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Tulpe – Tulip – Tulipa
ˈtʊlpə – ˈtuɫəp – tulipa
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Every year our tulips and daffodils attract garden lovers from the local area, from Hamburg and from across Germany. No wonder:With more than 100,000 tulip bulbs that we (as regular newsletter readers will know) planted in all gardens in autumn, we probably have one of the largest tulip flowering areas in northern Germany!
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Don’t miss this:
Our Tulip Festival on 06 & 07 May – 11am – 5pm
Come along, marvel at the seas of tulips in The Arena, The Waldsee and our other gardens and let yourself be inspired by the joy of spring, the music and the delicious food! See you soon in Sammatz!
Music for a tulipy mood: The Andrew-Sisters –Tu-li tulip time
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NEWS FROM THE GREEN TEAM:
Vegetables, healing plants, fields, ornamental plants & more!
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The ‘Green Village’ team has a lot to do at the moment, because it’s spring and green everywhere. The cows are already getting the first fresh grass of the year and the crops have all been sown too.
Soon our farm animals will be able to go out to their pastures again – the celebration of spring!
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Our veggie helpers are in the starting blocks and ready to work morning and evening to get all the little plants into the soil in time! Lettuce, radishes and delicious chives are already growing in the foil tunnels at the vegetable field – and of course this is just the beginning. Regional organic vegetables – without pesticides and long transport routes – are a step in the right direction as far as the mega issue of the environment and nutrition is concerned. Are you already thinking locally in terms of vegetables?
The medicinal plant field is also being hoed, weeded and harvested again. Harvesting in April? Sure, for example aniseed, nettle, birch, strawberry and primrose leaves! For a few weeks now, we have been helped by our motivated interns who also help with the medicinal plant harvest during our near-freeze temperatures every day from 8-9 am.
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Below you can see two great medicinal plants we are researching in the lab at Eichenhof. Traditionally, kitchen burnet (left) is used for fever, especially in children. The wood sorrel, Oxalis (right) helps with rheumatism, gout and also gastrointestinal complaints.
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And more good news for plant lovers!
Michaelshof proudly presents:
The Sammatz Garden Centre
From Saturday 6 May you can buy our home-grown vegetables and flowers, great outdoor and indoor plants, all kinds of garden accessories and much more. Garden fans, let’s go!
Where? Right next to the farm shop at the Arche-Hof. Come by and take a piece of Michaelshof with you into your own green space!
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SAMMATZ YOUTH CLUB
Encounter – Inclusion – Refuel
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How do the kids in Sammatz spend their free time? There’s always something for the little ones to do: Running, hide and seek, or playing football – the main thing is to be together and outside 🙂.
For the teenagers it’s a bit more difficult. Mobile phones are actually cooler than going outside, but it’s also stupid to be alone – and mobile phones are easily addictive. Then in January came THE idea: a club for the Sammatz youth. There’s table football and billiards, books and games, and above all: no entry without a club card, adults only by invitation.
From dream to reality
Right from the start, our youngsters were super motivated, and soon bubbling over with ideas. The choice of playground equipment, colours of the walls, rules for stay and use, everything was intensely discussed.
When the first playground equipment arrived, it was quite exciting – they immediately set it up and started playing. With specially created youth club signs and club cards, things officially got underway!
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The youth club is a real asset for our village and fits perfectly into the community. Young people from the village and from Peronnik can meet here and make friends easily. Inclusion every day and without even having to think about it! We have also set up an evening for the student interns, who spend between 2-4 weeks at Michaelshof, when they can visit the youth club. Yesss!
We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Kroschke Children’s Foundation for donating the playground equipment. We’re making good use of it!
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Farmyard Animal Festival and the Thuringian Forest Goat
We look back on the first farm animal festival of the year and are grateful for the enthusiastic response! Despite the cool weather, many guests visited the Ark Farm and our old domestic animal breeds. With the nature festivals we try to make serious topics attractive for everyone in a playful and entertaining way. Nature conservation and species protection are such topics. It is just as much about people as it is about nature: opening all the senses and the soul to the world around us. It is about being amazed, thinking about what is foreign and at the same time related and this isn’t something that comes naturally to modern people. With the animals, however, it is very easy and everyone takes home a real experience.
The concept of festivals at Michaelshof is becoming more and more popular and is establishing as a leisure activity in the region. We are very happy about that!
