already?

Believe it or not, I am coming home in 9 days!
I don't know how that came so quickly, but there it is.
I fly out of Paris on Monday November 17th!!!!!

I have a feeling it will be quite surreal. But I'm looking forward to seeing familiar faces and having clean clothes! :)

ahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For the first time in maybe my whole life, I felt proud to be an American today.
I sat in the kitchen in the French countryside with two ex-pats from Britain and listened to Obama's victory speech and it honestly brought tears to my eyes.
I've never felt this way before!
Thank you thank you thank you to everyone who voted.

I want to come home and bask in it!!!!

flu, electrical problems, and lousy orientation

In France I have somehow morphed into a damsel in distress!

It all began with my couchsurfing request. Last minute, desperate, so appreciative when Thibault said it was alright for me to stay on his couch for 2 days. I arrived Thursday afternoon (late, because my plane was delayed) in Paris and took the metro to Montmartre where Thibault's flat was located. Also the location that most of Amelie was shot in and around, so for those of you not already familiar - extremely picturesque!! It was cold and rainy and I was feeling exhausted already when I arrived, but I explored the city with Thibault's other couchsurfer Gaelo for a little while and it was as beautiful as I imagined it would be, maybe more so. It looks like every amazingly perfect photo and movie you've ever seen shot in Paris.

Next day, Halloween. Gaelo had the only spare key, so we agreed to meet at 5 o'clock and go to the Louvre. I wandered around Montmartre, explored the beautiful cemetary, spent a long brunch at a cafe.. Word of advice - if you're not feeling 100%, don't eat a croque monsieur and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes in the rain. By the time I got to the gorgeous old Shakespeare and Company bookstore, I kind of felt like I wanted to lie down and die. I perked up a little watching the british hipsters working there carving pumpkins and listening to the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack.

I halfheartedly went sightseeing for a bit longer, finally ending up at Notre Dame, where I wandered in an appreciative daze for a while. Then when I finally sat down, with the big beautiful organ music and the murmur of tourist babble in many foreign languages enveloping me, I realized that I was really not well, and probably needed to lie down as soon as possible. So I sat for 2 hours in the cathedral, kind of floating in and out of consciousness, and it wasn't a wholly unpleasant experience.
When it was finally 5 o'clock, I met Gaelo, canceled our Louvre appt, went back to Thibault's were he was preparing a dinner party for his friends and crept into my bed with all my clothes on and passed out for hours, waking up from time to time to puke. What a scary halloween indeed!!

The next day, Thibault was leaving early to catch a flight, so I had to leave early with all my bags. I was weak and dehydrated and as I lugged my heavy bags across the city to the luggage lockers at Gare Montparnasse, I vowed to never travel again (or at least not bring any luggage).

Amused myself around Paris til 5 o'clock when I went to catch my train. Got on safe and sound, but then - disaster! After 10 minutes the train stopped and there were all sorts of announcements in French, of which I understood only completely non-vital words. Sitting next to me was a really sweet little 19 year old veterinary student named Yun, who thankfully translated that we were having electrical problems and would be delayed indefinitely.
Eventually after many hours it was clear that I would be missing my connecting coach from Le Mans to the tiny town of La Fleche where I was then going to be picked up by my wwoof host Joyce. Yun was more concerned than me, seemingly, and insisted I use his cell phone to call her. But of course, I look in my bag only to realize I misplaced it. How handy!! So Yun called his friend and had him look up the website and get her number, and then of course he let me call her, and she was already back from trying to pick me up at the station by then, and was really flustered. I ended up taking the train to the small city of Angers and spending the night in the Citotel L'Universe next to the train station, where Joyce would pick me up in the morning. Excitement!

Then of course I only had like an hour to explore Angers in the morning before I got picked up. It's an extremely beautiful city with an old chateau and a big cathedral and little windy cobblestone streets. So lovely. I glanced at the map in the hotel, and happily wandered off, nibbling a croissant and sipping a cafe creme and snapping photos. I thought I was looping in a large circle, but somewhere along the way I stopped paying attention for a few blocks, and after 40 minutes of walking I was totally and utterly lost. I stayed lost even after checking the map at a bus stop, and finally had to ask directions. I asked this incredibly beautiful man who looked like a more rugged frenchier version of Colin Farrell, with a pony tail, rolling a cigarette on the hood of his car. His response was a very concerned "oh la la" (for real!) when I said I was looking for the train station. He showed me on a map and it was ridiculously far. So, he offered to take me there. Now, I know you're not supposed to get in cars with strange hot french men in unfamiliar cities, but it seemed wiser than getting myself more lost, and I was secretly hoping he'd kidnap me anyways! hah. No such luck. He didn't really speak much English, but I gathered that he was a dentist originally from La Rochelle, which was a much more beautiful city on the Atlantic Coast. Why don't dentists look like him in New York? Anyways, I sadly did not get kidnapped, he just drove me to my destination and I was rescued for like the 80 billionth time this trip. What a wimp I'm becoming!















So now I am living at La Bresnadiere, a beautiful tiny farm in Fougere, in the Loire Valley. Along with Virginia, the other wwoofer, I cut back like 8 bramble patches and cleared 5 wheelbarrows full of donkey poo from Poppy the donkey's big pasture. Virginia is leaving tomorrow, and it'll be hard to follow in her footsteps because she's reeeeally wonderful. Smart and sweet and helpful and Joyce has totally bonded with her. It's always a little awkward to be the unfavored new wwoofer. But, I think I'll like it here! Sooner or later, I have to figure out what happens next. Where do I go? What do I do? Damned if I know.

Couchsurfing in Oslo

I really love Bergen! What a beautiful city. I had such a great time staying at Helge's place. The first night I stayed there, I met him when he was done with school, and it was pouring rain and totally miserable out. So we went to his apartment and I unloaded all my sopping wet bags and he brewed some jasmine tea and we sat there in his cozy living room drinking tea and listening to his fabulous record collection. I couldn't have asked for a better evening after such a long and cold wet day of traveling!

He was busy most of the time I was there, but he gave me his spare cell phone and my own set of keys to his flat! So for two days I felt like an independent woman for the first time in a long time. It was a really nice feeling. I also found the big Fretex, Norwegian Salvation Army store, and had a good time feeling right at home shopping for second hand stuff. Found an old leather Nike shoulder bag for $5 that actually seemed like quite a practical purchase because my canvas tote bag was simply not drying after all that frickin rain I put it through. And also cheap embroidered leather hightop sneakers, just because I was feeling so boring with the same 3 outfits for 2 months straight!!

On Friday afternoon, I met up with the lovely Vilde (Anders' daughter) and we drank Chili Kakao (which is really rich cocoa with a ton of chili powder dumped in it) at Vågen (which is an adorable little cafe). Then my good fortune continued, and after wandering the pleasantly dry streets of Bergen for a little while, she invited me over to her place for dinner, with her brother and his friends. So now I've finally met the entire Braanaas family, and I must say, they're all extraordinarily lovely!

I took the train on Saturday from Bergen to Oslo, the same one I'd taken in August the opposite direction. We passed through the same mountains, but this time they were covered in like 3 feet of snow!! It was seriously a winter wonderland. We stopped at all these tiny little mountain villages, and passengers got off the train with their cross country skis, and I got jealous all over again and decided I wanted to be a rugged mountain woman (this from the warm comfort of my cushy train seat, of course).

So right now I'm in Oslo, staying with two really sweet gay boys I found on couchsurfing.com. Medwin is Filippino and his boyfriend Mihai is from Romania. As soon as I arrived on Saturday night, they took me out to a dinner party at their friends house! Fortunately I was warned of this in advance, so I was able to obtain a good bottle of Argentinian wine from Helge to bring them! The friends were a Norwegian-Russian gay couple who'd just recently gotten married and were so happy and sweet and wonderful. We even ate leftover wedding cake for dessert! I should've taken photos but I honestly forgot to. (This is why I don't call myself a photographer)
It was such a fun giggle-filled evening. They were all so welcoming to this stranger who'd just plopped down among them.

