Before America

Every Thursday and Saturday and sometimes on Tuesdays we buy our vegetables and eggs from The Ladies. The Ladies are the Schminke sisters, who own and run a farm just outside of Kassel in Ihringshausen. Yesterday they invited us to visit.



We biked the 5 kilometers with Eva and Bettina...





and landed at the house, where we were fed smoked fish, grilled speck, brotchen with butter and cheese, and of course, tons of vegetables.





Burgit, who is a big Obama fan, explained to us over lunch that the farm has been in the family since the early 1700s. The early 1700s, people. Before America.





After lunch, the highlight: a tour of the greenhouses and gardens and fields. It was incredible to see everything growing and to learn about how they work. Because they don't spray pesticides, weeds grow up next to the vegetables in the fields. The prettier the fields, Brigit said, the less the taste.

It's an immense amount of work. Every vegetable is picked by hand, and they're not getting rich doing it. "Wenn man mit Körper und Geist zusammen arbeitet, verdeint man immer weniger," said Petra's son Michael, who also works the farm. If you work with the body and mind together, you will always earn less. The dancers and poet knew exactly what he was talking about.