Saturday 22 June 2013

First and second day WWOOFing at the Askeland Gard

Ah, so last time I posted I was in the hostel in Oslo, wasn't I. The next morning I went shopping for things that wouldn't fit in my bag or that I forgot, including an international-to-Europe plug converter, which seemed to cost around £10 in most shops! Ouch. I got mine at a little shop for £7.50 from a man who only had one finger. I also went into an organic store to get various things, and was almost followed in by *another* man who wanted to harrass me. :P The clerk seemed very excited that they were finally stocking Dove's Farm products... which are pretty much standard in the UK. Funny. Went for the train at noon and then sat down for the 7 hour train ride to Arna, the stop before Bergen. It was gorgeous, as you can see from the photos before this post; Norway seems mostly composed of tree-covered mountains with lakes between them. In the middle there are mountains with snow on them. I didn't see any glaciers, but maybe that's not so surprising these days. The train sickness bags say "Uf-dah" on them, I was going to bring one with me to take a picture of but lost it. Next time!

Here is where I am going to post all my pictures: https://secure.flickr.com/photos/77881645@N00/sets/72157634255330980/

Then I got to the farm, which is situated on the side of one of these hills, next to a fjord. Everything is green. It was very sunny, which didn't prepare me for the usual weather, which is misty and/or rainy... but still beautiful. The farmer here does chainsaw sculptures with wood, that are very intricate, and plays the accordion. His name is Arne, and he is married (I think) to Louise, who is an actor and musician; they have two children named Rosalinde and Gabrielle, who don't speak English, so it's difficult to communicate with them. They have an au pair from the Phillipines named Julia, who has recently married a Danish man named Per, and is about to move with him to another city six hours south, Stavanger. There are also three dogs, Finnish Lapphunds who have been bred to herd reindeer. There are no reindeer here though. They are adorable.

The sheep had escaped, yet again, so yesterday our job was to find the break in the fence and repair it, then find the sheep. Instead of sheep, we found the ponies and horses, two mares with their offspring. One of the ponies, who was the daughter of the other one and still nursed even though she was larger than her mother, decided that I looked edible and bit me on the knee. Ow. They were still cute, though; they came up to my waist and were very used to humans. The fence was very difficult to follow, as the pasture in which the sheep were kept is almost vertical, with a lot of rocks and trees. It was misty and wet up there, and almost like a rainforest, with many ferns and small flowering plants. Then we took the four-wheeler up to the very top of the hill, where we found the sheep, and Arne encouraged me to drive it back down again.

And I took a lot of pictures.

Today, Linda and Arne are having a party, and then tomorrow is the Midsummer celebration down in the larger town, which should be fun. Breakfast and lunch here seem to consist of open sandwiches, so it's fortunate that they got me gluten free bread. They eat a lot of meat, so I told them that I eat fish sometimes. I wasn't prepared for the fish and prawns to still have their eyes, however. Eep.

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