As of: February 17, 2024, 12:00 p.m
By: Gerda Gebel
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Summer memories on the screen: Baker Agnes Pointner from Oberding, who lives in Almeria at an altitude of 1,530 meters for weeks every year, has no fear of large animals.
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Peter Gebel
Agnes Pointner from Oberding spends her summers on the mountain pasture and enjoys the deceleration there.
Oberding – Spend a summer on an alpine pasture in the mountains – that’s on the wish list of many stressed-out people.
Agnes Pointner from Oberding has already realized this dream eight times.
Summer after summer she spends several weeks on an alpine pasture in the Spitzing area.
For Agnes Pointner, it wasn't the urge to go to the mountains that brought her to the Alpine pasture, but rather a football colleague who she paid a visit to during a summer in the Alpine pastures.
And in doing so, she caught mountain fire, so to speak.
Pointner, who had rarely been to the Alps until then, decided the year after the visit to accompany her friend for a whole summer, “as an Almer apprentice, so to speak,” as she says with a laugh.
The trained baker had no fear of contact with the animals because she grew up on a farm.
Pointner and her friend had to look after 35 to 40 heifers, i.e. young female cattle that had not yet given birth to any offspring.
There were also almost 20 calves and around 60 sheep.
“We don’t have any cows upstairs that need to be milked,” explains the amateur Almerian, which is why the milk doesn’t need to be processed.
She can clearly remember her first day of work on the mountain pasture: “I was fully motivated and wanted to get started straight away,” reports Pointner, who works in a bakery in Hörlkofen.
The experienced friend immediately slowed her down and explained to her that everything can happen very slowly up here.
“That was a huge change for me,” remembers the 48-year-old woman from Oberding, who normally has a busy schedule with her work, as well as voluntary work on the local council, where she has been a member of the local list for four years.
Time is also needed for the parish council, children's gymnastics at TuS Oberding and the theater group “De Deanga”.
For Pointner, the slowing down on the mountain pasture is now the best part of her stay.
She can find peace there after the hectic everyday life at home, as she enthusiastically reports.
Despite all the slowing down, there is enough to do for the Almer woman who, after several years as a helper, has now been looking after the Großtiefentalalm on the Rotwand alone for several summers.
“I have already experienced the entire alpine summer from mid-June to the first snow in September, but in stages,” says Pointner, whose boss in the bakery cannot do without his baker for months.
Your day on the alpine pasture begins with the calves being let out of the stable and into the pasture.
Both the heifers and the sheep spend day and night outdoors.
Then the Almer woman sets off, always accompanied by her driving stick, because she has to count and examine her animals every day.
“It’s quite physically demanding because it’s constantly going up and down where the animals are just grazing,” admits Pointner with a laugh.
In her experience, even if she starts to feel puffed up quickly, her condition builds up quite quickly.
The animals like to escape to the neighbors through a hole in the fence or a gate left open by hikers, then the Almer woman has to get her animals back.
“It can take a whole day,” says Pointner.
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Their tasks also include checking the fences.
If something is broken, a hammer and nails are used and new posts are hammered in.
In July, a fenced-in alpine garden is mowed, then the “Heinga” (haying) takes place as in the past, with the hay being raked to dry, spread out and turned over again.
This then serves as feed for the calves.
In the evening the calves are lured from the pasture into the stable “with calls and also with concentrated feed”.
Even on cold, windy days the calves stay indoors.
“They are practically still children,” says the Almer woman caringly.
During their time on the mountain pasture, the sheep have their lambs, but they do not need any human help.
“They do it all by themselves,” says Pointner, who is often happy to see newly born little lambs during her counting round in the morning.
But animal tragedies are also possible, such as a heifer falling on steep terrain or a serious injury.
The Almer woman can then request help via cell phone.
Dead animals are flown out by helicopter.
The farmer comes to the alpine pasture, which is at an altitude of 1,530 meters, once a week to provide food.
The hut is furnished in a rather spartan style.
There is no electricity, just a solar cell for light.
A wood-burning oven is used for cooking and heating, and the baker also uses it to bake her own bread.
There is no refrigerator.
But Pointner doesn't miss anything.
“You learn to live simply.”
She considers the shower in the house, with a wood-fired boiler, to be a great luxury.
She won't get bored even without a television and radio.
In the evenings she likes to sit on the bench in front of the house and enjoy the peace, which is only interrupted by the tinkling of cowbells.
“It was tiring at first, but after a few days you get used to it.”
Every now and then a visitor from a neighboring mountain pasture comes along to say that there is a very good spirit of cohesion up there.
Once a month there is an Almer meeting where experiences are exchanged.
But most of the time she enjoys the slowed down atmosphere on her mountain pasture before returning to the hectic everyday life after a few weeks.