On Sunday, Mihai accompanied me around the city for the day. We went to Vigeland Park to see some really strange (and in my opinion, ugly) sculptures. It was perfect weather, so we also went to the Royal Palace, but we couldn't go inside because the flag was raised, which meant the King was there. The King actually lives there, and you can wander around his front yard. Isn't that funny? I'm not used to living Kings, I guess. Hah! We attempted to go to the Munch Museum because one of the guidebooks lied and said it was free after October 1st, when in fact it was like $12, which we didn't feel like spending. So instead we went to the National Gallery, which is most definitely free, and has a whole room full of Munch paintings, including The Scream, which I am not actually a huge fan of anyways (gasp! sacrilege!). But there were a ton of other paintings from various Norwegian artists, and many of them were extraordinarily beautiful, and the museum itself was really nice.
We ended our touristy day by walking along the waterfront to the famous Opera House. I think it's my favorite thing I've seen in Oslo, and I was surprised by how much I loved it, because I'm not even really a fan of weird modern architecture. But oh my god, it's so cool!! It's this strange low white building with incredible textures, and the side of it goes right on down plunging into the sea, and you can walk all over the slanted side and the roof! They have a gorgeous lighting arrangement at night.

This evening, I am meeting up with my friend Jørgen, who I met through his internship with the Woodstock Film Festival back in 2003 when I was working there. I'll be crashing his couch for the next couple of days. So excited for our reunion! Less excited to carry my bag all over the city once again, but hey, maybe I am getting super strong in the process (or just destroying my back, either one..).

I'm so rugged

Well I had a slightly tiring but not so bad day today.

I left Ytre Lygra after lunch. Erik loaded me up with enough freshly baked bread to last me like 5 days, which is so so perfect. I baked it myself, with raisins and cinnamon and cardamom. It's quite delicious.

The last bus from Lygra leaves at 1:05pm. I left the house at like 12:45 and walked the 5 mins up to the bus stop and sat there waiting. By 1:25, still no bus. I started panicking. Decided I had most definitely waited at the wrong bus stop (there are many that seem to not be in use). I'd had a really lovely goodbye from Erik, and I didn't feel like going back and being like "Umm, I waited at the wrong bus stop and now you have to ruin the rest of your workday by driving me somewhere far away to another bus terminal".

So I sat there weighing my options for a while, and decided I was gonna be tough and independent and think outside the box or whatever. I put my massively heavy backpack on my back and pulled up my hood and started walking in the direction of civilization. I walked for like 3 kilometers without seeing any cars at all. All the houses were dark and empty looking. Everyone appeared to be at work. The rain was pouring down nonstop, combined with wind so it was going horizontal and completely soaking me. I was getting more and more cranky, but still trying to be brave. Couldn't accept defeat and go crawling back to Erik's.

Finally I came to this boathouse on the side of the road with a car parked outside. There was a dude putting on full waterproof gear from his trunk. I went up to him and apologetically told him I'd missed my bus and was looking for a way to get to Knarvik or any other nearby town. He was this sweet little old man with huge glasses who barely spoke a word of English, but I finally got across what I was trying to say, and he asked me to wait in the car with his wife while he bailed out his boat. His wife spoke literally no English, so we sat there smiling at each other in silence, and shared some of the organic snackpack that Annette packed for me with apricots and chocolate and coconut and raisins. When the old man got back to the car, he was on his cell phone. I don't know who he'd called, but he'd found out that there had been a 2 hour bus strike, which is how I missed my bus! It had never actually showed! But they were soon to be running again, according to his source. He offered to drive me all the way to the bus station in Knarvik!! I don't think he was heading there, because his wife had to make a phone call seemingly telling someone they'd be late because they were driving some crazy soaking wet tourist to Knarvik. Hah!

Anyways, it took like 30 minutes to get to Knarvik, and I was just so extraordinarily happy that I wasn't walking in the rain. I guess it could have turned out really terrible. But it didn't. When I got to Knarvik I thanked the guy like 4oo times and he seemed quite pleased that he'd been helpful. I only had to wait like 10 minutes for the next expressbuss to Bergen, and it only cost about $6!! So I saved money and had a nice human experience and maybe gave the old couple a little story to tell people later about a half drowned New Yorker they rescued from a bus strike. :)

Now I am in Bergen and I am still cold and wet. I left my huge pack in a luggage locker in the train station and went to the Norwegian Salvation Army store (Frotek) looking for a cool sweater. Was too wet to comfortably try them on. Now I'm in the library drying off and obviously using the internet. In an hour I have to go meet the guy whose couch I am crashing on for the next couple of nights. He is a friend of Erik and Annette's who I haven't met before, but he sounds wonderful. All of their friends have been extraordinarily sweet, so I'm sure he will be as well. I bought some organic coffee to bring to him. I'm meeting him at some strange hippie cafe with lots of free strange books to read. Sounds like a perfect meeting spot!

Time Racing By

I can't believe I'm already leaving Ytre Lygra tomorrow! Ack. I've gotten really comfortable here. In fact, it's going to be totally surreal being back in a city surrounded by unfamiliar faces. I'm heading to Bergen tomorrow for a couple of days. Erik and Annette were so sweet, they called their good friend who has a flat there and arranged for me to stay on his couch. AND we're baking fresh bread today, which they are insisting I take a loaf of to hold me over so I'm not just eating crap for the next week of traveling. I've been so spoiled, eating the most delicious meals every day, with only the freshest most organic ingredients, there's no way I can continue this while on my own in the city! I think I might go on a coffee and bread fast. I mentioned that to Erik and he shook his head in misery (serious body pollution, hah).

Well, shall I give a brief overview of the fun times I've had here? It was a rough start, because it was so different from the life I was leading before, but honestly I think I've been happier here than I've been for a really long time. Maybe years. Just to be living with two really positive and sincere and healthy happy people who have created their own beautiful life here... it's a nice influence, I think. I finally uploaded photos. Chantelle (the awesome Aussie wwoofer who left yesterday and I miss already) took many photos of me as well, which is sooooo nice, because I never have photos of myself since I'm always behind the camera.

Here is the lovely Dina.. all 550lbs of her. She is massive and has monsterous teeth, but she's sweet and gentle and just likes to be cuddled (Chantelle has nicknamed her Cuddlebunny).

And here is Chantelle on the swing in Johan's barn. We go there to feed Erik's sheep that are waiting for the slaughtery. Depressing maybe, but the swing is quite fun!

And now, speaking of which, I actually have to go feed those little sheepies. This has taken too long. Wish me luck in Bergen! I will be there for 2 days, then Oslo for 4 days, then a flight to Paris and on to the Loire Valley where I will be helping a woman named Joyce with her B&B farm. It looks really beautiful. Also extremely different from where I have been. Another period of adjusting! Maybe I will be used to it by now though.

Fiskemannen

Well, of course I am now so far behind in my blogging that it's impossible to fill in all the missing pieces of my experience in Lygra so far.
By now, I have been here for half a month, so I am feeling quite comfortable. It's always once I seem to get used to being in a place that I have to start thinking about leaving it and moving on to the next. I have about another 10 days here, so I don't have to worry about leaving yet I guess, but still...
I finalized some plans for a farm in the Loire Valley in France next month. I hope to spend a few days in Paris as well. I keep thinking about what I will do when I get home eventually though, since that time is slowly approaching. In some ways it's nice that I don't really have a home or job right now to come back to, because it means I can start over pretty much anywhere I want. On the other hand though, I know I am going to want some stability and the chance to start my own life as soon as I am back home, and I still can't decide whether I want to do that in NYC again or not.

Anyways, that's a whole other topic that shouldn't even be breached in this post (although if you have advice, do feel free to email me).

This past week has been pretty fabulous. Like I said before, I am getting really accustomed to the lifestyle here. It's really simple, but I don't feel like I'm missing too much. Earlier, I felt like I was lacking a bit of contact with the outside world, but this past weekend we had a lot of visitors staying at the house, so it didn't feel isolated at all anymore. Plus I am beginning to enjoy the isolation. I didn't think that was going to happen, to be honest. But it has! The other day, digging potatoes, I found myself mesmerized by a particularly beautiful dung beetle, and thought about how in my previously overstimulated life I would not have been able to appreciate the purple and blue tones on it's little shiny back. When would I have time to notice a dung beetle? (Not to mention, where would I find one?)

