new on the block

Howdy folks,
I did not see a section anywhere where new members can
> introduce
> themselves, maybe I stumbled over it.  So I take it I
> just jump right
> in?
>
> I found this place because I was checking on what's new on
> the
> Krameterhof and somehow, it lead to this forum.
> Decided to check it
> out and liked the topics.  Maybe this old dog will
> learn  new tricks.
> We have been at it for a long time.  We lived in
> Germany for 27 years,
>  at one time on 3 acres with 33 fruit trees and two
> gardens. Now we
> live on 40 acres of steep hillside and narrow gulches with
> worn out
> tobacco soil and lots of sand.
>
> Looking forward 
>

Welcome! Elfriede! There is much info to be gleaned from this site. You will enjoy it.

How interesting to have lived in Germany all those years. I will be interested to hear what it's like. I would love to visit Germany someday. What part of Germany did you live in?

welcome, it will be good to have more input

So you've been to Sepp's farm?

paul wheaton wrote:
So you've been to Sepp's farm?

We went in June, I believe   2003. The year that a storm flattened all the fir monocultures on  the other mountain side. It looked just awful. Sepp got some grim satisfaction out of the fact that he had been preaching against it forever, had been ignored and now he was shown to have been right.  I stayed right behind him so I did not miss a word.  We have two of his books. It really is impressive how he battled the "system" that is much more restrictive than here. It took someone like him to do that.  I remember him saying that all other high mountain farms are considered marginal and pay lower taxes, his place has been classified as prime, but he says he gladly pays the higher taxes as long as they leave him alone.

thanks for the welcome.
We lived in several places,  one time in a mountain village six miles from the CZech border.  We had 33 fruit trees there and never sprayed anything and had no trouble with bugs and the abundance of fruit was  just overwhelming.  Five kinds of plums, I could not give excess away because the neighbors were just as loaded. When we moved to another small town in a different region ( for those who might have been stationed there, it was near "Graf"), it was the same story.  You never saw so much fruit.  Country roads  lined with appletrees,  postage stamp size yards had at least an appletree in one corner and a cherry in the other, appletrees in hedgerows, one pear tree we considered 'ours', it stood out in the open between two fields.  the ground around it was covered with bushels of pears.I never bought any fruit. Nobody sprayed there either.  In the mountain village they had a communal cider press, during apple season you could spend a long time there, folks came with bushels and bushels of apples, pitched in, visited.  The other place had a truck with a trailer with a mobile ciderpress that filtered and pasteurized the juice and filled it in bottles. This device went from village to village, you just brought your apples and clean bottles and then took your cider home. You had to pay a fee of course.  It is apple season, we got a dozen wormy apples from the trees we planted three years ago.  I hope this improves.  Our chicken yard and orchard are one area, fenced in with chickenwire.  Hope the ladies will make a difference in the long run.  Like Sepp recommended I planted comfrey with the trees.

Elf, I LOVE trees, can't seem to get enough of them, every year i buy and plant more and more trees on our property (5 acres)..but i am definately NOT a monoculture..i doubt if i could count the varities of plants on our property if i tried.

Elfriede B wrote:
We went in June, I believe   2003. The year that a storm flattened all the fir monocultures on  the other mountain side. It looked just awful. Sepp got some grim satisfaction out of the fact that he had been preaching against it forever, had been ignored and now he was shown to have been right. 

That sounds like a kodak moment. 

Sepp says he pays something like an 85% tax, and that he has been fined more than any other farm in all of europe.

paul wheaton wrote:
That sounds like a kodak moment. 

Sepp says he pays something like an 85% tax, and that he has been fined more than any other farm in all of europe.

I would not doubt it, but I doubt he always paid it, because he fought them tooth and claw and mostly came out the winner. I have seen him on TV several times.  Has Sepp learned English in the meantime?  I know his wife took English lessons.
I have read the correspondence he had with diverse agricultural and wildlife organisations, fish and hatcheries, you name it he battled it. You feel worn out just reading it.

Sepp has not learned any english that I know of.  His son, Josef, is doing pretty good.

OP (original poster) isn't contactable, name is balnk so just in care they return or anyone else knows I would ask "where was the place near Czech" after that person said

one time in a mountain village six miles from the CZech border