HIKING: Part 1 - L

Last Monday (we're a little behind on the blogging, sorry!) we went hiking in the mountains behind the farm. The weather wasn't the best, but it was good enough for it to still be fun. We took off on one of the marked trails toward Nippen, the pointier rocker peak to the left of this picture. Though we didn't run into any other hikers on our excursion, we did find these guys in the middle of the trail (still a logging road at this point) and promptly decided to walk (distantly) around them.

Eric recognized these as Highland Cattle and though they look a bit wild they're a domesticated breed (from Scotland!) and really not that scary, especially the little one which looks like it belongs in a herd of Ewok-cows. Anyway, though the trail was a little difficult to discern from the vegetation, it was handily marked with red spraypainted T's on trees and rocks. Also, whoever marked this trail definitely didn't go out of their way to ease the trail's incline. It may have pretty much gone straight up the mountainside, but for all of the giant steps involved it was definitely worth it to see views like this! A great big glacier is there just over the tops of the mountains to the right and the town below isn't Herosund but the next one over, Uskedal.

We had just reached the top of Nippen in this picture. It was considerably chillier up here since the clouds didn't seem to want to let the sun through, but we stopped for a brief lunch and to sign the log book. We weren't the first names of the day, but we never did run into whoever else it was out there. The picture to the left shows Eric on the top of the pointy peak you can see in the first picture of this blog. Behind and below it is the farm we're working on. From Nippen we went on to the higher peak, Manen, which was high enough that there were several large patches of snow left and very little vegetation and the temperatures definitely reflected that. It's a good thing I had my dependable Ole Choir fleece to keep the winds out. Haha.
To the right here is the view inland (east) from the peak of Manen. And then below that is the view west and the peak marker! There are still a lot more pictures to go through from the rest of our journey so this post will be continued in part two which I will hopefully manage to post sooner rather than later. In the meantime hopefully Eric will put up a post about our ice cream selling weekend in Roldal. ^.^

Chasing Sheep - L

A few more days have passed here on the banks of the Hardangerfjord, but the pace of things has been nice and relaxing. The weather has been very agreeable, perhaps a wee bit chilly, but generally quite sunny. It's been really nice to work outside on Jacintha's Hen Palace, but I think we'll give it a few more days before we share pictures of the work we've done with it. ^.^ Friday we got our first experience with ice cream making and the flavor of the day was raspberry sorbet (there has also been a lot of homemade raspberry jam around lately...yum!). The process and ingredients really aren't very complicated, but it's a lot of fun to work with an industry grade ice cream freezing machine! Especially when it comes to taste testing. My favorite part was licking the leftover sorbet off of a mixing blade the size of my chest. Delicious. And no additives!

Here's a picture of the barn we milk in and the more recently constructed ice cream factory. Inside that little window are the chicken. Plans were made for the chickens to exit through the window and walk down the plank ramps there to the grass, but I guess these chicken's were too "chicken" and it didn't work out. Also around the farm are these turkeys!

There were two turkey chicks, hidden at the feet of the mum in this picture, but something got them... It might be the cats. 15 whole ducklings have dissapeared within the few days we've been here as well. Eric and I never got to see them waddling along after their mother which I find very dissapointing.



And oh yes! The sheep chasing! It was really thrilling for the whole 10 minutes it lasted, but unfortunately most of the sheep that had invaded the cow pasture from the neighboring field made it back over the fence themselves somehow. They only left one of their number behind and as she seemed to have several loudly bleating lambs across the fence it didn't take too much chasing to get her back to them for a little sheep reunion. Kind of a bummer really.

Tomorrow is our day off and we're a going hiking! Stay tuned!

Wand'ring Cows - E

I can't believe how amazing this place is. Ordinary gardening tasks become much more epic with the expansive backdrop of a fjord. In a way this part of Norway really reminds me of Oregon and the Columbia River Gorge, (especially when it's overcast and drizzling...) so it all almost feels familiar, which is very nice. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect setting, or better ice cream. With the cream from the cows that are milked they make ice cream, and sell it at festivals and markets under their own certified organic ice cream label Isrosa. So far we've had it for dessert every dinner- fine living indeed.