We spent a wonderful day with information, delicious cake and an exciting farm rally for the kids, with a well-attended guided tour of the dairy and many, many cuddles for the animals. By the way, you could also tell that the animals enjoy it when someone takes an interest in their nature, watches them groom their fur or romp around and simply pays attention to them. We will continue in summer – with the farm animals through the agricultural year!
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We also want to tell you some interesting facts about the Thuringian Forest goat. Then you’ll be fully informed the next time you come by and admire what the sweet baby goats have become.
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The Thuringian Forest Goat was created around 1900 by crossing traditional Thuringian goats with the Swiss Toggenburg goat. The breed is hardy and well adapted to cold and wet weather. The alpine influence is also evident in the animals’ climbing abilities.
In the 1980s, the population had declined from originally 60,000 animals to only 120 animals nationwide.
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Thanks to dedicated breeders, it has since recovered to about 1,300 animals – but the Thuringian Forest Goat is still an endangered breeds of livestock.
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Michaelshof up-to-date – all opening hours at a glance!
Arche-Hof:
Mo-So 9.00 – 19.00
Café:
Mo-Fr 8.00 – 12.00
14.00 – 18.00
Sa 8.00 – 18.00
So 9.30 – 18.00
Farmshop:
Mo-Fr 9.30 – 12.00
15.00 – 19.00
Sa, So & holidays 10.00 – 19.00
Der WAGEN in Lüneburg:
Wed & Sa 07.00 – 13.00
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What we really wanted to show you!
Delicious breads from Sammatz
The bakery at Michaelshof operates in a small brick house directly opposite the Arche-Hof. When the smell of the bakery wafts through the village, young and old rejoice – what could be better than fresh bread?
Regional, Demeter, handmade by the international team and simply delicious.
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For example, Möhre-Mehrkorn. This juicy bread is our bestseller and especially popular with children. Finely grated carrots and oat flakes, sunflower seeds, linseeds and pumpkin seeds give it its juicy texture and fresh, nutty taste. The basis of the bread is rye and wheat flour, and it is loosened by our homemade rye sourdough.
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Or there’s our Dinkel-Haferkruste. A wheat-free bread that gets its special substance and strength from oat flakes and wholemeal oat flour.
This bread, appreciated by many customers for its good digestibility, is moist, flavoured with olive oil and suitable for all sweet and savoury spreads.
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And what about Kartoffelbrot? A round, light bread made from wheat and rye flour and leavened with sourdough. We work gently cooked organic potatoes into the dough, which makes the bread wonderfully moist and gives it a tender, crispy crust. Apart from savoury toppings, it is also very suitable for sweet spreads. Attention – acute danger of wanting to eat it all at once!
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As always, you can get these and many other delicious breads in our farm shop at Michaelshof, on Wednesdays and Fridays at the Lüneburg weekly market and now also in several organic shops in the region. Find your favourite bread!
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Sat. & Sun., 13-14 May 11am-5pm (Mother’s Day)
Flowers and Music – Weekend of Hearts
When is spring at its best? When the air is fragrant and music wafts through the gardens, poems flutter in the wind and bouquets of flowers are waiting for you everywhere!
Bring your loved ones and enjoy a romantic weekend of the heart with spring sounds, flower magic and many a surprise in the gardens. For Mother’s Day, we’ll give Michaelshof a very special flair: there will be lots to discover, to think about and to take part in. You can expect coffee and cake as well as flower sales and garden tours. And in various corners you will hear music from our community.
Mother’s Day shows us what love can do. How beautiful when family ties become soul ties – let’s weave them from heart to heart, to all our friends and around the world! The Weekend of Hearts: an invitation to you to walk through the world with an open heart.
From the poetry park to children’s crafts, there will be something for everyone!
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Sat 15 May 11am-5pm
Nobody knows. Or maybe they do? Anthroposophy in conversation
Is there a spiritual world that is always there without us knowing about it? Sleep and death point to another existence, but is this not beyond universal knowledge?
Rudolf Steiner claimed more than 100 years ago that there is only one truth, also in relation to the spiritual, invisible worlds, and called it ‘spiritual science’. Was he a conman? A genius storyteller? Or a knower, as there have been time and again in the past?
It is a pleasure for us to discuss this. It stimulates us to look a little more closely into the world, to reflect, to move questions. Anthroposophy rethought – exciting, crazy – simply amazing! Let’s go!
