amphibian migration - called Krötenwanderung - is a big deal in Germany. In spring and fall roads are blocked completely for weeks or for several hours at day and/or night. Some roads are closed during the whole year. There are toad tunnels built under roads especially for migratory amphibians. In spring and fall toad fences are built on the sides of toads busy roads with buckets every few meters embedded (?) in the ground. The toads fall into these buckets when they go along the fences, looking for a hole in the fence so that they can cross the street . Volunteers checking the buckets every few hours and carrying the amphibians across the street. Every spring and fall articles in community newsletters calling the community members for checking basement wells and the like on fallen into toads and that the wells and the like best be covered forever because of the peril for the toads.

Toad Migration Today I went for a stroll to the little road between the forest and the lake. This road is so small that two cars can't meet. It is a local track to the next village almost only used by locals. This road is now closed for automobiles due to the toad migration. So says the sign with the toad on it. The closure was only lifted last November. Before that, the road was closed for three years. There are five road-blocks over a length of about one km - three mobile road-blocks, also usable for road works with lights on it blinking in the dark and two permanently installed road-blocks – now locked - without lights which the firefighters can open by a special key. It looks like the road service (Straßenbauamt) is expecting a vigorous attack on the toads. I would like it if the road would remain permanently blocked. I´m hoping the toad friends prevail in the municipal council. It is a really nice way for a stroll and with motor traffic not only for toads a risky adventure.

Hazard Job Rate Set Pt 1 Today the assignment/notice (Bescheid?) to the new hazard job rate set (Gefahrstellentarife?) arrived. I don't want to torment you with the narrative of the classification of hazardous job rates. I want to tell you interesting facts about the Berufsgenossenschaft (literally professional cooperative). I couldn´t even find a reliable translation. I've translated it as "Statuatory Health and Accident Insurance, which is subject to public law and operated by different employers' associations." Since 1884 every employer in Germany is compulsory member of the Berufsgenossenschaft. Otto von Bismarck intended (that?) the Berufsgenossenschaft should not only serve workers. The Berufsgenossenschaften should be a future parliament's basis. This parliament should exist in addition to the Reichstag (elected parliament) or even replace it, if necessary, by a coup. After I (had?) learned this it was difficult to suprise me at all. The annual contribution to the Berufsgenossenschaft is based on the employees´ gross wage , the working hours (including absences, such as holidays or sick leaves) and the hazard job rate (depends on the risk to get ill by doing the job). Every year the Berufsgenossenschaft gets 0,5 % - 7% (depending on the branch of industry) of all employees´ annual gross wage. Photo: Logo Berufsgenossenschaft