What can make a cucumber illegal?

Katie, in the front yard of our home-away-from-home, the IBZ.

Today, a kind friend from the Math Department here at Bielefeld, Heidi, went shopping with me to help with any questions I had about the products in the supermarket. She has had experience with shopping in a foreign country, and knows it can be confusing, so she thoughtfully offered to help. Here is an excerpt from an email Heidi sent me to explain all the different eggs you can buy in a German market:

Here's an example concerning eggs:
we divide eggs to hens
- kept in Boxes, (not mentioned = you know it's these kind of eggs)
- running free on the ground in stables, ( = Bodenhaltung)
- running free in open air-area; (= Freilandhaltung)
- being kept open-air and being fed with non-genetic food (= Bio-Eier or anything similar);
in addition the weight should be defined ( S = small, M= etc.).
To complete confusion there is a number on each pack of eggs which can identify the eggs being layed on which exact date, which country they come from,....- but I forget this for I am small and my poor head needs some free cells for other input. Seriously many of these rules have been made by the European Union because some 'new' EU-countries denied to follow the EU regulations for quality standards -this way one can identify 'black sheep' easier.
All in all it sounds funny but is not a joke.

And all this time I've been buying eggs without knowing if my hens were indoor or outdoor hens and what accent they speak with.

Dave took the three oldest kids out to the garden while Isaac and I went shopping with Heidi. He had a rough theme to his photos - closeups.

The funniest thing I learned on my shopping trip with Heidi - in the European Union, it is against the law to sell a curved cucumber. The cucumbers in the markets here are longer than the usual American variety. Heidi's theory is that the cucumbers are required to be straight so that there is uniformity in measuring their length. I wonder what they do with all the non-straight cucumbers which can't be sold? I guess those get chopped up into salads. Or sold on the black market with the too-large apples (which are also outlawed).

A rose bush that caught Katie.

They were doing lots of running, ergo the sweaty faces.

Grace's high chair cleverly disassembles into a small chair and table. Isaac got a chance to sit there and play. He doesn't know what to do with toys yet. He still just hangs out and watches his older siblings.

I also learned today that Germans don't supplement their babies with vitamins. Our pediatrician has had us give our kids a multivitamin and feed them iron-enriched cereal since they were four months old. Here, such things are not even available - the German pharmacist who explained it to me said vitamins aren't sold for kids until they are 3 years old. Somehow, German kids manage to be quite healthy nevertheless. Guess I won't worry if I miss a dose of Poly-Vi-Sol for Grace or Isaac.

Grace was reading her letter from Uncle Bob.

Sam and his Lego assembly line. Katie displaying the magazine she got in Berlin. As she was reading it last night, I overheard her say to herself, "This makes me happy." We have no idea how she got this princess/beauty obsessed.

The end of the day journal-writing session.

It rained this morning and this evening. It is incredibly lush and green here - and the weather turns on a dime (or a 10 cent Euro.)