Friday- Monday were sheep gathering days here. Erik keeps his wild sheep in 3 different flocks, 1 on the home pastures, 1 on outer Lygra in the heathlands, and 1 on an adjacent island whose name I can't remember. We rounded the sheep up and then the farmers decided which ones were right for slaughter. I helped tie the rope around the necks of the chosen ones, and after they were put on the boat to transport them to Lygra, we had to lift them up onto the dock and into a trailer which then took them to Johan's barn. The new wwoofer Chantelle and I rode back a couple kilometers on the wheel guard of Johan's tractor, holding onto the roof. I feel like a real farm girl lately. It's becoming a bit more natural, finally.

During down time, I went fishing with one of Erik's visiting friends who works as a cook on big fishing boats and knows a ton about fishing. So much fun. I love fishing. I've caught things before, but there's always been some dude there who wants to do the killing and gutting, so after I reel it up my job is done. But Ingvar let me do the whole thing, so I murdered my first living thing. This past Sunday. It felt very strange, but I love eating fish, so why not know how to catch it and kill it myself?

I did draw the line at the sheep slaughtering, though. I get really squeamish around all that blood and flesh. It's too much. There were 2 sheep who died during the rounding up process.. one broke his leg trying to escape over a tall fence and had to be shot, and another one was already small and weak, and got trampled by his flock when they were in the holding pen. Isn't that one of the most tragic things you've heard in a long while? I remember seeing him looking especially tired earlier on, but to die just from lying down in the wrong spot? Ugh. It was really horrible.
So Ingvar and Erik had to take the carcasses home and skin them and hang them and all that. They did not need my help, so I stayed inside with Annette drinking tea thank god.

We ate especially delicious food this past weekend as well, because Ingvar is not only a fisherman but also a wonderful chef (double bonus!). Yesterday he made us sheep heart stuffed with apples and horseradish and braised in Danish ale and pig fat. Might not sound good, but it was one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten! He also made pate from the sheep's liver. Also delicious. At the moment I can't remember what other incredible things he whipped up over the few days he was here, but let's just say we were all super spoiled, and threatened to go on a hunger strike if he left (which he did, and we didn't).

Today we focused on domestic concerns. Mainly having to do with apples. We siphoned the apple cider into bottles, made lots of apple juice, and apple jam, and apple & mint jelly!

unbloggy

I'm not feeling very bloggy lately. I might have to make up for it later. I've sat down to start a new post like 10 times, and each time I realize that the words are just not coming to me.

I feel like I'm on a different planet.

Sustainability

Well it's been 5 days of ups and downs. Every day I seem to have this battle in my mind of should I stay or leave early. But I think I've decided to stick it out. It's been a bit difficult adjusting to this new farm. It took me a little while to adjust to the initial pace of country life at Anders', but now I have a whole other lifestyle to suddenly get accustomed to. I'm finding it hard to describe, because it feels like I've given up a lot of creature comforts, but when I go to name them I can't really think of what particularly important things I am missing. The composting toilet took some getting used to. It's funny though, once you've only had things a certain way for 5 days, it's hard to remember how things were previously. Was I really in a posh house with heated bathroom floors and a big bathtub a week ago?!

They work really hard here, but they're immensely happy. This weekend they've been catering for some guests at the Heathland Center up the road, which is very beautifully designed. We all ate dinner in the main room up there last night. It was so incredibly beautiful. Erik prepared wild sheep and potatoes and japanese winter squash (all home grown, of course) and we drank this blueberry wine from 1986 that his grandmother had made! That is definitely a first for me. 22 year old blueberry wine. It smelled a little like grappa, but it was really tasty. We all got a bit giddy, from the delicious food and wine and the huge floor-to-ceiling views of the fjord out the window of the center.

They had invited their neighbors over for coffee and dessert, but the parents were sick, so just the kids came over. We hosted 14 year old Signe and her friend Oscar, and Signe's brother Ervin whose probably 8 or something. Coffee and apple cake and banana cake with chocolate sauce. Oh my good god, it was amazing! We played a long and rousing game of cards called Presidents and Slaves, which Erik kept reminding us was a metaphor for the capitalist system, but it was tons of fun and the kids had a great time and didn't leave until past midnight. Erik & Annette have a very cozy sitting room with a hammock and a big couch and this old barely working organ and other instruments. Tonight their friend is coming over to play some celtic music, I think. The nice thing about living on a tiny barely inhabited island is, you bring the fun to your house, I suppose!

It's starting to get really cold. I can see my breath inside the house after night falls. They have loads of extra slippers and wool sweaters, but it's still uncomfortable having a cold nose and fingertips most of the time.
We've been harvesting potatoes all week, and we're still not finished. That is not fun work after the first day, let me tell you. My first day here, some friends of Erik's came to help us with the harvesting, and one of them was a dude from New Jersey whose been working in Denmark for the past few years. Digging potatoes on an island in Norway with a Rutgers alum. It's a strange world sometimes, don't you think?

If my hosts weren't so freakishly nice, I have a feeling I would have made some plans to leave early. I think it's not a bad thing that I went from one extreme to the other (NYC office job to Norwegian rural farmlife) but a month is a long time to stay in one cold isolated place. One thing I have come to terms with here, though, is that I do not have a future as an organic farmer. I like civilization and comfort a bit too much. And that's okay. I am dreaming of starting life over in some metropolitan area and finally taking some real photography courses so I can have access to a darkroom. Or maybe I can build my own darkroom (if I'm dreaming, why not?)! I can live with the knowledge about sustainable living, and shop local and organic (which I already tried to whenever possible) and support the lifestyle in my own comfy way. Is that a copout? Maybe. But right now all I can think about is a warm bed and a movie marathon and tons of coffee with milk and sugar (I've been drinking it black - they're not a dairy farm yet), and a hot bath, and tumble-dried clothes, and people, lots and lots of people.....

Oh, and one last thing. This computer is so disturbingly slow and crappy that I am not able to upload any photos! :(
So I will explain to you - I am only a few meters away from the sea, but it doesn't feel anything like the sea. It's technically a fjord, because it's super deep, but it doesn't have the usual high cliffs surrounding it. It's mostly very still and silent, and really beautiful, but it feels more like living by a lake than by the sea. We have 70 chickens, 2 calves, tons of vegetables, 3 male pigs, and on Thursday we just got a big mama pig who weighs 250 kilos. I have no idea how that converts to pounds, but she is pretty much a huge rhinocerous. When she waddled out of the horse trailer she arrived in, Erik nearly fell to the floor laughing. She's like 4 feet tall and 5 feet long, and has 3 chins! But she's very sweet, and he's helping to keep this ancient breed of Norwegian pig alive (I think there are only like 8 left in Norway, and he has 4 of them now). I have a view of Dina from my bedroom window. How nice!
Well, I am missing all of you who know me so well. I seriously can't wait to come home and be loved. Can December be a very social month, please?

Lygra Day One

Well. I believe that now I am truly living with organic farmers. I might turn into a hippie yet! I arrived on the ferry boat last night. In fact, Hilde dropped me off in her boat, and we were running late, so we parked at the end of the dock where the ferry had just pulled up, and I had to climb one of the huge tire bumpers to get onto the dock, and my hands were pitch black from tire grease, and then they were just about to fold up the ramp when I ran up waving frantically. Then I had to arrange with the ticketguy to make sure they stopped at Lygra (it's such a tiny island, the expressboat only stops there by request). It was a pretty large ferry, and it made me happy that I had my own personal door to door service (or kind of). Sorry if I am writing this sloppily, I am trying to be quick because dinner will be ready soon. Anyways, Erik picked me up at the dock and I came in to dinner still warm on the table. It was a tasty lentil stew. I'm not at Anders' place anymore where we go grocery shopping every week and he says "Buy whatever you like!" Here they are living almost totally sustainably, save for a few dairy products like milk and cheese and butter that they do not make themselves. I think we will be eating mostly vegetarian, after my month long carnivores diet at Åsen. But I'm sure it will be delicious! The fridge is down in the basement, through a hatch in the kitchen floor. The bathroom is a composting toilet - which is essentially like an outhouse, except inside. There is a heartshaped hole with a heartshaped lid and a barrel of sawdust to pour over.
Uh oh the dinner gong just gonged, I must stop.
More to come at some point soon! Wish me luck with this simper life I am about to start trying.

