Winter storage at Ballenberg – Does Ballenberg hibernate during the winter?

The animal breeders are underway with transport vehicles in order to fetch their four-legged friends back home again. Many of the 200 farm animals are on holiday with us during the summer and in winter return to their owners. Only our oxen and a few goats belong to Ballenberg and are on their way to their winter quarters in the neighbouring village.

The potter, sales assistant and cook are all hard at work cleaning their premises. Dented chocolate boxes, biscuits nearing their sell-by date – there is a solution for everything, usually in the form of a mid-morning snack for Ballenberg employees.

While the administration is busily planning the prospectuses, website, exhibitions and group offers for next season, the furnishing team are going from house to house and readying the house furnishings for winter : linens are washed and repaired, pictures and furniture covered, crockery cleaned, broken items removed for repair and food packed and mouse-proofed. Thousands of objects are cleaned, secured or brought to the depot for research. The shutters are closed and where they are missing, cloths are hung over the windows instead. In this way the rooms are protected from UV rays, which accelerate aging of all materials.

And then there are our wells and water pipes. They have to be disconnected before the first frost and dried out. Otherwise there is a risk that the water pipes burst and cause damage. As soon as the fountains and water pipes have been prepared for winter, the next work for the operations department begins: