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.