Ringestar

Hello,

I have been here in Telemark, Norway for almost 2 weeks now. I am staying with a very nice family (Daniel, Lisa, Johanna(2), and Kari(1)), and at the moment, I am the only Wwoofer here. The farm produces all its own food, just like the first farm I was at, but they try to live as they did in the past. That means there are no tractors or other machines here; everything is done by hand or with horses. There are also no set working hours or break times like at the other farms I've been to; there is always work until it gets dark. That's why I haven't had time to write the blog. The advantage of not having any other Wwoofers is that you learn more. My work in the last 2 weeks has been: taking care of the children, harvesting oats, harvesting wheat (Daniel scythed, I bound sheaves, and then everything was taken to the barn with the horse-drawn wagon), squeezing pears for juice (I made about 90 liters;), making sauerkraut, building fences, collecting apples, harvesting potatoes, beans, garlic, turnips, and more... And in the mornings and evenings, I always feed the animals (3 pigs, 7 rabbits, 1 horse, chickens). That's much better than being only responsible for the chickens on the previous farms. Feeding horses and pigs is much more fun. There are also 2 other horses, sheep, and cows, but they are all in the pasture. And there are 2 dogs: Nima (Bosnian Tornjak) and Leo (Border Collie). And the best part: Nima had 8 puppies last Friday :) And Leo is the coolest dog ever: He follows me everywhere, sleeps in front of my bed, and watches over me.

Last Friday, Friedger and Gisa (who were with me at Handnesgarden) visited me. And we were allowed to go sheep searching with Daniel. Here, the farmers release all the sheep in the mountains in the spring and then have to bring them back in the fall. Three weeks ago, most of them were already driven down to the valley, and now each farmer is missing only 3 or 4 sheep. Now, these sheep have to be searched for in seemingly endless areas. And it's really fun. On Friday, we were supposed to search a mountain range. Friedger, Gisa, and I were supposed to go all the way up, then split up and walk to the other end of the mountain range. We all had walkie-talkies so that if we saw sheep, we could let the others know. And then we climbed steep slopes up and down, sometimes through bushes and across streams and rivers (I was surprised at how waterproof my shoes are). Sometimes we had to go all the way back because we came to a cliff that we couldn't cross, and sometimes we had to climb a whole stretch of rocks, which was really exhausting. When I reached the last peak, I was completely exhausted, but it was like in a movie. Walking across sticks and stones and listening to radio messages all the time (even though many of them were in Norwegian). But it would have been even more adventurous if we had actually seen sheep, but not a single sheep appeared.

So that's the summary of the last 2 weeks. I could tell you much more, but I'll do that when I'm back home ;)