Tegeler Fließ 2

Rainy Day Along the Fließ

Late August was chilly and wet. I picked what was supposed to be a fine day to continue along the Tegeler Fließ, and by the time I got out to northern Berlin, the morning had curdled into rain.

Ah well, what are umbrellas for? (I say to myself as the rain settles in, in a cold and determined sort of way.) Perhaps this will not last. And we will see how waterproof this backpack really is, which currently holds my map and sandwich and Kierkegaard's Either/Or, none of which will be improved by a soaking.

Hermsdorfer See, August 2014. My photo.

This is the Hermsdorfer See, where the Tegeler Fließ widens out into a small lake. It is raining, the herons are fishing, I keep hoping for a place that will be sheltered enough that I can extract my sandwich and eat it, but no luck. (How do I take pictures and still hold the umbrella over me and the camera, since picture-taking requires both hands? Ah, the umbrella will balance on the top of my head, how cooperative of it.)

After about an hour of rain the day does clear off, quite suddenly. The outside of my backpack is streaming water, but the sandwich, the map, and Kierkegaard are all in good order inside. 

 How secret it is up here:

Tegeler Fließ, August 2014. My photo.

And how dense the greenery is. The wild morning-glories tangle through the undergrowth, knitting it together so continuously that you would almost need a machete to get through.

On some of the side-arms of the Fließ the summer pond-scum has grown so thick that it looks solid. 

Along the Tegeler Fließ, August 2014. My photo.

Not to be walked on, however.  There is a long boardwalk:

Boardwalk on Tegeler Fließ, August 2014. My photo.

And then we are out of the woods, into water meadows that the Berlin farmers (yes, there are such people) cut for hay. On the higher (dryer) ground are rye fields and mustard fields. (One time I was out here I walked through a rye field so weedy with mustard that I thought, hmm, could you harvest it all together and make mustard-flavored rye bread for ham sandwiches? ... Joke.) 

There are scattered apple trees; there is a blackberry tangle here in the edge of the woods. Hmm, these blackberries do not seem to belong to anyone, and they do look ripe ... Ouch, and they do have stinging nettles growing up in the midst of them, also.  

I look up from the blackberry tangle, over the hay-meadow, which looks as though it wants cutting; it also looks too wet to get a tractor into it this morning. What exactly is this, hovering over the meadow, some sort of white ground-mist?  No, on closer inspection, it's a meadow's-worth of white butterflies, cabbage-whites, rising and falling over the un-mown flowers. I have never seen so many butterflies at once, I think. Lovely summer superfluity.

Buttterfly near Lübars, August 2014. My photo.

We're almost at Lübars, a semi-farming village in far-northern Berlin. If you stand here and look one way, you're looking at the butterfly-meadow. If you turn around, you're looking at the high-rises of the Märkisches Viertel (big housing project, more on this next time), looming behind the nearest grassed-over sand dune. 

Märkisches Viertel near Lübars, August 2014. My photo.

Unlike the US, there's no transition here, no car-dealership-and-fast-food strip between the city and the country. You just walk out the door of your high-rise or away from the bus stop into the meadows and the fields. (We have car dealerships and fast-food joints in Berlin, of course, but they don't make a big anti-pedestrian minefield around the city.)

How lovely this is. 

On the one hand, I could go a few more miles and pick up a bus on the next big north-south street; or I could turn into Lübars and pick up a bus there. Hmm ... is this sunshine going to last? Maybe, but I have got water down the back of my neck. And the Lübars bus is more fun. I remember last year, when I was out here in early summer, it seemed that anywhere I got on or off the route further west, some local florist or nursery had bedding plants stacked up for sale by the bus stop.

It was a good opportunity to learn German flower names.  Inspect the display while waiting for the bus ... Here were flats of "cavalrymen's buttons" (Husarenknöpfchen): this makes sense, they're little yellow flowers like gold buttons. Flats of "men's faithfulness" (Männertreu), so called because the flowers don't last (come, this is cynical). A few pots of "girls' eyes" (Mädchenaugen)--yellow flowers, some kind of coreopsis ... puzzling name, I never figured that one out. 

Time to go home, dry off, and start again another day.