… and now we are back at home and we are back to autumn and winter!
It is TERRIBLE. Cold, cold and cold.
At the moment (24 May 2013) it is about 4°C in the morning and 10-12°C during the day! It is grey in grey, rainy (snow down to 800m) and there is always a terrible cold wind.
In some parts of Austria it hailed a few days ago and up to 90 % of the agricultural yield has been destroyed!
view from my home to Fügen - the white smoke on the right is from the "Feuerwerk"/Binder (=sawmill we visited)
view from my house in the direction to Rotholz
MAY 2012
JUNE 2012
Temperatures were perfect for vines and for orchards to ripen properly, but it rained a lot and this fact caused a disease called downy mildew (Plasmopara viticola – Picture 5) for vines and scab for apples (Venturia inaequalis - Picture 6).
Bologna that is called EIMA (Picture 10 below), there we saw a lot of innovative machines. Once back in San Michele we filtered Moscato rosa, our special sweet wine and a type of rosè wine.
beautiful view on the mountains - where the Zillertal (=my home) meets the Inntal (=Rotholz)
The pictures show the only day (22 May) with a bit of sunshine in the early morning in the last days. For farming and agriculture is the weather not a big problem.
Most farmers did already some hay harvesting or producing silage from the first grass.
In the mountains – on our alms – everything is so far OK. The snow from winter is gone and the frass grew well so far. So it looks as if the farmers can bring their animals pretty soon (end of May, beginning of June) on the alms.
At school is still everybody happy how things are going on – on our fields, in the orchard. But now it is really important that weather is going to change. We need warmth and sunshine for our forage crops, winter wheat, pumpkins, fruits and berries. So we will see how it is going on the next time.
30/04/2013
It is springtime in Rotholz!
Finally!!!
It seems as if spring is back or actually if it has arrived.
The winter lasted very long this year. We thought it won’t get away and wouldn’t leave any space for spring.
We had just one nice and warm week from February until April and that was the week you were with us! 4th – 8th March was fantastic. In that week it was a bit too warm for the time of the year, but it was perfect for our being together and our activities.
But the rest of the time was terrible cold, sometimes extremely windy and grey and cloudy.
Although we didn’t have the disaster with snow in March as many European countries, we weren’t satisfied with the weather either.
It was cold but there weren’t that much precipitations as we actually wanted or needed.
But it was and is necessary to heat our houses. So we need a lot of wood for keeping our houses warm and that is on the other hand good for the farmers who sell firewood.
In March, as an example, it was about 2°C colder in average than in the last years.
At the moment we have nice warm weather (about 15-20°C and in sunny places even more) but it is also very windy. The wind brings with it that it dries out everything. That means we could do with some rain! At the moment it is still OK but we can’t do without rain much longer.
The situation at school is good. Though the lack of precipitations our crops and grassland is doing well. Due to our farm manager Mr Haas (our vice headmaster) everything is in a good state. The food for our cattle is growing – not just in the valley, on the alm too.
Pumpkins, potatoes, crop and our fruit trees are on a growth period as they should be in that time of the year.
The farmers are manuring their fields with dung.
The farmers are manuring their fields with dung.
30/01/2013
Stable service
In Rotholz we have to go to the stable for two weeks. We have to get up at a quarter to five in the morning and at 5 o’clock we have to start with milking.
In the afternoon we start a 4 o’clock. Four of us have to milk the cows with the teacher and two of us are feeding the cows. When we have finished with milking we have to clean the milking utensils that we have used for example the buckets, the milking machine and other things;
We feed them silage, hay and concentrate. We also take care of the calves and although we have to get up always that early nearly everybody of us really likes that work!
the calves in their igloos
taking the silage
taking hay from the haystock
the cows are happy with their food
Is it my turn now?
the milking parlour
milking a cow
cleaning the buckets
everything is clean and tidy
the dung removal
our limealley in winter
non-smoking area in the whole school area
09/01/2013
Weather in January 2013 in Rotholz
This year in January we had too much water. It rained nearly every day. Because it didn't snow, it rained all the time. It was a bad January this year. The creeks went high and there where a lot of environmental disasters. Hills came down, people had to be evacuated from their houses because of the water from the creeks. The fire department had many operations because of the high water. Also the agriculture suffered from the water. Many fields where flooded and it will get hard for farming them in the spring and summer. For many ski-areas it was a bad winter because no snow fell. Only in the glaciers was enough snow to operate the ski lifts.
too much and too fast water for the little tunnel
there are many puddles in the fields
water everywhere
snow is nearly gone and it is pouring and pouring
it doesn't look good
07/01/2013
Chickens
One of our company branches is the chicken stable. We have 200 hens in „Freilaufhaltung“. They also get organic food so that even our eggs are organic.