Free admission, donations welcome
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Sat, 27 May 2pm – 9pm – Sun, 28 May 10am – 1pm
Community Festival
We celebrate community! But what does social still mean in the age of social media? Is my gaming community also a community? How do big city shared flats differ from intentional communities?
At the Community Festival we want to discuss it all, get to know each other, show you the advantages and hurdles of community life. What makes the Michaelshof community different from other communities? What do I need to start one myself and how important are friendship and common ideals? What is our work based on and how are we organised?
We are packing you a festival weekend full of input, opportunities for exchange, exciting questions and a lot of honesty. As always, there will be delicious organic food, open-air music, various workshop formats and places to discover and participate. And: we will take you with us to our favourite activities! In the gardens, on the vegetable field, to the animals, in the Youth Hostel. Everyone is welcome to join in – kids, community experts and newcomers alike. You’re welcome! Let’s see – is community worth it?
Free admission, donations welcome
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About peace
Tell me, what do you actually think about peace? We hear a lot about war in the media – but who talks about peace? Peace between states and ethnic groups, but also peace in our daily lives, with our partners, our friends, with our work colleagues and in general in our relationship with the world?
‘Finding inner peace’ is a common longing of our time. It’s a nice goal, but aren’t we making it a bit easy for ourselves? Should we really make peace with ourselves in every respect – or is our inner life the only place where we should fight for peace? ‘Overcoming ourselves’ would be another, less militaristic-sounding expression for it. War with ourselves and our unfreedoms so that freedom and peace can reign in our togetherness and in the world?
We recently invited people to peace talks at Michaelshof for the first time. It was very exciting to hear what long-established community members as well as guests and international volunteers contributed to the topic. Is peace the mere absence of war, or is peace actually something more, a real force that can be present or absent? Something like a calm sphere, a place where we endure and appreciate ourselves and each other? What does fear actually do to us, what threats and aggression?
What we actually all agreed on is that in order to achieve peace, one should enter into conversation. Conversation bridges the gap between us without blurring it. This is the only way to find solutions, not by fighting each other until someone wins. That never works without suffering, no matter with whom, on which side. Is that what we want?
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Klara grew up in Sammatz and, together with Sophia, Antonia, Anton and Co, got a taste of community from the very beginning. Just like the other ‘Young Wild Ones’, she has clearly decided to stay at Michaelshof and to lend a hand. Why? Young people who work well together, following big dreams and lots of outdoor activities! In the ‘gardener’s years’, when the Arena and the Waldsee were being built, she was said not to mind working just as hard as the boys, no matter how often the wheelbarrow full of earth had to be pushed.
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People and nature are Klara’s terrain – you can meet her on the farm, in the bird aviary, in the gardens, or in the vegetable & medicinal plant field. Usually with a snappy saying on her lips, she motivates herself and others to move from bed to bed and make the gardens beautiful. Especially in summer, we see Klara whizzing around the café or whipping up those great ice cream sundaes.
If you love our canteen food as much as we do, you can thank Klara, because together with Jakob she takes care of the (mostly) smooth organisation of our lunch breaks.
Wherever Klara appears, the sun rises. There’s always something to laugh about, but her look makes you realise that humour and seriousness go hand in hand here. And her heart is in the right place anyway. Keep it up!
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+++ NEWSTICKER +++
Everyday life in the community…
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Hardworking in all corners: Amelie and Michi tried out working in the café during the Future Day and our ‘Taskforce Giersch’ rid the red tulip circle under the big cherry of this indestructible weed in lightning speed.
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A picture-perfect Ark Farm…
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…and beautiful animal encounters! In Sammatz…
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Cold but happy after uncovering this year’s biodynamic preparations.
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Village life can be soooo stylish – for example when Gaby waters or when a vintage car club visits again.
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For our team we are looking for committed and dynamic people who like to take on responsibility and have a zest for country life. Is a meaningful activity more important to you than a “9 to 5 job”? Then you’ve come to the right place!
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We are looking for skilled workers or interns in the following areas:
Social
- Teacher
- Educator / Social Worker
Office:
Hands-on:
- Gardener
- Construction Worker
- Caretaker
Your qualification is not listed, but you are still interested?
interested? Just give it a try!
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After the work is done, it’s time to relax and enjoy…
We hope you had a great first of May, enjoy the sun, maybe we’ll see you again soon at Sammatz!
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