Travelog for: Oink

Hello Mum,

today we all helped Katharina bake cupcakes for her aunt's birthday. *oink*

First we had to gather all the ingredients for the cupcakes.



Look, how well we fit into the bowl!  *oink*

Then we had to grate an apple.



Or more precisely Lieselotte and Cookie grated the apple while Henri observed them and I *cough cough* snacked on an apple slice *cough cough*

But I made it up when I took over the important task of weighing the sugar.



Cookie mixed sugar and butter together while Lieselotte and Henri weighed the right amount of flour and I measured the baking powder.



We all looked while Cookie mixed everything together well.



Then we let Katharina fill the dough into the muffin tray and we snacked on the leftover dough. *yummy*  *oink*



While the cupcakes were baking we weighed ourselves. *oink*



Look, all together we weigh a little over 200g. 

Then we measured the red currant jam for the topping...



... and mixed it together with butter, powdered sugar and crème fraîche.



Look, it turned out pink like me!  *oink*

To make the finished cupcakes look like apples we had to make some decorations from marzipan and coloring.



Here you can see the results:



*oink*

The cupcakes fresh out of the oven...:



...and decorated:



Sadly, we couldn't taste them just now because they were for the next afternoon and had to be put in the fridge overnight. But tomorrow I'll try one! 

Your hungry Oink

Hello again Mum,

today is the day of cupcake-tasting!  *oink*

We took them to the apartment of Katharina's grandmother to give as a present to Katharina's aunt. We set them nicely on a cake stand (another present) around 2 smurf figurines.



Looks good, doesn't it?  *oink*

And finally after so much work and waiting we got to taste one of them:



Very good! *oink* (And yes, in case you were wondering the they were supposed to look like apples so some of them even had marzipan worms. *eek*)

Yours Oink

Hello Mum,

because of the bad weather we have to stay inside mostly and spend out time often in the kitchen. I hope you don't mind our cooking and baking activities! It's actually much fun and I'm learning a lot of new things. *oink*

Today we made a fairly exotic dinner: jasmine rice with red coco curry.



First we all weighed the rice and Katharina set it to boil on the stove.



(Well, technically we watched Katharina cut the chicken meat first, but we didn't want to put any pictures of raw meat here because it's a little yucky and we are considerate of others.)

So we only show it after it was already in the pan.



While the rice boiled on its own we took the coconut milk and red curry paste...



...and mixed them together in the pan.



Again we found something as pink as I am!  *oink*

After a while we added the meat to the mixture and let it simmer.



We also added the rest of the cocpnut milk and almond pieces and cooked everything until the rice was ready to be served.



We served the rice in a heart shape and put the curry around it.



We also learned how to eat with chopsticks, but it we weren't very good at holding the chopsticks with our paws. So there are no pictures of this embarrassing endeavour.

As you can see, Mum, I'm well fed here. *oink*

Talk to you soon!
Yours Oink

Hi Mum,

we went on another sightseeing tour. Today we went on a long walk around the Landschaftssee, an artificial lake that was built as a recreation area.

But first we stopped at another nice place overlooking some fields.





On the way to the lake we even saw a dragonfly. And it stayed still long enough for pictures.  *oink*



Then we finally reached the lake. It's very green and peaceful there. Plus only very few people were around which made it seem even more peaceful and secluded.





About halfway around the lake we sat down on a bench and enjoyed the beautiful view and the nice weather.



We also saw a pretty blue dragonfly. It was gone too fast for more pictures, but I want to show it to you nonetheless, Mum.



On the other side of the lake we saw two swans. Can you spot them both?



A hint: One is looking for food with his head under water in this picture.  *oink*

On our way back we saw the Uchter Mühlenbach (millstream of Uchte) also called Beeke which is Middle Low German for rivulet.



We followed the rivulet until we reached one of Katharina's favourite places:



She used to play here often as a child - also in the forest you can see on the left side in the background. Btw the bridge is a railway bridge.

From here we followed next to the railway tracks until we reached this huge rock:





It came from Scandinavia and was transported here during the Ice Age. It weighs 31 tons.  *oink*

This was our last stop today before we went home on the railway tracks.





Yours Oink

Hello Mum!

Today we started on a trip early in the morning. Katharina went by car to a fellow Postcrosser who would take us to Soltau with him.

We had a look around once we were allowed out of the backpack in Katharina's car for a minute.



In Soltau Katharina met with some more postcard-crazy people. First they had a little sightseeing tour and of course some postcards were bought. But after a while we went into the Lüneburger Heide (Luneburg Heath) where the humans found a nice place to sit down.

We had a look around:









Doesn't the purple look nice?

But after such a long time we were very hungry. Luckily every Postcrosser had brought something to eat or drink and we had a picknick.



Doesn't it all look yummy? 

Coincidentally we also met lots of other toyvoyagers.
Here we were inspecting a big stack of postcards (it was a postcrossing meeting after all) :



And of course we had to have a group picture taken:



So many TVs!  Most came from different cities in Germany, but one was on holiday from the USA and another was raised in China (where a Postcrosser found him). 

This stone marked the place where we had settled down.



Yes, it was definitely a beautiful view! 

Of course we needed a picture close up with some heather.



And when all of that got too boring we played hide and seek and catch around the heather bushes. 



Cookie and Henri also had to say goodbye to us because they'll be going on new adventures now.



Goodbye and have fun!

