Frankfurt Flora and Fauna

 For a Girl Scouts project one year, Clarissa and her troop made posters and shared a pdf of the flora and fauna around the housing compound and the duck pond. Here's some things they saw (and hopefully everything was properly IDed): 

Leatherleaf Viburnum (Viburnum rhytidophyllum)

Mallard (Male) - (Anas platyrhynchos)

Mallard (Female) - (Anas platyrhynchos)

Feral Pigeon - (Columba livia domestica)

Carrion Crow - (Corvus corone)

Common Daisy - (Bellis perennis)

Winter Aconite - (Eranthis hyemalis)

Great Cormorant - (Phalacrocorax carbo)

Common Moorhen - (Gallinula chloropus)

Egyptian Goose - (Alopochen aegyptiaca)

European Firebug - (Pyrrhocoris apterus)

Eurasian Red Squirrel - (Sciurus vulgaris)

Snowdrop Anemone (also called Madonna anemone) - (Anemonoides sylvestris)

Norway Maple - (Acer platanoides)

Deer Mushroom - (Pluteus cervinus)

Oregon Grape - (Berberis aquifolium)

You will have to come visit us and check out the poster, if you want to know exactly where things were spotted and three fun facts about each!

Monday's Moment: Ferns

 

Holidays 2021

Obviously a fail.....but here's some pictures in a effort to catch up (and I'm weird and like posts in chronological order...sort of in hopes of the kids reading back over them one day and treking down memory lane.....).

Tree was decorated...

Cookies were made....

Silly elf shenanigans, but it looks like Santa came!

Christmas meal (the hair and fruit says breakfast, the ketchup says dinner) and the tall child working to get over jet lag after a trip to Texas for the holidays.

Marburg Doorways

 There are a lot of interesting and beautiful doorways in Europe. Here's a small selection of doors, gates, and arches I spotted in Marburg, Germany.

Marburg, Germany

Marburg is a quaint German village along the fairy tale route. It is about an hour drive from Frankfurt. Marburg prides itself on being a Blindenstadt (which is a city adapted to make life for the vision impaired and the blind as easy as possible). The Blindenstudienanstalt (or Blista) is an educational institute for the blind that was started during World War 1 for the young men blinded in the war. I think my favorite thing in the city was the crosswalk sign encourages helping the blind across the road (with a heart and all).

Marburg you can visit the Marburger Schloss (also known as Landgrafenschloss Marburg) which is an extension of the local university and used as a museum now. We heard stories of Martin Luther (the famous German theologian). Martin Luther's theological beliefs formed the Lutheran religion. 

Being true to the blind friendly reputation of the city, all the signs were in braille also!

Another fun thing to do - check out some artwork that is honoring those brothers, Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, best known for their fairy tales. The brothers traveled around and learned the folklore. They then produced a manuscript of all those famous stories you know (53 in all!). A few years back, different artists made artwork around the city honoring those tales. Let's see if you can figure them out.

A. 

B. 

C.

D. 

E. 

There are 16 in all, but these were the only ones I spotted.....let's see if you were able to identify the fairy tales by their object. 

A. Cinderella's shoe

B. Snow White (technically the evil Queen's magic mirror)

C. Little Red Riding Hood's food basket

D. The Wolf and the Seven Young Goats

E. The Frog Prince

Not technically a fairy tale....but cool unicorn on top of the pharmacy sign!

It ended up being a fun day trip I took that was organized by the CLO office. We also hit one of the Christmas markets that had begun.....but I'll mention that in my Christmas market post (coming after this year's Christmas Market season is over - we have plans to hit at least 2 new markets). On that note, I will end with a view of Marburger Schloss atop the hill from the Christmas market.