Four days riding and seven days working

Well, one week on the farm so far, and things are going great! It took us four days to pedal from Oslo to Hauggrend, and it was quite a change from the flatness that is most of coastal Belgium and Holland. In Norway, we have had to battle a few steeeep switchback mountain passes and a few greulling multi-mile uphills. On the whole, however, the ride was great, and visiting with Cato in Drammen was nice. Now that we are here on the farm, we are living with other W.W.O.O.F.er's in a building that is almost entirely reserved for farm workers like ourselves. When we arrived, the only other WWOOF person was a wonderful girl from France named Marie. She left yesterday after about two weeks of work here. Since we arrived, there have been a bunch of new additions. The new WWOOFers are a couple from England arrived (Peter and Ginnie), as well as a fellow from the Czech Republic named Ivo. English is the common language here, so there isn't much trouble with communication. As a matter of fact, there just aren't many Norwegians in this area to speak of. Apparently what has happened is that all of the young Norwegian people want to move away from the countryside into bigger cities (or other countries), leaving alot of vacant farms and older people. There has been an effort to fill the void with other Europeans, and in particulary, the area has been re-populated by many Dutch and German people. The result is a funny jumble of Dutch, German, English and Norwegian. Many of the Dutch people who live in the immediate area have some connection the the school that our farm is a part of.

The farm itself operates as part of the Foldsae Steinerskole, which is a school attended in place of what we might call "high school" in the U.S. It's located near the town of Hauggrend, in the area of Norway called Telemark. The Steinerschool teaches things like farming, gardening, milking, handicrafts, forestry and other things related to nature, and is in many cases backed up by philosophy and fancy pedagogy. The school has history going back to 1923, but the Stienerskole is fairly recent. The community around Foldsae donated the land, about 6,000 acres, most of which are forest and rocky wilderness, as well as the buildings. So the vegetable gardens, the cows, the sheep are sort of teaching tools for when the school is in session. The school term begins about the time we are leaving, so we will not have the opportunity to see it all in action, but we have learned quite a bit from the teachers and others who work here. The gardens provide some food for the school when in session, but the majority of it is sold in markets nearby and through a C.S.A. type of program. The farm is run essentially by three young Dutch people: Paul, Elina, and Matthias (Paul is Elina's brother, and Matthias is her boyfriend). They began work here about two years ago, and they live on the school property in their own houses. It's really a very diverse place with people coming and going all the time, so we have a hard time keeping up with everyone. There are some other families living on the property who help with the school, including a Chilean family who are working to recreate wetlands surrounding the creek.

The arrangement for WWOOFers here is 4-5 hours of work every day, beginning at 9:00, with a break for lunch. So far we have done a fair bit of weeding: in the flower gardens, the vegetable gardens and even a pasture, where we pulled out a tall, very tough weed they called "dogs," which not even the sheep will eat. In addition, we have learned the basics of milking, and how to muck out a barn. The rest of the time we have free to relax, go walking, anything we like. Meghan has made friends with some of the women around, and gone for a walk around the lake that is situated just below the farm. The same group of ladies also went to the sauna on Tuesday. It was her first trip to a proper sauna, and while she's not so sure the sauna makes sense in the summer time, the location was beautiful, so probably she will go again, and maybe Will, too.





The weather has been beautiful, if not uncharacteristically warm and spastic. One wouldn't think it was Norway at all when the temperatures are reaching perhaps 80 degrees. Our first few days here had cool mornings and cloudy, rainy afternoons, but summer has finally arrived. Yesterday the farm workers all walked down the hill to the lake where we frolicked in the comfortably cold water. Every day here is something new, so we will try our best to remember all the things we have been doing, and relay them on to you!