The girls from the home-economics school take care of the hens. They feed them, take the eggs and check if everything is fine there. The chickens need a humidity of 50% and the temperature should be between 12-28°C. Light is very important for the egg-production too and there is a special ventilator in the stable because of all the amoniak in the manure. The stable was build in 2008. That was a special programm from the 3rd classes.
We sell the eggs in our farmers market every Friday.
We have to sell all the hens in June because of the long summer holidays. It‘s not very clever when we think economically but it‘s one of the troubles a school has to handle.
31/12/2012
New Years costums
Most of us live close to Rotholz in the so called "Zillertal". One of our tourist attractions is the old steam train.
There is always a special train on New Years Eve. It's nicely decorated and people can have a party on the train. In some of the railwaystations are music groups playing and there you can even dance. It is really a very special and nice thing celebrating the last day of the year in this way. I took some pictures in front of our school from the train this morning so that everybody can have a look at it.
Happy New Year to all the nice participants of our project!!!
the church from the village Eben is in the background
Rotholz and the school are still in the shadow but up in the mountains ....
the steamtrain Zillertal Bahn-Sylvesterzug is on its way
the steamtrain just in front of the school - Happy New Year 2013
with full power into the year 2013
there are so many carriages that they need two locomotives - one on each end
30/12/2012
Teachers only
A nice remembrance are the teacher pictures from Zoltan! I think everybody can have a look at them and I think some of you have to smile as I did when I saw them.
So enjoy them and a big THANK YOU to ZOLTAN!!!!
21/12/2012
19/12/2012
farm machinery
Here are some pictures of the work the students do in the workshop for farm machinery. They love screwing, soldering, finding and correcting technical problems.
AND: they are really good at it!
All machines must be checked and sometimes even repaired.
Listening to the information and watching carefully what the teacher tells and shows them.
Sharpening the blade for the summer. The next grass must be cut for sure sometimes in the next summer.
Where is the mistake? Why doesn't the engine work?
You really need to concentrate in the metal workshop!
Winter at school
During wintertime we don’t have so much work to do on the fields, in the orchard or with our bees.
At that time of the year our students are mainly engaged in the different workshops we have.
The second classes worked in the joinery (students who are involved in our project are on the pictures) and they also did some work in the farm machinery garage (other students from their class) last week.
They like working in the workshops. Doing different practical skills with different materials is a great thing.
And working on a farm machinery (sometimes on one from their own farms) and checking and repairing it together with the teacher and some classmates is a fantastic job!
The group is waiting for the teacher and already "excited" :) about the work they are going to do.
Working with the machines always means keeping an eye on them and your fingers!
Shortening the board.
Everything has to fit together perfectly at the end.
Working together in a team makes it that easier!
News from San Michele all’Adige - The weather in Trentino (Part 2) – From March to November 2012
MARCH 2012
The weather was good for the season. In the second part of the month it started to rain.
We tied up vines. We had a school trip in Alba and Barolo (Picture 1), near Turin
APRIL 2012
Temperatures were too low, so orchards and vines shoots were damaged (Picture 2 - Damaged shoot of Chardonnay 25/04/2012).
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We studied some machines used for weed removal. (Picture 3)
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We studied some machines used for weed removal. (Picture 3)
MAY 2012
Temperature were within the average. We carried out some pruning on Guyot. We tried to graft vines. We grafted two varieties: Moscato rosa and Turca (Picture 4)
JUNE 2012
Temperatures were perfect for vines and for orchards to ripen properly, but it rained a lot and this fact caused a disease called downy mildew (Plasmopara viticola – Picture 5) for vines and scab for apples (Venturia inaequalis - Picture 6).
JULY 2012
High temperatures and a lot of rainfall. In our own vineyards, some of us carried out green pruning. We removed some bunches to improve quality then we thinned out also apples.
AUGUST 2012
It didn’t rain a lot. Grapes started to ripen. Some farmers began to harvest some white vine varieties: mainly Chardonnay, Pinot blanc and Pinot noir (in order in Pictures 7-8-9 below).
SEPTEMBER 2012
School started on the 12th of September. Grape harvest kept on. This year the yield was not so high as 2011. After the 15th there were a lot of rainfall.
OCTOBER 2012
Temperatures decreased. We harvested Moscato rosa and pressed it. We stored grapes in boxes to produce a sweet wine called passito. We produced some different wines: Pinot gris, Moscato giallo, Pinot noir. We produced also a wine that will be used to make sparkling wine.
NOVEMBER 2012
Temperatures were within the average. We visited a machinery exhibition in 
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