Good Friday

Let’s end the week on a happy note. The photo is of a dairy cow loose-housing system. The girls are free to wander around inside or in a smallish but seemingly adequate concrete outdoor area. They wear necklaces (they are girls) with a chip which I suspect gives them access to food. There is an electric back scratcher and they get to listen to Bayern 3 radio which plays 90% English language pop & rock music. I don’t know if they have a robot milking system. The building is on the edge of the village with fenced meadows alongside which suggests they get out in spring.



Certainly a step up from Monday: indoor space doesn’t look large but they are free to walk around, scratch their backs and maintain the social contacts so important to a “herd” animal. One can take issue with the lack of horns and certainly the issue of calves is one that won’t please all. However I don’t know any details, sadly nobody to be seen. Have to admit I don’t know what the “ideal” would be.


In our village there is a herd of cows held in a system called “Mother-cow” but this is only used for beef cattle. The calf is weaned by mother and grows up with her until it has reached the slaughter point. The animals spend as much time as possible outdoors. Clearly appears the ideal but for dairy herds, somewhat defeats the object.


The Blip opportunity was a pure accident. Angie’s car has been in for a service and we had to go over to Mindelheim to pick it up. She also had an appointment at 1:00 pm with an orthopaedist in Marktoberdorf, world famous as the home of Fendt tractors. Fendt is, like most farmers & agricultural equipment suppliers, suffering due to falling prices from slackening China demand and the Russian embargo. The week before Christmas, Fendt announced 450 contract workers and 120 of the 4200 regular employees were being made redundant.


We have 3 routes to get to the town, ranging from 41km to 64km but all three take the same time. We took the middle one of 54km mostly faster country roads and snow free except for the unprotected areas where some drifting caused the odd scare.


While Angie at the doc, I drove 2km down the road until I found a likely walk. Turned out to be a jewel. Two officially signed walks for children and adults along the same route. We just did the tarmacked bit, but very quiet roads with notice boards about the area and quizzes for the children Also bathing lakes in summer and even a glassed in building with roman bath foundations & museum, which we sadly didn’t quite reach. Far too many interesting things to detail here, so have Flickr’d some impressions. Walking over fields or in the forest would have been impossible for Flash or me, Luna, of course, delighted in the deep white stuff, hopping around like a rabbit. We had a great nearly 2-hour walk and finally a Frisbee session. When Angie called, we returned to the car to discover I had lost the car key. Did, however, have it before the Frisbee thing and with great luck finding the key in the very deep snow, the light black plastic remote control bit just poking out.


Angie was a bit down as the doc can’t help – age problem, hers not his!. She has to take comfort that with increasing age it will at some point not get worse and probably less painful! Any acute pain can be injected with cortisone but that’s about all. He did admit that if she was privately insured, there could be some expensive things he could do (charge the insurance co.) but they wouldn’t help much!


She uses the doctor as she fully trusts him. About 8 years ago she had a slipped disc problem, the acute A&E and in-patient part handled by Memmingen hospital. Our GP, however, recommended the specialist for further investigation. He put her in his local hospital, Kaufbeuren, with a week of intense massage work and then a 6-week convalescent unit. These semi-hospital/hotel units are a very interesting part of the German health system but far too complicated to describe today.
Important thing was that the specialist did not want to operate, which has exploded over the last 10 years as the favored option. However the truth is it seldom helps.



About 15 years ago Germany changed to the US/UK “pay by case” system which in effect means hospitals only make money if they operate. Long, time-consuming therapy doesn’t. Her specialist will get around 40 Euros for her visit this Quarter, regardless of how often she comes. Put her in a hospital and operate brings a 4 figure sum. In effect, a conservatively treated patient is a financial catastrophe. German health system, above the GP level, is turning from quality to quantity, spurred on by the excess hospital bed capacity. You may have to wait 15 minutes in A&E but then find yourself under the scalpel before you know it. Just this week yet another investigative TV program on this – spinal operations have doubled in 10 years. 10% of cases are considered as needing surgery, but 50% is the actual rate.


While playing Frisbee I messaged son J in England with photos of Luna in the snow suggesting he gets the next flight and tries out the skis I got for him a few weeks ago. He seemed to be tempted but as his girlfriend Sarah is an A&E nurse, he had to pass.


If only today was the Good Friday before Easter, it would be different. He and his nephew, niece and brother-in-law would be shooting down the hills on toboggans giving Sarah, his sister Kate and myself some serious concerns and pre-programming the nearest A&E in the SatNav. Would be nice for them if the snow continued until then.