City living, trees and pigs

Lots of people have asked us, "What's up with that weird German address?" OK, they haven't, but the variety of permutations that we see on envelopes addressed to us prompts me to offer an explanation. Here's the official version:

Richard and Kathy Trewin
An der Lauseiche 8, 1. OG
91058 Erlangen
GERMANY

"An der Lauseiche" is the name of our street. It means, roughly, "at the lookout oak". Our house is number 8, and we live on the first floor above the ground floor. So "1. OG" means "erste Obergeschoss", or 1st upper story. "1." is the German abbreviation for first. "OG" means "Obergeschoss". Then, on the next line is our zip code, 91058, followed by the name of our city, Erlangen. The GERMANY on the last line is only for mail sent from outside the country. Within Germany, it's not necessary to specify the state that you live in (i.e. Bavaria), because the zip code says it all.

Below is a picture of the Lauseiche, a historic tree found just at the end of our spur of "An der Lauseiche". This tree apparently served as a look out point about 200 years ago when this area was part of the Nuremberg Imperial forest.

One morning, around 7 am, the sound of chainsaws pervaded the neighborhood, so I looked around for the source and was surprised to find an Erlangen city crew carefully pruning the Lauseiche. Germans and their trees! They take such good care of them. The street trees are numbered, for some unknown purpose. As I write this, in March, the trees in the neighboring forest have been decorated with cryptic symbols in day-glo pink spray paint. The marked trees are mostly birches and pines. The Bavarian forestry agency is preparing to thin them out to encourage more diverse growth.

The active care of the forests extends to the wildlife, as well. You don't just show up at the county office, pay a few bucks, take a short hunter's safety course and proceed to hunt down the biggest animal you can find. In Germany, there is a weeks-long course that hunters go through to learn how to cull deer herds, the rules of hunting on someone else's land (rental fees are paid to the landowner), recognizing sick animals, knowing the breeding habits ... There are deer stands all over the country side, some in the middle of the fields. They are placed so that the hunters or landowners can observe the health of the animals on their property.

Since we have been here, in our limited driving and car-riding experience, we have not seen one dead deer on the road. The problem here is wild pigs! They are quite prolific - 8 piglets to a sow- and with the climate change, there seems to be sufficient food to tide them over the winters. They can get quite aggressive, and have started to invade city areas. When wild pig meets car, the car usually loses. The city of Erlangen keeps some of these beauties penned up in a wooded lot on the east side of town. Guess they show up at festivals where roast wild boar is popular, or at area restaurants. The little ones are cute, though.

That's it for this installment of the blog. "Tschuess!" from the land where the trees are numbered, the hunters are highly educated and the pigs rule the forest.