Hello Mum,

as we went home today Katharina took a slight detour to show me a nice street in town.

We saw many trees hanging full with miniature apples. *oink* This one looked very nice:



This street has many trees:



Every second tree was full of these apples and every other one had some remaining cherries.

Then, as we turned around the last corner we were rewarded with a nice sunset.



Today it looked especially nice with the interesting reflections in the clouds. *oink* 

Talk to you soon!
Yours Oink

Hello Mum,

today was an amazing day! To celebrate yesterday's great news we went to the ice cream parlour. *oink*



I had an apple sundae and Lieselotte had a chocolate sundae. Mine was called "apple dream" and yes, it was dreamlike. *drool* *oink* 

Yours Oink

Hello Mum!

Today we went on a roadtrip to one of Katahrina's aunts.

We saw lots of fields and forests as usual...



Because it is so flat all around there is a saying here in Northern Germany: You can see yesterday who will be over for dinner tomorrow. 

See for yourself:



It's kinda true, isn't it? 

Also on Facebook there's a group called "I come from a town where a traffic jam is 3 cars behind a tractor". Here is proof:



And we saw another field full of solar panels. Those are sprouting everywhere.



The weather wasn't all that nice:



Luckily we were inside the car.

About halfway there we passed Sulingen.



It's a nice little town where Katharina had her driving test. (Nowadays you have to go to the next big city for that.)

As I said before we passeed lots of fields:





We saw corn fields, potato fields, cabbace fields, and some already harvested fields.

We also saw this nice windmill: 



And we went alongside the railway tracks for most of the ride:





Our destination was somewhere in the woods as well.





I have to admit it seems a little creepy. But of course it's very quiet around here.

On our way back it was already dark so there are no pictures. But Mum, I have to tell you something. We hit a deer on the road!  We were all very, very lucky though as no one was hurt (not even the deer that was running away into the forest). And the car wasn't damaged either. *phew*

It was an exciting day. And tomorrow will also be a long day. So I'm going to bed now. *oink*

Talk to you soon!
Yours Oink

Hi Mum,

today Katharina had a doctor's appointment and an appointment in the hospital as well. It was over in literally 2 minutes and as we were hungry we stopped at McDonald's on our way home.



*oink* 

This afternoon Katharina has some more plans. Of course we'll go with her. Exciting! 

xoxo
Oink

Hello Mum,

as I said in the afternoon we went on another little trip. This time we went to Rahden.

Katharina needed application photos taken and a friend had recommended the photographer in Rahden. It's some distance away, but he did a really good job and that was important.

After this task was done we went a little around town, bought some postcards and just looked around (Katharina only ever went to the cinema here).

We saw these nice chimes on a wall...



...and this old oven in front of a bakery and café.



As it started raining then we cut our visit short and went back home. But it had already been an eventful and exciting day anyway.

Yours Oink

Hello Mum,

today I want to show you the nice view from the balcony of Katharina's grandma.



The neighbours have a pretty little vegetable garden where they grow nearly everything they need.



I would like a little trip into the garden. *yummy* 

Yours Oink

Hello Mum,

you'll never guess what happened today! *oink*

We awoke to lots of hammering and clapping and just overall loud noise this morning.

When we went into the kitchen we saw this out of the window:



Yes, you're seeing right. It's a huge hole just in front of the path leading from the house to the street.   

That explains the noise for sure! And we don't even know what they are doing there as everything inside still functions properly - thank God.

Now we have a very, very small trip planned for the weekend.

I'll show you soon! *oink*
Yours Oink

Hey Mum,

now that it's the weekend and no one is working at the construction site, we made a teeny tiny "trip" - maybe 10 steps - today.

First, you might notice that the hole has doubled it's size since last Thursday:



And then we were very brave (and careful) and went to have a closer look:





Can you see how deep they made it?  It's huge now! *oink* 

Hopefully they will be finished soon!

Yours Oink

Hello Mum! *oink*

We are in the kitchen again. Yummy! *oink* 

Today we are making a sweet potatoe casserole and we hope it'll turn out ok.

So here are the sweet potatoes, potatoes and some of the carrots:



We also needed a little bit of ginger and nutmeg.



And some leek which Lieselotte peeled while I held it still.



After that I cut it into fine pieces.



Then I peeled the potatoes...



...and Lieselotte peeled the sweet potatoes.



Once finished I peeled the carrots...



...and Lieselotte ground them.



After all this work we were a little tired already. And we really didn't want to do the Sisyphean task of peeling and grinding the small piece of ginger. So we pretended to have an argument over who would do the task until Katharina decided to do it herself. *hihi* 



Then we fried everything except for the potatoes and sweet potatoes.



And we cut the potatoes and sweet potatoes into even slices - very carefully because the blade was very sharp. 



Before putting everything into the casserole dish we first had to try it out aurselves.



Then we covered the bottom with some of the slices.



We put the warm vegetables on top and sprinkled some ground nutmeg over it.



After that we covered it all up with the rest of the slices and put some butter pieces on top before putting it in the oven.



After an eternity it was finally finished. By that time we were practically starving so we just ate our share and forgot to take a picture of the casserole, but it was very delicious. *oink*
You have to take my word for it.  

Yours Oink

Hello Mom,

you remember the big hole I showed a few weeks ago, don't you?

Today I'll show you a little update of the construction site.



It hasn't gotten smaller. That's for sure! 

Hope they'll at least finish it this year...

Yours Oink