Today we started work at 10am, and worked on the hen house Jacintha is building, in preparation for the building of her own house she wants to have on some land a little north of here. Every day have we lunch at noon and start work again at 2, so I took a nap during the break before we worked on the house some more. We turned to pulling giant weeds at the end of the shift, which seem to have taken over a lot of the land. We're going to burn their remains in a big bonfire on Saturday night.


During the afternoon break (4-5:30), Logan and I explored the pastures and said hello to the cows. Even the pasture is beautiful, with tree-covered rocky areas, (good for keeping away from the hungry cows), and buttercup-covered hillsides overlooking the fjord . This cow on the right is taking care of three calves, and they are really cute. But not quite as cute as the cat with three kittens living on the back porch. I don't know how a farm can be any more perfect when it has family of kittens at the back porch emanating cuteness constantly.

Jacintha helped Logan and I do the milking again this evening, and though we're still much slower than her, we're getting better I think. But exciting farm adventures happened when a couple of cows got out, needing to be coaxed back in to the gate with sticks. It was decided that they would do it again eventually, so we installed the electric fence that hadn't been put up yet. No more cow excursions.

I wish we were staying here longer than two weeks- it will go by much too fast. I'll miss this view from our window, 10:30pm and the sun still setting...

Waking Up In Norway - L

It doesn't really get dark in Norway in the summer. At 11 pm when we went to bed yesterday it was still at least as light as though it were 7 pm in Minnesota, and though something resembling night time happens around 1 am, by 4 or 5 the sun is back up and the roosters are cock-a-doodling. Despite this, we started learning the ropes at 8 am this morning, preparing for the milking, and calling in the cows. (Though in actuality, it takes more work than that.) We were guided through this work by Jacinta, who I gather has been working on the farm with the Kolle's for a while.

This is the view out our bedroom window!

Besides Una and Oystein and their two boys (who are 4 and just about 2), there are six other people helping on their farm at the moment. Jacintha who is the Netherlands, Tinian from California and her brother Galan, and now of course there is Pauline from France, and Eric and I. The Kolle's have only been hosting people through WWOOF, or World Wide Opportunies of Organic Farming, for a few months. How it works is this: in exchange for an average of six hours of work a day, volunters (called woofers) are provided room and board and it supplies small scale famers with a lot of extra help with the endless lists of tasks to complete. Coincidentally, the first woofers the Kolle's hosted were two juniors from St. Olaf. ^.^

Anyway, we got to start off our first day milking the cows and though we'll definitely have to work to catch up to the speed Jacintha fills a bucket, I think we're getting the hang of it.

The first step for milking is cleaning the udders and unfortunately the cow I milked, Iselin, is very messy. Except that it was the back of her udder rather than her butt, it was kind of like wiping a baby's ass. Except that this baby is an adult cow who very obviously consumes a lot of grass.

Gross.

But definitely necessary. I wouldn't want that to accidentally get into my icecream! After milking we learned how to separate out the milk from the cream using a separating machine and then the next job of the day was to lay down wood chipings in the walkways between the new garden plots Una and Jacintha have been working on, it was a little less thrilling than milking a cow, but we definitely saw progress much more quickly than our milk pails did.

After lunch we finished up in the vegetable garden and helped speed along the installation of the first ever freezer room on an organic ice cream farm in Norway! ^.^

This post is getting a little to long so I'm stopping. Stay tuned for baby animals, ice cream making, vegetable planting, and more!

It begins! - E & L

Norge! We arrived in beautiful Norway this afternoon, and we're about to hop on a ferry. Pauline, a university student from France is also staying with our host family to help watch our hosts' two young children while they work around the farm. We met up with her at the airport in London as we shared the same flight and are traveling together by bus and ferry to Sunde where the Kolle's will be meeting us.

More to come soon!