TGIF

It was a rainy day today, so we took it easy. Cleaned the house, baked bread, made plum jam, spackled some windowsills... all in all, a decent rainy Friday.

Tonight Anders & Hilde & I drank Courvoisier and ate chocolate and watched Prime (a romantic comedy with Meryl Streep & Uma Thurman and some douchebag actor whose name I forget). Let me give you a little piece of advice. Don't watch that movie. Please. Oh my freakin gæd. Well Meryl Streep was awesome because she pretty much always is, but everything else was so vomit-inducing, I had to restrain myself from covering my eyes. Anyone whose watched a bad movie with me knows I have trouble keeping my observations to myself, so it was reaaaaaaally hard to shut up and be polite but I did a decent job of it (I think). Unconvincing love story.. he finds her number in the telephone directory, for christs sake. In Manhattan. After briefly meeting her once and only learning her first name. And then of course they fall in love immediately. That's to be expected though. But he's such a worthless piece of crap, you just don't understand. And then at one point he sells his first painting for $2000 and with that money somehow affords a big beautiful old 1 bedroom apartment downtown, and furniture and new paint, etc etc. Without a job. Oh and I'm sorry, he also drives a red convertible. Okay okay I know.. "suspension of disbelief". Regardless, it's a crap film and you should prob just avoid it. The cognac and the company were lovely, thankfully.

Sara left for Germany yesterday morning, and then Hilde & I went traipsing up the mountain to find some runaway ewes who broke a hole in their pasture fencing. I still pant like a dying dog on even the slightest incline, but it's just so stunningly beautiful up there, I've got to love it. The trip was a success. We found the ewes, and they followed Hilde back down the mountain. She had wisely given me the job of trailing after them, which I sort of managed, at a distance, flailing my arms and tripping over tree roots the whole time. Graceful I am not. But I feel like each hiking trip is a step in the right direction. Who knows, it may actually get easier eventually! Anders is like a mountain goat, he's been hiking up these mountains for so many years. He just hops straight up the mountain, whistling the whole way, with me desperately running and falling behind him. It's probably really hilarious to watch, in fact! :P

Here is a photo of me on the mountaintop with a massive rock, and Førde in the distance.

On Tuesday, Sara, Hilde, Anders and myself went to Hilde's farm on Grøneng to help Pete & Ginny weigh and mark all the lambs. It felt good to be working in a big group like that, as a team. We each had our own specific task, so by the end we did it really well. I was the marker specialist. Pete and Sara would catch the lambs from the pen, call out their number, and get them into the big old scale thingy. Ginny would read off the weight (a harder job than it sounds, with a chunky kicking lamb jostling the numbers) and record it. I would find their number in a big pile of numbers from 80001 to 80140, 1 yellow and 1 blue, and dip them in iodine and clip them onto the ear tagger (similar to an ear piercing gun), which I would then hand off to Hilde. Anders would wrangle the lamb out of the weighing machine, and hold it steady while Hilde marked their ear with the appropriate tag. The whole process probably took about 2 minutes per lamb, and with all those people it was extremely efficient. Most years, it's usually just Anders & Hilde doing the whole thing, so they were happy to have us all there helping. It was funny being in charge of the numbers too. The sheep are so noisy, Sara would shout their number over to me and I would shout it back, and after a while it sounded like a raucous game of Bingo.. "One hundred twelve! What's that, one one two? One one two, yes! Okay, one one two, got it."

Of course I don't have any good photos of the lamb weighing, because I was busy with my iodine and plastic numbers.
But here are some of Hilde's sweet little lambikins. They're an even older breed than Anders' sheep.. really really wild. She lets them roam free even more, so they're extremely independent, but because she doesn't bring them indoors over the winter, they're much much tinier. And so beautiful!!

I'm going back to Grøneng for the last time on Monday, and will be sure to take some better photos then. On Tuesday the 31st, I take the expressboat to my next farm, on the island of Lygra! That will be an entirely different experience, but hopefully equally as wonderful!!

Ponies and Generosity

When Vilde was here over the weekend (Anders' daughter, for those of you just tuning in) we drank pink champagne to celebrate her arrival, and Hilde made these wonderful little figures out of the wire and foil from around the cork. She just absently bent the first little wire dude into shape while we were having a conversation, and it was so expressive that I started free-associating on what kind of character he was. First he was this jaunty happy jogger, then he was a serious downhill skier, suddenly morphed into a depressed old man with terrible posture. We had a lot of fun creating little stories for each figure, and took some photos.
I contributed. The deformed dog is my creation. Your welcome!
Today I befriended a 12 year old. Our neighbor, Nicolina. She has a pony. She's awesome. On Wednesday she's teaching me how to ride a horse! And she invited me to watch her jumping competition over the weekend. Her ponies are really cute. The little one isn't for riding. He's really old and fat and kind of surly. It's funny actually, being around him in the stable, I sensed this vibe of kind of a grumpy old man, like maybe a character Danny DeVito would play (except in horse form). I was asking Hilde about him, and she said he's 24 years old! I had no idea ponies lived that long. He's so friggin tiny! And fiesty. He escapes alot. I love it! Just look at that belly.

Yesterday, Sara & I were left alone in charge of the farm while Anders and Hilde went to Hilde's farm overnight. It's such a wonderful house, it was really pleasant and cozy to have it for just the two of us. We kept the woodstove in the kitchen burning and drank tea and ate delicious food and played the radio loud. Before it got dark, though, we had a great little adventure on the 4-wheel bike. Neither of us had driven it before, I had only had a 2 minute lesson from Pete on how to work the thing, so it was extra fun. Today we saw a 4 year old neighbor driving faster than we had been going yesterday, so clearly we were not being super daring or anything, but it was good! We went up to Anders' little mountain hut on an old abandoned summer farm, and fantasized about living there during a snowstorm in the dead of winter. That is one cozy little hut! It's all stocked up with everything you'd ever need, essentially. Even a little radio and tons of extra sweaters and knit socks. And there are berries growing right on the roof so you'll never run out of jam either!Hilde and Anders came home tonight, and gave us each early going-away presents. They gave us presents. Doesn't that seem just too ridiculously sweet?! I am SPOILED ROTTEN. It's official. I'm being taken care of, living in a beautiful house with tons of delicious food and doing really pretty minimal amounts of work.. AND they gave me two of my very own Moomin mugs. The most beautiful wonderful whimsical little mugs (really expensive too, which is partially why I hadn't bought any for myself already). I can't believe it! I think it's just nice to know that such kind and generous people exist in this world, honestly. Warms my cold little heart ;)
And then, before retiring to our respective bedrooms, we sat around drinking wine and sharing pig stories. Well, I was the only one without a pig story, because I have never formally met any pigs, which they were all very sad to hear, and they recommended that I do so at the earliest convenience. So, to all you pig farmers out there reading my blog, I would love to come work for you to acquire some good pig stories, but I have a high standard of wwoofing now!! Pretty hard to live up to, really.

Sugar Highs

I am pretty tired, so this post will have to be somewhat brief.
I had a really fun day with Vilde (Anders' daughter) and Sara (the other wwoofer). We went with Anders and Hilde to the art fair, as I mentioned previously. It was nice, overall, but most of the art wasn't that interesting to me. There was wall of these bizarre little plastic figures that the artist had pasted his own face on. That was fun to look at. But strange. Very strange. He called himself ClayBoy. I didn't read his artists statement, but we took a photo in front of his wall.

When we got home, I did a little research on wwoofing in France. Right now I am thinking of Corsica in November, perhaps? I'll start emailing the hosts tomorrow. Anyways, time flew by, and eventually Sara came over to me and was like Are you hungry because I am starving. And it was 8pm and we hadn't eaten since lunchtime. Hilde was cleaning the horse barn and Anders was out hunting deer and Vilde was on the phone I think. Anyways, we took everything that looked tasty out of the fridge and the cupboard, and Sara began slicing up some bread. Vilde came downstairs and was thrilled to join in. We ate nearly the entire loaf of bread, with toppings that consisted of pesto, salami, tomatoes, avocados, various fish in tubes, cheeses, blueberries, honey, peanut butter, nottepalegg (nutella, essentially). It was a real feast. We drank milk and got the giggles. It was really fun. Vilde very seriously declared "I can't imagine a better way to spend this Saturday night" before chomping into a sandwich piled high with fancy cheese.

