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# 15 / OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2021
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A place for people
Why am I so happy during the Sammatz Apple Day, when around 1000 people come to Michaelshof to inform themselves, enjoy themselves and indulge in delicious things? Because it will be a success? Because it is worthwhile? Because it’s all about the apples?
In the end, it is the people themselves that make me happy. A smile, an exchange of glances, characters. People who let go, who are attentive, who take in the atmosphere, get in a good mood. Happy people who get into the car at the end and take something with them.
Michaelshof is a place for people. For people who meet each other. The chemistry between people – invigorating, but also exhausting, even scary to some – is what takes us furthest, it helps us become who we are, individually.
When people come together, you can feel it in the atmosphere. Soul spaces are created, as tangible as houses, cars or apple trees. And nature will always be there and come into its own, because it simply belongs to people.
Wonderful when it happens, let’s take good care of it!
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What keeps us busy on the farm and in the gardens? For one thing, the biodynamic preparations, on which we just held a successful seminar. After an introduction to the content, we went out to try different things, such as grinding pebble stone. At the big preparation barrel, everyone could see how much force is needed to bring movement into the water in this barrel. After all, the preparations are made by stirring for over an hour! The preparations are at the heart of Demeter agriculture and are very dear to us. It was therefore all the more enjoyable to bring them closer to the attentive participants in terms of content and illustration.
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The harvest is already quite far advanced. The pumpkins are in the greenhouse and are turned every few days. As soon as a pumpkin has a hint of ‘I’m not feeling so good anymore’, it is quickly taken to the kitchen, cooked into soup, canned and then eaten throughout the winter and into spring. This is our special method to avoid losses and to deal with the harvest in a sustainable way. The pumpkin harvest was very productive this year, and when Halloween comes around, we always sell a few more of the sturdy fellows …
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Otherwise, almost all the vegetables are gone from the field. Only the celery is still outside. It still tolerates temperatures around zero degrees and is the last to be harvested. There’s a reason for that: in September and October it really draws strength from the soil and only now grows to its final size. That’s why it’s great that it can still stand in the field and get its final growth spurt before we finally have to bring it in too.
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Dahlias always last until the first frost. Unfortunately, ours have already had a bit of that. We cut back what no longer looks pretty, but the remaining flowers still form a sea of colour on the eastern edge of the arena that is definitely worth looking at.
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Good things from Sammatz
Lea’s Autumn Recommendation
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Hello, I’m Lea. I run the dairy at Michaelshof. I create new varieties and look after ripening cheeses and other fine dairy products.
These are my recommendations for the next few weeks:
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Raclette cheese – It has the ability to melt more beautifully than any other cheese. This is best done in a small pan and eaten with potatoes, pickles and various vegetables. A sociable pleasure somewhere between a meal and a round of Monopoly. Our raclette cheese is currently available in the farm shop, at the Lüneburg weekly market and in the Onlineshop.
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Fruchtmolke – Whey is a by-product of cheese production. Nutrition-conscious people appreciate the slightly cloudy liquid for its valuable proteins, very healthy and a good thirst quencher. We turn it into fruit whey by adding mango or raspberry juices. Fresh, delicious and now available at our farm shop and at the Lüneburg weekly market!
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Café am Michaelshof Says Thank You!
With the 1st of November we go into our winter break. Many thanks to all our guests – for visiting, for coming back, for the wonderful time.
Despite the pandemic, we had a great café year. Whether outside under the parasols, to-go, or inside in our café – the coffee was good, the cake was delicious and the atmosphere was, as always, a perfect mix between relaxed and community feeling.
See you soon in spring!
Speaking of coffee: The organic coffee we serve in the café was the only one in the current Öko-Test to receive the test mark “good” for its quality and the fairness of its cultivation. One more reason to look back with satisfaction on many a hot cup under a Sammatz parasol! (You can find out more about coffee in the Öko-Test in our found-on-the-web section).
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Michaelshof up to date – at a glance!
Opening hours:
Arche-Hof:
Mo-Su 8.00 a.m. – 7.00 p.m.
Farm shop:
Mo-Fr 9.30 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.
2.00 p.m. – 6.30 p.m.
Sa 10.00 a.m. – 6.30 p.m.
Su & Bank holidays 10.00 a.m. – 6.30 p.m.
Café:
The café will take a winter break from 1 November!
Der WAGEN, Wochenmarkt, Lüneburg:
We & Sa 7.00 a.m. – 1.00 p.m.
Please follow the Covid 19-regulations of Lower Saxony.
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‹Community› all well and good …
…but is it really just rosy when there are so many everyday problems around?
‹How do we deal with heartbreak in Sammatz?› This is something that happens from time to time in your life. But somewhere else in this world you can skilfully avoid it, you usually live in an anonymous city where, if you’re lucky and you want to, you may never see each other again. Literally.
