Sundown with cactus

It has not been easy to catch sunsets but one time on field work I managed to get one with a cactus they call "chic-chic" here. They certainly improve the picture so I can understand the name ;)

Wildlife in the Caatinga

Here a few more impressions of the natural and "man-made" wildlife you can meet in the Caatinga.

Goats and sheep are pretty much roaming around freely although there are a few fences especially close to roads.  People outside of the town live on mostly isolated farms where they keep their animals and grow a few vegetables. The roads are not paved and the further you get away from town, the worse the condition with really deep pot-holes. Many people cannot even afford a car and they go by moped on these roads. They also have the tendency to honk their horn every time they meet somebody. The past decade or so, the government has set up power supply lines so even the remotest place has electricity now. In addition, they all get treated water delivered to their homes which is stored in tanks. 

As geologists, we have to make sure they understand what we're doing so that we can look for rocks on their land without them getting annoyed at us. Most people were quite  friendly and interested in what we're doing but the most frequent question was if we found any gold (although most of them were joking of course). It's a bit difficult to explain that they are actually living on some of the oldest parts of the South American continent, something which is far more valuable in geology than gold ;)

Not really wildlife but I love cacti! 

Black vultures (called urubu here), the garbage men of the Caatinga feasting on a dead goat in this case. Unfortunately many people are not that considerate where they throw their waste so sometimes you have trash heaps where you can find venues (new word I learned today!) of black vultures as well. 

This beauty just needed to be photographed too. 

Super-cute almost new-born goatlings, the black one I almost took with me:

 

And last but not least a view into the distance ... 

Caatinga

Barely after two weeks of being in Brazil, I've already been on field work. The destination was a town called Uauá in the state of Bahia. This region is characterized by a very dry climate which consequently has an effect on the vegetation called the Caatinga. Basically there are no big trees and instead mostly shrubs, thorny bushes and cacti which can be very annoying if you're a geologist roaming the countryside to find great rocks. Some of these plants do not only have thorns but also cause some kind of allergic reaction if you touch them .. like this one here which is called Cnidoscolus quercifolinus or commonly favela plant in Portuguese:

The next candidate is even meaner and likes to grow just in between the rocks but I don't remember the name:

 

Then there are of course the cacti which just have thorns (some up to 10 cm which is why hiking boots with a big sole are recommended):

People living in the Caatinga are generally quite poor and keep mostly goats and sheep. Occasionally you also stumble upon some donkeys and horses. To keep these animals alive, water is collected in artificial lakes. 

Lautertal I

A small tour along the "Castle Trail" along a river called Lauter. The first ruins on the way, St. Ruprecht, could almost be missed if there wasn't a sign. Not really any walls left. Monsberg Ruins though still has a bit of a tower, some walls and part of a cellar. The most impressive former castle is Wartstein with a rebuilt tower overlooking the valley and the region. The way back was along the river where a heron tried to fly away from us but constantly managed to fly into the direction in which we were going so he started and landed at least 10 times until he realized that it would be better to fly upriver.

 Ruins Monsberg:

Ruins Wartstein:

Starting point: parking area in Unterwilzingen

Length: 6.7 km

Brieltal

Another nice valley with usually less people (unless it's snowflake time) is the Briel valley. 

Along the way there is a cave called Kätheren Kuch (Catherine's kitchen) because a woman lived there at the end of the 18th/beginning of the 19th century and whenever she was cooking people from the village could see the smoke. Her parents also live in a cave nearby and lived from what the farmers of the village gave them.

There is also a former castle but the site is quite disappointing - not really anything left there apart from a few hills.

Beginning of the valley:

 

 

Further into the valley:

 

Kätheren's Kuch (Catherine's kitchen):

 The former castle:

Parking area between Altsteußlingen and Briel

Length: 4 km

 

Wolfstal

I always claim that I grew up in a geologically boring area at least by my standards. The village here is still within the glacial deposits so you find almost nothing but gravel and sand. Not too far away we have Jurassic shales and limestones which are somewhat more interesting because you can find fossils. Due to the limestone the area has lots of caves, springs and numerous ruins built to control the valleys. 

One of these valleys is the "Wolf Valley" which is an attraction in March since you can spot huge fields of snowflakes and a bright red mushroom which is apparently very rare. My pictures of the valley look like there was nobody around but I had to wait a long time to get these shots. It was a weekday but seemed like everybody managed to get out to have a look. Real hiking trails for me next time ;)

The small cave is called "Bear Cave" and was used as a camp in the stone age. 

From Lauterach into the direction of Laufenmühle to big parking area

Length: 3.1 km one way

 

Sisyphus

Organic gardening is always a bit like Sisyphus - a lot of it is done in vain and you start from the beginning again. Especially depressing this year was the fact that some animal destroyed at least half of the seeds and from the remaining plants some other (or the same??) animal ate away the tiny first leaves of the new plants.

Some things however actually DID what they were supposed to so I have to document this for the future (that I only remember the good parts of gardening in a few years). The peas for example.

Violets are not always blue

They can be white ;)

 

When the Japanese Cherry (Prunus serrulata) is losing it's flowers it almost looks like snow. 

 Forget-me-not in two varieties:

Vinca (gosh I never learned all these flower names in Enlish):

Bellis perennis (that sounds quite sophisticated for the flower we just call "goose flower" in German) or is that just an English daisy or maybe a lawn daisy ...

The appletree started out promosing as well. We are still eating apples from last fall and lots of bottles of juice are left as well so lets see if we have two "apple years" after another.

And last but not least pulmonaria or lungworts: