Robert Frost and Mölmsch Platt

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

A beautiful white Sunday here in the "Ruhrpott" region. Walking though the local nature preserve, these lines from Robert Frost's poem "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" came to mind. I love the verse and just taught it to my fifth grade advance English students last month.

Along my route there is this adorable sign, written in the local low-German dialect known as Mölmsch. It translates roughly to:

"You can enjoy a lovely walk through these woods, but do not touch the trees and plants, otherwise a man will come along and write you up and you'll be standing there with a headache."

Much like poetry, the local language is nearly a lost art form, not well known and seldom practiced. During my exchange year, my host family spoke a version of Plattdeutsch from the North Sea area, so I learned to understand a bit of that. But the dialect here in the Ruhr is very different and completely foreign to me. I had to look up about half the words on the sign :)

It's really nice to find pause in the snowy woods to learn something new and appreciate so much beauty.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

And now, I have much to do before I sleep!