Simmental Valley - Saturday, June 26, 2010

Simmental Valley - Saturday, June 26, 2010

Today was a leisurely drive into an area of Switzerland where we have not ventured before. The Simmental valley is a mountainous region near to Spiez here but much more picturesque than we had imagined. The narrow valleys are scattered with many small farms and they were very busy today making hay. Around every corner and over every hill whole families were busy - some raking the hay down the hillside into rows so that the loose hay could be picked up - some with walk behind power rakes forming it into rows - some with hay loader type box on the back of a small truck that picked up the loose hay and stuffed it into the rack - some forking it onto a wagon by hand like we used to do 50 years ago and many with hand rakes or forks forming it into rows for the picker - upper. The machinery is modern but the terrain is simply too steep for most tractors to get it done without rolling down the hill. Speaking of down the hill, at one point the family raking the hay down the hill had formed such a large quantity that the hay slid down the hill much like a snow avalanche. Most farms are small with only a hand full of cows and relatively small acerage. The prominent crop by far is hay - we only saw about one field of corn and the same amount of grain - it was hay everywhere.
After picking up groceries for the next several days at the Co-op store in Spiez, we headed home for supper. After supper we all walked down to the Lake of Thun for one final glance before heading east tomorrow to Krun, Germany and the Passion Play on Tuesday at Oberammergau.