Screwed by the Metric System

So Saturday I went to this organic farm place. It’s called Domäne Mechthildshausen. I’m not quite sure of the story of the place, but it seems pretty cool. It’s actually a working farm, with a dairy, a bakery, a butcher shop, and a market. I think all of the stuff there is organic (or bio as it’s called here). It’s really close to Wiesbaden Army Airfield, and I was there to return some library books. The Domäne itself is a good sized building with a big courtyard in the middle. What would usually be walls around the courtyard of a castle is all building here. The entrance drive to the courtyard is under what looks like office space. And it’s all stone, and very pretty.

Of course I didn’t have my camera with me, so you’re just going to have to imagine what it looks like. It’s kind of like a big farmhouse, only entirely different. I bought some of these berries there.



They are called Johannesbeeren, but they are better known in the States as Gooseberries. (**correction, they are red currants NOT gooseberries**) I tried one of my cousin Tom’s sure-fire German pick-up lines with the girl at the register. “Wo ist mein dinglebeeren?” I asked. She screamed for the manager and I was escorted off the premises by Hans and Wolfgang. Nice couple of guys…

I bought the Johannesbeeren because they reminded of the berries we had out in front of our house when I was growing up. Those were not edible, but I did manage to stuff enough of them into my nose to require a hospital visit. But that’s another story. A story that I’ll let one of my sisters tell in the comments (if they are so inclined). The Johannesbeeren are good, but when you take a whole mouthful at once? Whoooo weeee are they sour! I didn’t put any in my nose this time (ain’t you proud Ma?). I also bought some quark there, and when I got home I went on the bike ride to Geisenheim (see previous post).

Anyway, one day a couple of weeks ago, Somebody came by the house and stuck a little bit of paper in the door. The paper was an advertisement for a local outfit that delivers eggs right to your home. I thought this was great. Fresh eggs would be left on my doorstep (and hopefully not splattered in the street by one of the little bastards in the neighborhood). I was looking for an old milk box, or something that I could leave out for them to put the eggs in. After coming up empty at several locations, I just bought a small Rubbermaid container, and lined it with some newspaper to keep the eggs from cooking until I got home. Americans are such a bunch of babies about eggs and food poisoning. They don’t even refrigerate the eggs here. In stores they are just out on shelves.

As it turns out, the egg place also hires handicapped people from the surrounding communities. I don’t know whether the people are physically or mentally handicapped. As long as it’s not an egg smashing handicap, I’m OK with it. Today I got my first dozen eggs.



Now what is the first thing you noticed about that picture? Was it that the eggs are brown? Well, I’m cool with that. Was it the bottle of wine next to them? That was just on the table, and has nothing to do with this story. No the thing you should notice is the number of eggs. I didn’t get a dozen eggs, I got ten eggs!

The God-Damned Metric System ripped me off again!