I’ll comment on the Lower Saxony state elections tomorrow, once they’ve actually figured out who won and where things are going. My reaction is pretty “meh” anyway.
I already voted by mail-in ballot some time ago. So instead of going to the polling station today, I visited my parents and went hiking in the woods with my Dad. We went to the Westermark forest near Syke, which is our usual hiking ground. I also took my camera, so here are some pictures of snowy winter woods behind the cut.
The following photos were taken in the same forest as these perennially popular snowy winter photos from two years ago. It’s also pretty close to the place where I took these photos last fall. However, there was less snow today, because a week of continuous frost let it shrink (though we’re expecting more snow tonight). And because the day was overcast and ever so slightly misty, the mood is more sombre than two years ago as well.

In the very heart of the Westermark forest, there is a random field. Here is a look across said field.

At the edge of the Westermark forest, there used to be a youth hostel, now long defunct. The many youth groups who visited the hostel over the years left their mark on the forest, often by carving into the trees. The carvings on the trunk of this particularly large tree celebrate the local football club Werder Bremen. There are also two dates visible, 1979 and 1957, indicating for how long the hostel was operational.

I always call this hut the witch house, because when I was a little girl, I would imagine that a witch lived in the Westermark woods.

This smaller path was a favourite when I was a kid, but now it’s overgrown to the point of being inpassable.

A typical timbered farmhouse at the edge of the woods. At the top of the gable, barely visible, there are two crossed wooden horse heads. Originally, these ornaments were supposed to keep incubi and succubi away, nowadays the persist mainly for tradition.
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