Searching the sheep; stumbling through wilderness

For days we have been looking where those Woolen Saints have gone. They were walkin’ in over the Weserbridge that Sunday. Nowhere alongside the Weserbanks did we find a trace of that herd. But yesterday, returning from our Long Mountain adventure we saw them. Grazing in a very strange place. A meagre ground in a dale you can hardly reach. Beyond the forgotten old Jewish Cemetary outside Herstelle. A swampy dead-end land called “Im Elend”. Maps indicate the presence of several wells. Mostly covered under wild grass, nettles and reed. An anonymous wilderness.


Willemien prosed to have a look there and see how they could find a meal. Of course, we should have known: the sheep had left their ground. Destination unknown. Meanwhile we were crossing the swampy dale where the grasses were short and the nettles not yet outgrown. From here we climbed up a next wilderness path. It brought us to the curving local
road. The road has a hairpin where we enter a very attracting unknown forest track. Most map showing a dead end way: Holzweg. But perhaps we could climb higher up.


And there to our surprise we saw the sheep. Different from our big herd of woolen saints, but anyhow: sheep,those we had seen yesterday. They were grazing peacefully in this deadend dale of nothing. Some were lying and dozing in the sun. And now we had to enter the unknown wilderness track. Forester Tractors and heavy caterpillars had plowed deep, half-muddy gullies. It was a difficult and heavy enterprise this wilderness tour. You could never walk a normal tread.

But fortunately my intuition had not failed and so we arrived at a familiar point at the foot of the Totenberg.  We came stumbling and climbing out of that muddy hell. exhausted. We took a pause to enjoy the wide vista. And then decided to follow another unknown return way through the Rotenberg Forest back to Herstelle.

PS. On the returnway we longed for a bench sit in the sun. Then I remembered those lambs comfortably lying against a grassy hillside. And we found such a place. Just to lay on your back staring to the white woolen clouds drifting over. How Good!