My farm

This is my farm. I want to share with you my sexy story.

A story that would have earned a happy ending, but what is not, may still come.

It goes to the beautiful Emmental. Where the best cheese in Switzerland. Two friends of mine, Hans-Werner and Gaby have emigrated to Switzerland a few years ago and took over a cheese factory near Langenau. There I will now spend two weeks on holiday, recover myself and learn as much as I can about cheese making.

I know Switzerland very well, since a close, very close friend of mine in the canton of Uri has a hotel, in which I am as often as I can. Edith, the owner of the hotel, I’ve known for several years and she helped me find an apartment in W. very much. I think, probably also from a certain self-interest, because I am always close to her when she needs me gastronomically or otherwise. Now and then I cook with her and between us it is a relaxed and pleasant work. We also give ourselves what we need, but remain free and free. But this time I do not want to see her and that has different reasons.

Every time I come to the Emmental, I am looking for the sign “Frisch gebohnert” at the entrance to the valley, so clean and tidy is here. But also very nice. To make a holiday this is actually the right place.

Actually, I do not feel like holidays. I just want to get out of my habitual environment, not to see a man and to come to rest again and find a normal life. Because my life is not normal at the moment. My two best friends have died within three weeks; Urs’s heart failure and Klaus’s life. And why, none of us know. I’ve been taking care of the family for the last few weeks, but now I’m burnt out and empty. Since my REHA I have not written any more line, because Ina and the children have demanded my full attention.

Slowly, the three return to their normal everyday life and now it’s time for me to return to normal. That is why Switzerland, therefore the Emmental. Listen and see something else and find me again.

Gaby and Hans-Werner are looking forward to seeing me and we have a lot to tell. The two of them were welcome and frequent guests in our restaurant and want to know, of course, what has happened in the last few years with us in the village. They are deeply affected by the death of Urs and Klaus, whom they also knew.

“We’ll get you started,” says Gaby, “we’ll do so much to you, you’ll forget everything else.” Edith told us that you did goat cheese with Mariett goat cheese and that the result was not You will learn how to make real cheese from the ground up, and Hans-Werner will take you to the alpine pasture tomorrow, where you will get to know the basics of cheese production, and in two weeks we’ll do it The Emmentaler with us at the dairy for sale in gastronomy and for a Swiss supermarket chain. “

Hans-Werner laughs.

“I would like to see Arne breed his first cow, and Thäräs (Therese) will probably get a tantrum because of his awkwardness and complain loudly, what a dumb we have sent her back Tharäs is all but not patient and forbearance, but otherwise she is a kind-hearted man. “

“My cousin will never be a problem, Hans-Werner, my aunt has a farm in the Allgäu and the farming is not completely unknown to me, and from my time in the gastronomy I have a thick coat Therese bounce off like a rubber wall. “

“I’d like to be there when two such strikers like Arne and Thäräs bounce for the first time,” says Gaby. “But now, Seriously, Arne, Therese is a top chef-chef, and from next year will lead our large cheese factory, listen to what she says and do not let her be impressed by her sharp nature But it is someone you can rely on one hundred percent. “

“I do not think that problems will arise,” I replied calmly. “I want to learn something and if she can teach me a little, I can also ignore her ways of dealing with her. It’s only two weeks and I do not want to marry her.”

Hans-Werner and Gaby laugh out loud.

“For Heaven’s sake, Tharäs, and marry, she has already got behind her, and her opinion on men I would rather not explain to you more closely, why do you think she is on the top of the alpine pasture? She always says her calmness.Males and Thäräs, that has never gone well and mostly it was not her fault, and her 4 children pulls them all alone and is a very good mother for her, but now we show you your room For the time when you are with us, and then we’ll see how long it takes for Thäräs to pull you out of your teeth and you’ll escape. “

“There you can wait a long time,” I replied grimly and then start laughing.

“My second name is” Stur “and with last name I mean” Inflexible. “

The next morning Hans-Werner throws me out of bed in the middle of the night. It is 4 o’clock and he thinks it is time for breakfast. At five o’clock we have to leave to be in time for the morning milking on the pasture.

I slept slouchily in the old Land Rover and let me rock in the mountains. The sun has already risen and lets the peaks glow in tomorrow’s splendor. After about an hour we reach the Almhof. I would not have imagined it so hugely.

Hans-Werner laughs.

“With almost 150 cows, you need certain stables for milking, but there is nothing to do with your hand, because that would not be possible at all, but the milking facility is less problematic, and then the cheese kitchen is not exactly small But you will see it later, too.

Oh, my goodness, I think with myself. Just as it is called, the mountain trek also looks out. A knight-sport figure. Square, practical, but good ???????

Therese is not very big, wearing a threadbare, washed-up dirndl and rubber boots !!!! The legs, which are stuck in these fashionable shoes, I desistly call “herb stompers”.

I can not see much of her face except for the angular chin, as it is covered by a huge straw hat. And she chews on a long blade of grass.

“Bring me another tour of me, who keeps me from the gun,” she says sullenly in broad Schwyzerdütsch to Hans-Werner, bracing her arms to her hips, and looks at me with disgust.

Two middle-brown, clear eyes scornfully appraise me, and apparently she quickly formed an opinion of me; And as I seem, no particularly good.

“No, Thäräs, not a tourist, but a good friend of ours and our former host in Dütschen (= from Germany).”

Yes, this is what is said here.

“He has a little to hand, and wants to learn a bit about cheese making. He knows a little about dairy farming and has already done Ziger (goat’s cheese) with a friend in Uri.”

“Of those beasts can kaan mache, the isch only a Schißdräckch”, Therese blows.

“Those who ate him, and there were also French among them, disagreed,” I say.

“Pah, French,” she snorts. “Frosch- und Schneckchenscheifer, who would be afraid of everything she could do!”

So look, she does not like the French either. Probably only cows, since you can not contradict them.

These will be funny fourteen days.

I move quickly, because the cattle are already queuing for milking. Cotton shirt, jeans and mountain boots, and I’m ready. Four people in four alleyways are working on the chord work.

The first cow is already in place, the teats are quickly cleaned with a damp cloth, the milking plant is switched on and the suction funnels pushed onto the teats. And let’s go. Hans-Werner nods in agreement, and Therese looks at me with his lips tight. You do not seem to fit something.

Cow around cow is milked, trots out again to the mountain pasture and I am already very relieved that nothing has gone wrong with me. Although I’m not as fast as the others, but with some practice that will still be.

Two hours later. Hans-Werner claps me like a player change and we both grin at us broadly.

Therese waves to me and goes with me to the back of the stables. There is a single cow in a gate. She presses a tin bucket into my hand, points to the cow and says: “Melkche, but by the hand!”

Thank you, Aunt Marie, for bringing this to me. I hope that after all these years I have not forgotten anything. I grabbed a milking stool from the wall of the barn and buckled it. Then I go into the gate and approach the cow, which eats peacefully before itself. I caress the animal, which looks at me briefly and then continues to munch.