But what happens when your former lover lives in the next room and you have no choice but to patiently eavesdrop on the conversations that are no longer being held with you but with someone else? Sounds pretty stupid at first, I know. It is. At first. It hurts a bit more to be reminded every single day of what you no longer have. And on top of that, all the feelings that you really don’t want to have pop up out of nowhere. Envy, fear, hate, rejection and, at the forefront, dear old self-pity. That doesn’t come in handy. After all, you have other things to do besides complaining. Do you? If you’re completely honest, you don’t.
Anyway, there are also the moments, the positive ones, that only happen here, in a community. All of a sudden you meet your lover at an unexpected corner and decide within a millisecond whether to react venomously or simply be happy to see each other again. If you get your act together, you are usually rewarded. You realise how much you have missed each other and that you actually need the years of friendship much more than the newly won ‹good arguments why this person is very stupid›. And even if it takes a while until the pain is gone, you thank the community from the bottom of your heart that this person has not disappeared off the face of the earth, but is living and thinking and feeling right behind the next wall.
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Selma Lagerlöf-Schule Wietzetze
Why not in a container?
«Special School with a focus on emotional-social development», that’s the official term for the Selma Lagerlöf-School. We have started the second full school year with four classes and 20 pupils. We are especially pleased that the teaching staff has expanded in the last year – a good team that can achieve a lot together with the great children.
During the summer holidays, it became clear that another classroom would be needed sooner than expected. The solution was unconventional and quick: at the beginning of October, a small spaceship landed on the venerable Niedersachsenhof: an office container that we have since converted into a really nice classroom! |
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Office turns into year one paradise
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Hello everybody!
It’s been now two weeks since we have arrived in Denmark, and almost a month since we left Sammatz, after living in the community for approximately one and a half year. The whole radical change of environment and activities really made our perception of time dilate and showed it’s known relativity.
This change of location, costumes, traditions, language, and routine has definitely rendered a 180° turn for us. The city of Copenhagen is truly beautiful, clean, multicoloured and incredibly adapted for bikers, the ones who have become the true owners of the street, true signs of progress and evolution of a modern city indeed!
I found work on the second day of arrival as a receptionist/cashier in a Restaurant, a comfortable job so far to get started with, which also has given me the delightful and fun opportunity to welcome German people every once in a while (more often than what I would have expected), namely to greet them in their own language (a beloved asset that sammatz has helped me with).
The country offers a great deal of opportunities, so it’s up to everyone to choose their own path and ride along.
I still miss bits of sammatz, the comfortable life and it’s routine, the work environment and the good talks with the guys at lunch and while getting the job done.
I hope everyone is doing great over there! Greetings to everbody!
Santiago
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(Santiago (left) comes from Argentina, is an architect and has helped a lot in the construction area at Michaelshof. Here he is with his whole family, from Argentina via Sammatz to Copenhagen).
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WE LOVE TO ENTERTAIN YOU
Things we’ve found on the web & ️…
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Harbour Mile Neu Darchau. In our municipality of Neu Darchau – which is also our neighbouring village – the association ‘ElbDORFaktiv’ is transforming a previously fallow meadow into a place of culture. There has already been a photo exhibition by local artists on the ‘Harbour Mile’. As of today, 31 October, there is also a sound bowl park designed by the marine physicist Erich Bäuerle. Open: 24/7!
Michaelshof Coffee – good coffee! The coffee brand we trust just scored ‘good’ in an Öko-Test survey as the only ground coffee variety. It was praised for being free of pollutants and for its fair cultivation conditions. We appreciate GEPA’s commitment and are happy that we and our guests can now also be in a good mood in terms of health and fairness when enjoying coffee.
‹Life centres is what we need› Found in the sustainability magazine Oya (issue 65): “What we are very concerned about at the moment are the village biotopes for cooperation, we call them ‘life centres’. In my experience, truly long-term communities are created when many areas of life are interconnected, do not take place separately and constantly give each other mutual impulses. Working, educating oneself, meeting each other, the supply of food and much more are then spatially and communicatively connected …” Sounds good! 😉
And the Random-Playlist of the editorial team + surrounding desks: Žilvinas Brazauskas, who thrilled us live in Sammatz in the summer, Udo (also younger people are fans round here), Ich muss gar nichts (for the most beloved moments of frustration or for speeding up your morning run) and always good: Welcome to the Jungle by Tash.
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PERENNIALS RAVE The nursery is full of perennials right now – that’s gardening jargon for plants growing for more than one season. It is so beautiful how they are still flowering in the arena and elsewhere at the moment – so we are already making sure that you can be in perennials fever with us again next year. Now we just have to plant them…
CIAO APPLEBEE – Whoever saw the big white gelding in the morning mist on the pasture could easily feel like in a fairy tale. He almost won a cold-blooded race (took a wrong turn at the decisive moment), was as gentle as a lamb, a favourite with children and guests. Sadly, we had to say goodbye to him now.
COOPERATION – In the course of last year, a contact was established with the Leuphana University of Lüneburg, more precisely with the Faculty of Sustainability. Now the cooperation is slowly taking shape, among other things in the area of bachelor theses. Exciting, more of it!
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