So yeah, that was lovely. And then Hilde returned and told us that Anders had shot a deer and the neighbor Carl was helping him transport it back from the woods on his tractor. We all rushed over to Carl's barn to see it. It was cold and dark, and the lights from the tractor were very bright. I took some photos of the big buck, and when it was all set up to slaughter Carl looked at me with a smile in his eyes and handed me a knife. Him and I both knew that I wasn't gonna do it. I wanted to be that gutsy wwoofer who will try anything, but I knew I couldn't. The smell of blood and the steam rising off the newly killed deer was actually making me feel a little ill already, and I was a few feet away. I'm not the most squeamish person, but I'm also not so good with blood and guts.
Vilde and I went back to the house, but Sara stayed and helped them skin the deer. She's a physical therapist, so she said it was fascinating to see the way the muscle attaches to the skin and to view all the organs and stuff. Personally, I can live without seeing that much.

I did capture a nice shot of the deer arriving on the back of the tractor though. The tractor lights look theatrical and give the whole scene a bit of a surreal tone, I think.

Rewind and Edit

Scratch that last whiny post from below. I was just having a moment of self pity and felt the need to share my insecurities with the world of the interweb. But now I'm done with that moment and thoroughly enjoying myself.

I was in the car today with Anders and Hilde and Vilde and Sara and for the first time felt like I was actually in my own life. You know how before, I was saying that I felt like I left my life behind and was living someone elses? I am finally comfortable enough with being in such a different place, that it's not feeling quite so different anymore.

We went to a farmers market and an art exhibition today, which was really nice. I'm being completely spoiled by my hosts. They're really amazing. And it was great to feel a sense of community and be around other people as well.
It's helpful having the German wwoofer Sara here, to give me some perspective. She's been traveling and wwoofing for 6 months almost, and I asked her the other day if she ever got homesick. She didn't hesitate for a moment, she just said No I have been having too much fun to miss my home. And it was such a positive answer, I thought to myself, Why the hell am I not approaching this experience that way? So from now on, I'm just going to try and enjoy every day, all the ups and downs of daily life, and not miss the silly things like Brooklyn flea markets and urban landscapes. Those will be there in the future anyways.

I am considering flying to France to work on a farm there for the month of November. Before I was thinking of Ireland, but then I really thought about continuous cold rainy weather, and suddenly France sounded more inviting. Plus Pete and Ginny told me that they could see me in an old ramshackley French farm (having been to one recently themselves), so that's a good enough reason for me.

Anyone have any suggestions of where I should go? I don't really know my French geography so well.

Ramblings

To be perfectly honest, I'm not really having that great of a time. I feel guilty saying that, since my hosts are very kind and I am in a beautiful place learning very practical and sometimes interesting things. But I miss the variety of my former life in Brooklyn. I didn't realize what a varied life I lived in NY, perfect for the fickle Gemini who wants to see and do something new all the time. I honestly thought I was boringly doing the same thing every day, but being stuck on a farm in the mountains (albeit a gorgeous farm) has shown me what REALLY being in the same place every day feels like. It will be great for a few months, but I think I will be happy to go back home again.

Perhaps the thing I miss the most is my independence. I'm not really in the mood to go pick blueberries high up in the mountains today, especially since my boots are still wet from picking potatoes for 6 hours yesterday, but that is the activity chosen by the majority this morning at breakfast. I'm sure it will be really nice, but it's just a strange feeling to not know what your day will look like.. and it's not a normal workweek, it's every moment of every day, you know?
I suppose I am quite lucky to have nice and interesting and funny hosts, and I'm probably just having another cranky moment, because my legs are still killing me from hiking up a very steep mountain 2 days ago, and it rained last night, and so now I have to go get incredibly muddy again.

I am looking forward to having a real weekend again in the future, where I sleep in and go have brunch with friends and poke around the flea markets and take silly photobooth pictures. I actually am missing the hipsters at Union Pool. hah! Ok maybe that's going too far. But maybe not! Lauren told me it would happen and I didn't believe her. Lauren, if you're reading this, you are completely allowed to say I told you so.

It's been about 20 days. Maybe I haven't really let go yet, and this is part of the learning growing process or something. Yesterday I started to feel like I had no personality. Like I was a quiet boring shy person all of a sudden, with nothing to say. I realized that I shut down a lot around these new people because I feel like I don't have that much to offer them that they will be interested in. It made me panic a little bit, and I started thinking about what this experience of being a constant beginner and a constant outsider in this world of outdoorsy people is doing for me. And that's where this rambling is coming from. And maybe I should stop before I sound like a whiny depressive. I'm not, I'm just floundering.

I think I'll make a separate post about the things I've done recently, so as not to taint them with this paragraph of self pity. Ok!

Glaciers and stuff

Well, I've had a busy week!
Right now I am very sleepy and very full. We went blueberry picking today, and came home and immediately cooked up some delicious blueberry pancakes and stuffed our faces and now everyone is napping. I'm baking some more bread, and later this evening Anders will teach Sara and I how to salt and cure and cut the meat..
This meat here:
So, last weekend, my hosts Anders & Hilde went to Hilde's farm on the island, leaving me and my wwoofer buddies Pete & Ginny to take care of Ytre Aasen here in the mountains. We decided to go for a mini road trip, which Pete entitled the Magical Mystery Tour (very original). He was the Navigator, Ginny was the DJ/Caterer, and I was the Trip Photographer. First we went into the town center of Foerde, where there is little else but a large shopping center (a mall, essentially). We went to the mall and browsed around H&M. I hadn't seen that amount of people in such a long long time, it was like sensory overload, and I will admit that I actually had a wonderful time. It's amazing to realize that I could be overwhelmed by the "crowds" in such a tiny small town in the middle of nowhere. NYC might just blow me away! No, but honestly, I really do like people a lot. Not so many that you can't move without running into someone, but more than like 2.

Our road trip led us to the Josteldalsbreen Glacier (largest glacier in continental Europe) and along the Sognefjord (one of the longest fjords in the world). We stopped at loads of roadside viewing spots to take photos, and ooohed and aahed a lot, and listened to Led Zeppelin, and overall it was very nice. Lots of amazing nature, all right along the roadside.

On Sunday we went bilberry picking up the mountain again, and when we came home we gathered up the lambs from the pasture into the barn. Anders came home that evening and together we all marked the fattest rams with a green crayon on their foreheads, to be picked up for slaughter in the morning. It should have been a similar experience as the ram wrangling on Skorpa, but somehow it was a lot more depressing. I didn't even take any photos. Maybe it was worse because I am now alot more fond of the sheep overall, and I feel a greater connection to them than on my first day at the farm. But I think it was also because they were gathered together in these enclosed pens, indoors, to wait overnight for their sad fate. The rams on Skorpa were ushered into those metal crates only moments before the boat came to pick them up.
I also bonded with one of the fated rams in the sheep house this Sunday. He got my attention by attempting to nibble on my hand, and then was so sweet and so tame, and just stood there wagging his tail and looking up at me... it honestly broke my heart. Pete saw me petting this sweet little guy and said "If it was your farm, I have a feeling only two lambs would make it onto that truck in the morning" and Anders said that if the little lamb had been a ewe they might have kept him because of his sweet temperment, but they really have no use for rams on the farm, so he had to go. What an awful night! I attempted to be brave about it, but I felt really awful in the morning when I heard that truck leaving. I did shed a few tears too, behind closed doors. But it's all part of the farm experience, I suppose, right?

On Monday night, we had a new arrival. The German wwoofer Sara came to stay for about 12 days. She had been here before for 5 weeks in the beginning of the summer, and is stopping by again before returning home. She is only 1 year younger than me, and also is traveling alone for the first time (although she's been on the road for months and months now, and I am just beginning). It's wonderful to have more company and meet a new person, and she's very cool as well, which is a bonus. Anders' daughter Vilde is also visiting from college in Bergen for the weekend, so I think this weekend will be a lot of fun. On Saturday we are going to a local arts festival, and on Sunday cooking a big Greek feast. Finally something I know about! Greek food! haha

Frost is coming soon. Today the air was very chilly and the leaves are turning beautiful colors.
On Tuesday we went hiking up a mountain to search for the remaining sheep that are still at large. It was stunningly beautiful, and there were tons of blueberries all along the way for snacking on. Wonderful!

