Emmentaler Schaukaserei

A Schaukaserei is a show cheese dairy where you can see cheese being made. At the Emmentaler Schaukaserei they make Emmentaler cheese, generaly known as Swiss Cheese in America. It's the one with the holes in it. As you can imagine, there are hundreds of different cheeses made in Switzerland, so there is no one cheese called Swiss Cheese in Switzerland. The Emmentaler cheese is so named because it comes from the Emmental region.

Here are some shots of the Emmental area on the drive to Affoltern, the village where the Schaukaserei is located. We were driving in and out of snow showers.

An old cheese makers cottage. The house was built in 1741.

I love the old fashioned gutters!

Entrance to the cheese making area.

Once a day they make cheese the old fashioned way, right there in the old cheese makers cottage. There are 200 liters of milk in the pot. Lactic acid and rennet are added to the milk and the milk is stirred over the fire until the curds reach the appropriate size ( about 35 minutes).

Cow bells hanging on the wall.

I'm too tall to live in this house!

Cellar under the house where the cheese is aged.

Views from the Schaukaserei.

Another old house at the Schaukaserei (not as old as the Cheese Makers cottage- this one is probably from the 1800's).

Inside the modern cheese making facility there is a cheese shop.

In the shop they also had Easter eggs made the traditional way for sale. They are made using natural dye (from plants). You pick little flowers and grasses and then you use cloth (or pantyhose!) to hold them tight to the outside of the egg while you put the egg in the dye. The result is so pretty!

Inside the more modern building you can see how cheese is made today. Here is milk being stirred in an industrial size pot.

Here is the cheese in the brine bath.

Here's how they used to stamp the outside of the cheese wheel with the type of cheese, the dairy infomation and the date.

Here is the cheese being aged.

Another shot of the countryside.

An old farmhouse/barn in Affoltern.

The old village storehouse for food and grain.

Urtenen Part 1

A few shots of the village. I love all the old farmhouses. For those of you who are wondering- yes they are still active farms.
Yes, farmhouses really are attached to the barn.
Drive up haylofts...


If you thought the bells were just for cows...

Thuner See and Schloss Schadau

This is Schadau Park on the banks of the Thuner See (Lake Thun) and Schloss Schadau (Schadau Castle). We went there the afternoon of the day I arrived in Switzerland.


Hard to make out, but that's Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau (names of the mountains) in the distance.

Kathi and Helen

After walking around a bit we stopped for a drink at the restaurant in the castle.

Snowpocalypse

As you have probably heard, DC was hit with another huge snowstorm this weekend. It's actually still snowing, but the heaviest is gone by (if the weatherman can be trusted, which he can't). This one was even bigger than the Dec. snowstorm. Ellin's friend Walter wrote this song, which I think is great and exactly the attitude around here over the past week. Below I have attached some photo's of the snow, primarily digging out my car this morning.

SNOWPOCALYPSE
Bailey/Johnson
(to the tune of Metallica's MASTER OF PUPPETS)

Atmospheric chill
A peaceful calm to kill
Something's brewing in the ocean
A thousand miles away
Closer day by day
Mother Nature's deadly potion

Falling from the sky
No time to question why
Media hypes the lie
Shoveling till we die

Nature cryptic
Snowpocalyptic
A winter septic
Snowpocalyptic

Snowpocalypse calling, time to make haste
Inches of white piled up to your waist
In a prison of crystal you're soon encased
Snowpocalypse coming, no time to waste

Snowpocalyptic

Snow Storm

Last weekend we had a big snowstorm here in the DC area. We got a little over 2 feet of snow here at my place. It's a lot of snow for this area, so it took a while for everything to get plowed. As a result we were snowed in Saturday during the worst of the storm. Sunday and Monday some roads were plowed, but there was no guarantee. Here's a few photos I took from my balcony during the storm (I had a little visitor) and a couple shots of my car on Saturday afternoon. It took me an hour and a half to dig my car out when it was all done on Sunday! Fun times :)