"Kaput" - the universal word

Samstag, October 7, 2012

Woke up this morning to fog and rain so what to do.  We checked on the internet for Churches in Appenzell but guess they start very early here and we missed the one.  Decided to drive into Appenzell and walk in the rain with the umbrellas.

The square in downtown Appenzell

 Many of the stores were open but after an hour or so they began to close for lunch. We nosed through the town cemetery to see if we recognized any names but no one would help us there.  The grave markers are interesting to see - some portray the occupation of the person.  All are ornately decorated with flowers and rocks on raised beds - no grass to cut. 

The top of a grave marker - hope he made it across the river

One thing that struck us was the short size of the graves - barely 5 feet in length - figured they must fold the poor soul in half to save space.  The cemetery is located near the centre of town with the Catholic Church on one side and the protestant Church on the other side.  Sure hope they get along.

The hills behind Weissbad CH

We noticed that there was a scheduled cheese making demonstration the old fashioned way at 1:30 p.m.  in the town of Weissbad about 5 minutes up the valley so after lunch in the car we headed there.  It was held in a quaint little barn just across the creek from the farmers regular barn.  Smoke was already coming from the chimney.






 We knocked on the door and gently pushed it open to see an elderly gentleman in rubber boots vigorously scrubbing 3 milk cans in a simulated milk house setting behind the visitors wall.  We were his only visitors.  He put down the scrub brush and he came over to talk - only trouble is we had difficulty understanding his Deutsch and he our English.  With my not -so-trusty app,  we figured he had just finished adding something to the milk that was simmering beside a round wood- stove.  I asked him if he had just Anfang (started)   or was almost Fertig and he indicated it would be in the kettle until 3 o’clock.  He showed us the cold room almost full of little round blocks of cheese about 6” in dia.  He motioned and asked if we would like to try some so we said we would.  Doesn’t the app work well - sometimes. 

Downtown Weissbad CH

We decided to come back at 3 when something more would be done to the cheese process.  Smiling broadly he pointed to Jean then to me and then we figured he wanted to know if we were husband and wife.  Jean pointed to me and said “my man” and to herself and said “his wife”.  I showed him my ring and hers then Jean pointed to his finger and asked “where’s yours” to which he replied with a broad smile “kaput” .  We all three laughed.  So now we wondered  if  a) he left his wife  b) she passed away  or c) he broke his ring.  He did say in the conversation something that I caught was the number 70.  Could have been his age or his wife’s age or the number of years he was or was not married or the number of years he worked his fingers to the bone and wore out the poor ring.  We will never know ’cause we did not get back to his barn.  Instead we walked around Weissbad a bit before heading back to the apartment in Appenzell. 

Had to catch Jean beside the sign to the town of Lehmen - her maiden name.

A first - self serve ice cream machine

Bored in the rain and fog.