Wednesday was spent digging up the rest of Anders' potatoes. 6 hours on our hands and knees in the dirt! It actually was not so bad. We rummaged with our gloved hands in the overturned dirt for the hidden potatoes, and it reminded me of being a kid again (because I think that was the last time I played in the dirt for so long).

Today was grey and chilly, but we went back to the foot of the mountain where the blueberries were really thick on the bushes, and between the for of us (me, Sara, Anders & Hilde) picked 20 kilos of blueberries. Amazing!

Bilberry Bonanza

Well, the past few days have been very pleasant, and even though I still have an annoying cough, I have pretty much recovered from my meltdown on the mountaintop on Saturday. Pete & Ginny have been here keeping me entertained, so I haven't had a moment to be bored, which is nice. Today we had loads of fun actually. Anders was away picking up the meat from the rams that we gathered on Skorpa last week, so us wwoofers had free reign. One of the things he'd suggested we do sometime is pick all the berries he hasn't had time to get to, so they can freeze them for use in the wintertime. It was a PERFECT berry picking day today.. warm, with a gentle cool breeze, and not too humid.
We picked the red currants first, on the bushes right next to the house. There are so many that even with 3 of us picking for 2 hours, it hardly seemed to make a dent.
Red currants are so amazing. I've had red currant jam and some red currant ice cream, both homemade and absolutely delicious.

Then we ate a delicious lunch of smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on fresh bread (I made some more last night!). We're seriously spoiled here. The food is so good.

P & G have been going on about bilberries lately, so next we had to go pick some of those. They're kind of like a wild mountain blueberry, but we don't have them in the states as far as I can tell, so it's funny to hear them talk about bilberry pie and bilberry jam and bilberry wine. I told them it sounded very British to me (but that could just be because they sound very British when they're saying it).
We drove up the mountain on the 4-wheel bike, with me on the back and Ginny on the front. The front looked scary, and Ginny squealed a bit, but I rode it on the way back and I thought it was great! I felt like I was 7 years old and riding on someones handlebars downhill. Dangling feet, hair flying, the whole deal. Fun fun.
Anyways, we picked a ton of bilberries. Stayed up in a beautiful mossy wooden area of the mountain for a couple of hours and then came back and sorted the berries and ate some fish pudding for dinner and then Ginny made us bilberry pie. Anders was home by then, and the 4 of us ate the whole pie between us, in 1 sitting, with sour cream on top. It was deeeeeeeeeeeelicious. Bilberry pie! Who knew?

Here's a photo of the bilberry sorting. I think we got like 5 kilos? I don't know how much that is really. It seemed like a lot, because the berries are so teeny.

Over pie, we had fun teaching Anders strange things to say in English. He gets very excited about odd English words. For instance, I used the word wonky in reference to the dishwasher wheel, and he goes "What's this? Wonky?" and we told him it wasn't really a proper word but it was a good one, so he'll probably end up using it, which I find really amusing. He also loved the phrase "It's the best thing since sliced bread" and thought it was so strange that he had to practice it a few times in order to properly remember it, and he claimed that he wanted to use that phrase a lot and confuse Norwegian people.

Anders really cracks me up, which in turn cracks him up. So it's a good environment in the house. Like, for example, he whistles pretty frequently, and random tunes often get stuck in his head (like someone's ringtone, or a jingle from tv). But yesterday he was in his office whistling the Star Spangled Banner, and I was walking by and I said "Anders, you're whistling a very patriotic tune." and he goes "Why?" and I said "Well its the Star Spangled Banner, but I don't know why you have it in your head!" and he had no idea either. Then this morning it was the theme from the Godfather, and once again he didn't know where it came from. But that was preferable. Funny funny.

This weekend, Anders will be at Hilde's place all weekend, leaving me and Pete and Ginny here to our own devices. We might go into town and try and find a sauna. Do some relaxing. And I'm sure there will be some more bilberry picking and 4-wheeling.

Oh I also found a ewe that I am completely enamored over. This morning I was in the sheep house feeding all the ewes with some hay, and this little lady (#5018) was the only one not eating, she was just looking up at me with these lovey eyes. So I talked sweetly to her and scratched her chest, and she just sat there with her nose on my wrist and blinked her eyes up at me. She loved the scratching so much that she started snorting every so often, like a cat purring. It was unbeleivably adorable. When I stopped, she actually wagged her tail too. I came back to see her this evening, and she's in the pen with so many others who look a lot like her, I was wondering if I'd find her again, but when I went up to the pen she came rushing over and wagged her tail and put her chin out. What a wonderful little pet! I have to think of a good name for her. #5018 doesn't have a very good ring to it.

Here she is with her buddies. She's the cutie on the left looking very lovey.

I have a video of her wagging her tail on flickr too (but you have to listen to me talking babytalk to a sheep, so viewer beware!)

Things are looking up

I made the bread all by myself today in the house, and of course I was sure the whole time that I would do something terribly wrong and end up with unrisen hard lumpy loaves. Ginny had kindly gone over everything I needed to do, step by step, but 10 minutes after she left I started to forget what she had said, and the directions on the back of the flour were in Norwegian, so panic set in a little bit as I started out.

But of course I underestimated myself as usual, and the baking was really easy, and I actually quite enjoyed it.. I´ve heard people say that kneading dough is therapeutic and now I finally see what they mean. It really was a very calming experience, and when I took the loaves out at the end they looked great and quite edible, so I felt very rewarded.

It's nice to feel like I finally did something right!

Now if only this dry cough and runny nose would vanish, I would be perfectly content. You don't get a photo of that. It's not pretty.

Oh and I'm continuing to learn how to drive a stickshift. Today Pete gave me a few lessons on the old diesel 4WD Mercedes Jeep thingy that we drove up the old sheep road up the mountain. I drove it back down 5km on my own with Pete on the 4Wheeler behind me, and although I mostly just had to ride the brake and make sure the thing didn't throw itself into a ditch when we went over a massive rock, I was quite proud that I managed it and didn't stall or panic or do anything terribly wrong.
I don't have any photos of me driving the Merc, but here is Pete driving on a tame part of that sheep road.

He also taught me how to drive the 4Wheeler, which was MUCH simpler, and oh man I see why those little punks upstate were so crazy about their quads. That thing is so much fun to drive! I hope I can take it out again sometime!

Comic Relief

Well, I have a new role here as the butt of many jokes. My incompetence caused quite a riot during breakfast, let me tell you. ::sigh::
So Anders asked that I stay home and watch Britta today, because she can't be left on her own. Hilde was watching her yesterday, but went home with a stomache ache so can't be here with her today. A valid point, but I'm sure my uselessness on the mountaintop had something to do with the decision as well. Whatever, it means I don't have to kill myself today, and maybe I can rest enough to recover from this flu/cold/sickness, so I don't mind the reason.
He said while I was home today, I could bake them some more bread. I looked at him blankly. "What, you don't know how to bake bread either? Didn't you learn it in school?" Umm, no. Hardy har har, another laugh at Emma's expense! Can't hike mountains, can't bake. I had to remind myself that if I plopped any one of them down in BedStuy they'd be lost and mugged and extremely unhappy within 2 minutes. That's my only consolation. I wasn't a big useless lump in my own life, just when I'm out of my element here on the farm!

I'll need to practice my non-existent Norwegian skills today too, because Britta is too shy to use her English around me still. Maybe if she´s stuck in the house with me all day and no one else, she'll get bored enough to say a few English words to me. I met her teacher the other day when we picked her up from school, and the woman was from Texas! Lived in Norway for like 30 years, but when she was speaking to me in English she still dropped a few y'alls. Anyways, she said that Britta was very good at understanding me, she just didn't feel comfortable talking to me yet. So, we'll see. Wish me luck.

Man, if I screw up this bread I will be so annoyed!! Now I feel like I have to prove myself. Whatever. I'm a volunteer. They can laugh about me for months to come with the other wwoofers. Does it really matter? No. I'm sure they've had worse helpers than me over the years. I can't be THAT bad. Right?

