April Showers...

So I can't even compare our April working and traveling experience to March... like, almost polar opposite. As I briefly mentioned, in March we had to leave a place we had agreed to work at due to a stressful/hostile environment- and the place we ended up going to after that, couldn't have been more different. In the best way possible.

Adventures by the river, visiting a lake and yeah, fixing the car once that just decided to not start randomly.

We stayed with an amazing french family, in a beautiful region of France (south-west of Lyon) helping with all sorts of projects. We didn't get to bottle feed lambs like we thought we might, but while we were there four lambs were born! One of which did need help throughout the day to get enough to drink (the mother wouldn't let it drink suddenly after a few days so we stepped in to help). Which meant that after a few days of coming to help feed it, the lamb would come running to us when we showed up to help it drink. The cutest thing on the planet! I have officially decided that of all the baby animals I have seen so far in my life, lambs are just the absolute most adorable things on the planet. Those cute faces... furry, soft wool covered bodies... and super long skinny legs they use to joyfully jump around and play sometimes. Oh my. I just couldn't handle it.

Could. They. Be. Any. Cuter?!!

The ponies we helped look after were pretty self-sufficient. And downright sassy. So we didn't do as much with them as we thought we might. But that's ok. There was plenty of other things to do.

Art projects, movie night and working on my laptop... with a cute cat by the name of Flocon.

To start with, lots of weeding and gardening (someday I'll make it to a place that has a permaculture food forest and I'll get to learn how to have a garden that produces fruits and veggies without all the weeding!!!). The property is at about 1,000 meters altitude, so it wasn't as warm -or green, yet- as some other areas in southern France at that time. But that gave us a bit more time to get the garden, greenhouse and raised beds all weeded, tilled and compost/mulch spread all over the place. I got to work with a super cute older French woman (she was the mother of the home-owner/family that lived in the main house) whose English was pretty good.

I mention her English being good because one of the reasons we went to spend time with this particular family (through Workaway) was so they could improve their English. Which I think they did for sure. But we couldn't really have deep conversations with them, it was just the basics to make sure we all understood each other, if not we used hand gestures or a dictionary. But we connected in other ways. We still laughed together, played together, worked together and shared some recipes, etc ... they were also a very musical family, which we LOVED. Going to concerts and hearing kids practice their music pieces. As well as artistic, with an atelier and lots of craft and painting time together.

Plus we got to see another version of a small community-type arrangement in which they live. There's actually two families that live there. We stayed with one, but the other one lived in an apartment attached to the house too. Plus the grandma in a tiny house in the garden. Everyone had their space, and spontaneously they would get together or help one another out. It was nice to hear from them how it evolved like that and learn from their experience living in that way. After all, we also want to learn about others experiences because we would like to live in some kind of small community some day.

Then we decided to visit the community we've been to already in Switzerland on our way back to Germany. Another beautiful group of people that we were grateful to get to visit- albeit briefly- once again. And to see their beautiful garden at a completely different time of the year. It was really great to catch up with them and then be on our way... almost to Germany.

Pick nick with a mountain view, cooking for everyone in Switzerland and visiting lake Geneva one more time...

But not quite yet. We had reached out to a friend of my husbands about possibly visiting and drove back to France (just a couple hours) to see her. We haven't seen her in 15 years!! My husband had met her in New Zealand and they traveled together in India – and that's when I met my (then future) husband. So I had just barely met her back then and really enjoyed getting to know her more. I can't believe it took us 15 years to meet up. She's been in France since traveling and we've been around enough in our travels – but for whatever reason it all aligned this time around and it was absolutely fantastic to see her. Plus she lives in a gorgeous valley in the French Alps, so it was a nice final dose of greenery and mountains before the final drive then back to Germany.

Travel day went fantastic, made it 6 hours before having to make a quick stop and then the rest flew by. Catching up with our friends and home base in Germany... setting up our quarters for the next couple months and already making dates to meet up with family and friends.

You see it? At 11:11, while going 99km/h we hit 333,333 kilometers on the Odometer!

So much to be grateful for. Plus, it's officially been just over a year since we've been to Frankfurt....remember? The maximum waiting time for the Green Card should be only (?not sure if that's good or bad?) one more year. Max. Hopefully much much sooner. When you're given a time frame of 2 months to two years though.... yeah, what the heck are you supposed to think?

So I try not to. Think about it, that is. Just enjoy the German spring, re-connect with friends and help out as much as we can here at the boarding stables. A mix of working and housesitting... Oh, and I'm still running a pilot group teaching resilience techniques to teenagers right now while developing my next online stress management course! That should be enough to keep us busy for quite a while.

Happy spring everyone.