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!)