Crankypants

So I´m feeling immensely sorry for myself at the moment. In fact, you could even say I´m wallowing in self-pity. I´ve been fighting off a cold for the past few days, and after a particularly strenous sheep adventure today it feels like it´s turned into a flu. Fever, chills, body ache, nausea, sore throat. I´ve been lying in bed since after dinner, falling in and out of a feverish sleep and wondering what I can do about the big workday ahead of me tomorrow.....

Rugged outdoorswoman I am not. Today we hiked up a mountain, to the top, very quickly, and once we were there we chased sheep through marshy ankle deep moss and over slippery rocks and up and down and up and down the mountain. For 6 hours. What I am feeling is the flu could actually just be exhaustion I suppose. But it sure feels like flu.

I don´t even think I can get into the details of what we did today. Parts of it were fun, but I was wheezing and panting like an old dying dog continually all day long, except for the hour that they left me sitting by the hut because they were going off to find some sheep over the other side of the mountain and "didn´t need 4 people" which I believe translates to "you sound like you´re dying and you´re slowing us down" which was true and completely fine by me.

The problem with the strenous activity today was that every single other person there was either a local (used to the terrain, and pretty hardcore overall) or a hiking enthusiast (who runs up and down mountains for fun on their days off). I can safely say I was the only out of shape city girl who hasn´t climbed a mountain since junior high.

The extra frustrating part of this situation is that despite all my efforts and feeling so lousy at the end of the day, I really can´t say I was very helpful. Through no fault of mine, the sheep I was helping herd for about an hour ended up going back up the mountain and we therefore left them for another day since they were being so difficult. And every other hour of the day I was just trying to keep up with the speedy mountaineers.

The photos I took make it look like an awesome hiking adventure, and perhaps in retrospect I will look back at them and say "How cool that I did that!" but right now all I want is for someone to check my temperature and tuck me in and bring me soup and let me stay in bed all day tomorrow. I´m wondering how I possibly am going to do this all over again in the morning?
I know I sound like I´m being a baby, and maybe I really am, but my body is not used to this, and I think that this particular task may be a bit too advanced for me. It´s like throwing a beginner into the super advanced class or something. I mean, come on, I thought I was cool because I never complained about my 5th floor walkup as much as visiting friends did. This was slightly more intense. I kind of wish I could go into a 3 day coma to avoid more of this mountain stuff. Oh lord.


It´s really beautiful up there. If you´re not at death´s door.

Life and Death

What a tragic morning!!

I found a family of teeny tiny mice hiding in Tassen´s dogfood bag.
I tipped the bag to shake some food into my hand and give it to him (he had those wonderful hungry puppy eyes, I couldn´t help it) and out leapt 2 itty bitty mice! One fell into my empty rainboot, and the other into Anders´boot! I took the boots out onto the lawn and tipped them out carefully, and the mice jetted so fast back under the house. Oops! In retrospect, I should have brought them really far from the house, but I was kind of in shock.

I opened the bag again and saw 2 more mice! One was definitely dead, crushed under the big dogfood pellets, and the other one was lying on its side blinking up at me, stunned and possibly wounded.

I pulled the tiny deceased one out by its tail and put it on the lawn by a tree, then I carefully lifted up the blinky guy. He was SO cute and so soft, I put him in my hand and sat down to look at him. My heart was seriously aching. He was about the size of my thumb, and looked just like a friendly mouse out of a childrens storybook. He was breathing heavy and kept blinking his eyes slowly. Eventually he tried to stand, but it was clear that his right hind leg was broken.
What made me especially upset was that the leg probably broke when I shook the bag! I had no idea there were delicate little bones in there.

So I was tearing up a little bit and trying to decide what to do to put this little guy out of his misery.. I wasn´t about to ask Anders if I could make a tiny mouse bandage and toothpick crutch or anything. Anders came home at that moment and I told him what had happened. Despite the fact that he´s a practical guy and those mice are nasty little vermin he puts traps out for, he did look sincerely sorry for my wounded little friend. He said "He´s suffering?" and I nodded and he nodded and just said "You should take him to the cat." Which was kind of what I was thinking. I didn´t have the heart to kill him myself, and that´s just what cats like to do. So really, I put one animal friend out of his misery, and at the same time gave a little gift to another animal friend. Right?

I walked to the barn with the mouse in my hand, and carefully placed him on some hay, and Chloe ran down and sniffed him and I just had to leave because it was too tragic. He was the cutest thing in the whole world! I´m pretty much a murderer.

You´d think by now I would be a little immune to this animal life & death thing. I mean, on Monday I helped gather rams to bring to slaughter. I fed a wounded lamb that later had to be shot. But those things I somehow managed to disconnect myself from, because I didn´t have a hand in the killing. In the mouse situation, it was all me! Ugh. I guess it´s better than getting snapped in half by a mousetrap when you´re just trying to nibble some cheese, eh? I don´t know. It´s all so gruesome.

I´ll probably recover by tomorrow. But RIP little wounded mousey. Sorry I didn´t save you.

"It´s not possible she speaks only English"

This is the translation Anders gave me at least.
His daughter Brita has down syndrome, and her friend Silvie with the same came over for dinner tonight. During dinner, Anders and I were speaking to each other a little bit in English, and then he´d switch to Norwegian to talk to them. At one point, when I had just said something to Anders, Silvie turned to me and said something very seriously. Anders said she was requesting that we speak in Norwegian so she could be in on the conversation. How big of a jerk did I feel at that moment? Yeah, big.
But the hilarious part of the situation was that when Anders tried to explain to Silvie that I was from America and only spoke English, she could not grasp the concept. They had to drop the subject eventually, because Anders told me she just said "It´s not possible she speaks only English". I was like "I know, I´m sorry."
So ridiculous!!
Now Silvie & Brita are in the living room having a grand old time, cracking up over something. And anyone who knows me knows I LOVE to eavesdrop on conversations. Slight problem in a country where you don´t know the language! I guess I should work on that, hm?

Today I am finally not feeling anxious. I think I´m just more comfortable with the unhurried pace of this farm. Also I tired myself out this morning sweeping the pens in the sheep house. Forceful sweeping can be really exhausting! And following that activity, Anders and I went through his fields pulling up dockweed by the root. The fields are REALLY hilly and the grass is very high (in preparation for the sheep who will be grazing there after we get them this weekend). High wet grass is quite difficult to walk through. Thick dockweed stalks are quite difficult to rip out by the root. We collected hundreds of them!! Holy crap I never want to see another dockweed again. It feels good to have gotten such great exercise today though. I was feeling tired but invigorated when we got home from the fields, so when Anders went to pick up Brita from school I stayed behind and cut some more grass. Freshly cut grass is such a wonderful smell! It´s nice relaxing work too, just using the little handheld weed wacker.

Another relatively quiet day at Ytre Åsen.

I haven´t been getting nearly enough emails, by the way. Don´t you people have news? Aren´t you freaking out about Sarah Palin or anything? Speak!

A quiet day at Ytre Åsen

Today it was just Anders and I on his farm. Hilde is at her farm on the island with Pete & Ginny. Anders had to leave this morning with his tractor to go move some hay bales somewhere, so he left me with a list of things that could be done around here, and said I could do however much I wanted until I was tired. I was really happy to have a list of chores though, because in my downtime lately I´ve been having minor freakouts.. just still trying to wrap my mind around where the hell I am and what I´m doing. Not to mention, everyone and everything I´ve ever known is oceans away. But that´s the beauty of it I suppose, right? Now I am forced to make new connections. And the people here are unbelievably nice.

Anyways, yes, chores. I groomed the horses for a while first thing this morning after Anders left, but the big one got too frisky and was pushing me around with his big nose (those guys are strong! eek!) so me and the barn cat went to the hay barn and carted the drying hay to the already dry pile.
I´ve named the barn cat Chloe. She´s soooo adorable. She technically belongs to the neighbors but she lives in the barn and I am worried that her owners haven´t been feeding her, cuz she is all skin and bones. I told Anders, and this afternoon he came back with a bag of catfood in his tractor! How sweet.
She´s hard to get a photo of, because she´s so lovey that she just wants to rub on the camera if you stop petting her even for a moment.

