It’s 8 o’clock in the evening and the church bells just rang in the little white church tower with the verdigris onion top that I can see out the window, across the pasture. They ring on the hour, but they don’t necessarily count it…this time there were only 5 bongs. This morning at 6 a.m., as on most mornings, there were, like, TWENTY bongs. It’s a crapshoot, apparently. And sometimes the bell peals out again at a quarter after, just to see if you’re paying attention.
This is what I see from the window: the crossed wooden bars of the garden fence, then grass pastureland, all the way to the foot of the alps. From left to right: Thaneller, Kohlespitze, Kleine and Grosse Schlicke, Gimpl, Roteflüh, Siebenkopf, Füssener Joechle, Rosskopf, Aggenstein, Breitenberg.
Behind the church and the tiny cluster of red-tiled roofs (school, brewery, wood-cuttery, barns, homes dripping multi-colored layers of overflowing flowerboxes from every storey), are the mountains. In front is a long, low, pine-covered hill, clothed in dark green, like a sleeping, stretched-out animal. It has a white bald spot on the left that looks like snow, but is probably just rock. Behind it are several rocky peaks with the evening sun sculpting shadows and spires along every ridge and ravine. Behind them is another range of peaks and valley, only much more insubstantial…it’s clouds with mountain envy.
As the sun drops, the light on the mountains changes from white to golden to red, leaving only granite-grey behind. A train just whistled in the distance; there’s a platform stop across the road on the other side of the house.
Yesterday, I was checking email around lunchtime, looking out the window, when suddenly John started yelling and leaping about the apartment like a madman, slamming windows shut. A tractor rumbled into the field in front of me, the field where John and Karin and Anders have been regularly kicking the soccer ball around; not a tractor! AAGH! A HONEY WAGON! We all yelled NOOOOOOOO! in slow motion as he turned into the pasture right in front of the house and then let loose with a fanned-out shit spray which instantly drenched the shining green grass into a slick of foul fertilizer. Yum! said the grass and soaked it up. Despite having all the windows sealed, the smell still permeated everywhere. We made liquid poo jokes for the rest of the day because we’re 13 like that.
Alles Gute Nachträglich Zum Geburtstag to alcesalces, into_the_blue and Most Especially to Chuck!