Then I put my laundry in because I only brought 2 pairs of jeans and 1 was covered in mud from the lamb rescue mission yesterday and the other was covered in mud and hay and horse hair from the chores today. So since I didn´t have any other pants except pyjama bottoms, I put on my vintage pink plaid shirt dress, but I still had more tasks to do outdoors, so I had to wear my green raincoat and green wellies. When Anders got back home, he found me in this crazy getup with a weedwhacker, cutting the grass around the front steps. He said all I needed was a scarf around my head and I´d look like some old Norwegian farmwoman. Probably true.

Later this afternoon, he had to go pick up Britta from school and asked me if I wanted a driving lesson. Him and Hilde were adament about teaching me how to drive stickshift (I only ever learned automatic, I know, I know, I´m a big baby).
So I drove all the way into Førde and back! Not that far, but I managed to stall out like 5 times right when we were about to turn and the old man in the car behind me was freaking out and Anders thought it was hilarious. I was having a minor panic attack. I´ll have to get the hang of it eventually though, right?
I like that I´m learning to drive in Norway, it´s kind of funny it took this long.
So many new things all at once! I feel like a newborn or something. Or an alien. I kind of am an alien here. Where the hell did I come from? hah

Oh and p.s. I am in love with the old sheepdog, Tassen. He may turn me into a dog lover yet! He offers me his paw every time I come near him, and nuzzles alot. Anders said today "Ah, he enjoys your company, look" cuz he was splayed out by my feet looking quite happy. How nice! My first Norwegian friend! Haha

First 48 hours of farming

How do I sum up everything that has happened since I arrived at Anders´farm on Sunday evening?

Well, alright.. on Monday Anders took me on the boat to the remote island of Skorpa. It´s a small island that has a few old farmsteads on it, but people don´t really live out on those small islands anymore because they´re so isolated. Anders has an arrangement with a man who has a farm on Skorpa, and he left like 35 rams there since last year, as far as I can tell. Anyways, our job was to go there and round up the little rams and get them into these 4 metal crates by the seaside. The crates were to be picked up Tuesday morning by a big boat that delivers them to Førde to be slaughtered. Kind of a depressing job, really, because the rams are really sweet and small and beautiful and it´s hard to look them in the eye when you´re sending them to their doom, but such is life.

The other wwoofer volunteers were on the island already waiting for us - a newly married British couple named Pete & Ginny. Anders had dropped them off there the previous evening. Although Skorpa was remote and uninhabited, the man who owns the farmhouse there keeps it quite comfortable and homey inside so he can stay there over the summer.

We arrived Monday afternoon and checked to make sure we were all ready for the early morning ram-gathering. It was a beautiful warm night and the sea was calm, so we took the boat out and went fishing. I realize now that I´ve only ever fished with show-offs who never want to teach me anything, so it was incredibly awesome that I was offered my own fishing rod and Pete showed me some tricks of how to lure in the big fish. Of course him and Anders ended up catching quite a few each, and I only caught 1 (I almost had 2 others, but they were sneaky and leapt off the hook right as I was reeling them in).

The fishing was probably my favorite thing I´ve done so far. We had such a fun time and were very excited about all the fish we were catching, and it was so amazing to be there on that gorgeous sea near an isolated island with some old Viking rams living there, just as the sun was setting over the water. I´ve never experienced anything quite like it. The guys were really invigorated by our thrilling catch, and wanted to keep going. So they hauled the old wooden crab traps out of the barn, filling them with heavy stones to sink them, and fish heads and innards to lure in the crabs.

We ate some sausages for dinner and went to bed early. I had a little bunk bed and my sleeping bag, so it was perfectly cozy. The weather´s been good - like 50-60 degrees I think.
Woke up at 6am because we couldn´t be sure when the boat was coming, and we needed to be ready in time. We drank coffee and ate cheese & pepperoni sandwiches (Norwegian pepperoni.. not really pepperoni but some kind of little round cured delicious meat slices). I was just putting on my wellies when I heard Anders outside saying "The sheep are gone!". Ginny and I looked at each other terrified and ran out after him, and sure enough the rams had found the weakest part of their fence and collectively trampled it, and they were nowhere to be seen. After some frantic rock scrambling, we found them and shooed them back into another pen. Kind of a dramatic start though.

I may be too lazy to explain the whole process of catching the rams and putting them into a wheelbarrow and carting them over to the dock and flipping them into the crates.. but that´s essentially what happened. I manned the wheelbarrow a good bit of the time, but I also took a bunch of photos. Hilde is writing a book about sheep and doesn´t have any documentation of this procedure, so my photography was justified, which was awesome! It also means I have a crapload of sheep-wrangling photos up on Flickr too which you should definitely check out.
Anyways, after all 30 rams were safely locked in, we tagged their horns with the appropriate strips ("return skin to owner" & "certified organic"). Then we drank more coffee and waited for the boat to arrive. Can I just say as an aside: I am so lucky that I´m staying with a coffee-loving farmer? Anders makes time for a lot of coffee breaks, and I´m so appreciative of them!

So yeah, next the boat came with a huge crane attached to it and Anders & Pete wrapped these massive chains around each crate and the crane scooped them up and the whole process took like under 5 minutes, which was crazy after the amount of time the preparation took! And by now, someone could already be enjoying some tasty meat, I suppose... what a morbid thought, hmn?
At this point, our work was pretty much done. So we checked our crab traps, and happily found that we had caught 6 of them!! That was awesome news, especially since we also had like 6 mackerel and some other yellow fish called lyr.
Seafood extravaganza!

We took the boat back to Hilde´s farm, stopping at yet another tiny island on the way to drop off 1 ram who´d been chosen for breeding at the last moment (and therefore spared his life, lucky guy!). I´m currently not doing a very good job at forming sentances, so now I´m just trying to get the content out there and screw form.

Back at Hilde´s island by about 2pm, after a glorious lunch of coffee and open faced sandwiches (for realz!), I was sent on a mission to get the mail across the island. It was quite a nice walk, since there are no cars and only 1 other inhabitant (a crazy old man named Alfred).

When I got back, everyone had gone their seperate ways, so I lay on the couch and wrote in my journal as the rain started to fall outside.
A moment later, a soggy Pete & Ginny ran in and asked if I wouldn´t mind helping them with a rescue mission. They had found a sick lamb on the other side of the island (way further than the mailbox) and couldn´t carry it all the way back on foot. So we got in the dingy and motored over, and what had been a slight drizzle turned into legit rain, which was unpleasant to say the least.
Pete deposited Ginny & I on a slippery rock, and we trekked over to the tree that they´d tethered the poor lamb to. We half dragged, half carried him back to the boat. Not an easy task. He was NOT feeling it. When we got back to Hilde´s dock, Pete had to drive the tractor down to get us - the road up to the house and barn is extremely steep and gravely, and there´s no way we could drag a resisting lamb up there. So G and I had to climb into the wet muddy backhoe with this depressed lamb, and crouch there as we bumped up along this steep road. In the rain.
Overall a thoroughly miserable experience, but come on - I helped save a sick lamb! He was all alone, pretty much destined to die out in the wilderness. And now a vet is coming to see him, and he might be okay!

Hilde and Anders fried up our freshly caught mackerel and it was DELICIOUS of course, and then Anders and I had to go back on the boat to pick up his daughter Britta from swim class and finally.. back home. After all those adventures, it really did feel like coming home, which was refreshing to realize. I´m very glad my homebase here is so wonderfully cozy.

More adventures to come. That was a fair amount for 2 days though, right?

Am I dreaming?

Oh my god I just got to my first farm and it´s more beautiful than I ever could have imagined!! It was nearly dark by the time I got here, and then they fed me a delicious dinner and we chatted for a while and I cozied up what will be my bedroom for the next month. So I won´t get a chance to take any photos of the outside until tomorrow, but

here is my cozy bedroom:

It´s bigger than my last Brooklyn bedroom! Sorry, it´s messy.. I just moved in!

And tomorrow myself and Anders (the farm owner) will be heading over to a little island where their sheep were living all summer, and making sure they are all ready to be taken back by a different boat on tuesday morning. We´re staying overnight in a tiny little cabin there too!

They have sheep and horses and two big dogs, and I´m just a little too exhausted right now to even go on further, but let´s just say I feel very much at home already, and it´s just so good to be settled and comfortable and surrounded by such amazing beauty. This landscape is seriously unbelievable!!
Oh and the wife got salmonella poisoning because she ate undercooked duck while attending an organic farming conference in Lithuania!
Ok, goodnight.