greetings from Norway
hi from hestmannen
hi friends. it's a "farmer's Sunday" today (raining heavily), thus i have a moment to write a little about what I've been up to here in Norway. haven't had much time to sit around, for i'm outside and/or busy from 7:45 am to 11pm every day except Sunday afternoons, but it rules. love it. also, there is absolutely nowhere for me to spend any money had i the free time to do so - remote islands are awesome.
ferry time
the first port in the fjord from Stockvagen
approving. the Svartisen glacier in the distance
one week ago, i arrived to the island of Hestmona, Nordland, in the northern Norwegian Sea. This island is known for the giant stone mountain formation known as Hestman, the Horseman. I have been living/will continue to live for the next week and a half at the foot of this rock mountain - at the farm called Hestmanvågen, "the Horse Man's bay". Belonging to Kurt and Marie-Luise Randecker, who came here from the Jura Mountain region in southern Germany 8 years ago, it is a nearly self-sufficent, fully organic and diversified dairy farm relying entirely on 2 humans and one horse power. The farm itself is located 5km south of the Arctic Circle, which passes through the northern part of the island.
kurt (in the barn)
marie (with radishes)
Kurt and Marie, were a part of the Back to the Land movement of the 60's and 70s. once young intellectuals, idealistic proletariats (Kurt worked on the assembly line for Mercedes-Benz in the 70s), they bought their first farm 25 years ago and have been living a lifestyle heavily influenced by their Amish ancestors, combined with true-till-death anarchist ideals and a commitment to deep ecology, ever since. their life and work is based on antique turn-of-the century agriculture as much as possible, and this includes work with a draft horse and machinery that mostly stopped being produced in the early part of the 20th century. they have always shunned any type of attention gained from their activities, and in the past when tourists would try to take photos of them working, would block their faces with their hats as the Amish do.
Hestmanvågen farm is 18 hectares, which includes part of the stone mountain, pastures and arable land, a bay, and birch groves. It consists of a house, a barn, a shed, and a historical-landmark boathouse containing a rowboat the Randeckers had built in the original Viking style.
the farm
the boathouse and the bay
Some Things I have Learned pt. 1:
1. there are people in the world who are actually committed enough to their ideals to do something about it - often this means being an outsider and living without comforts
2. self-sufficency means trying/working about 100 times harder than other people for equivalent things, but also getting 100 times the satisfaction and something to show for it at the end of the day
3. It is possible to teach yourself pretty much anything
4. my faith in humanity and the future has been replenished and is starting to get a little fat from too much fresh milk
better way to make a revolution?
here on the farm i've been doing a variety of things. i've been given the task of caring for the hens in all aspects, bringing in the milk, weeding in the garden, picking vegetables for the table / to preserve, tarring the boat, helping with the hay making, and leading the workhorse through the fields as Kurt weeded the potato field with a plow.
fresh eggs
fresh tar on boat
the salt is from the sea and crushed in a mortar and pestle
getting ready to harvest the hay
Marie holds the reigns
collecting dry hay to take to the loft - i was the raker
a Scandinavian way of drying hay, draped on strung wire between poles, seen behind
strawberries
picking lettuce - everything we eat, including the dairy, bread, vegetables, fruit, etc. has been grown/made here and is so good, i almost feel like it's the first time i've eaten food in 5 and a half months
oh yeah, this last activity i mentioned(leading the horse) is one of the most exhausting things i have ever done. it sounds easy - walking next to a horse in the adjacent row with a hand on the bridle, leading her forward to the end of the row and turning around as you plow the field in a spiral. however, these are potato fields, planted in tall mounds with a narrow valley in between the rows where you have to walk one foot in front of the other while trying to keep up with an giant horse who is walking faster than you and being made skittish by the clouds of horseflies, black flies and gnats. agh! i developed a terrible cramp in my problem leg (right) within the first 5 minutes from walking this way. thankfully, after some time the horse began to get tired and would take breaks/walk more slowly and all was fine.
Brownie me plow Kurt
oh yeah, i've also been learning how to milk the cows, and Kurt warned me about the inevitable "sleeping hands" that will come with using muscles that have never been used before. as the name implies, your hands may fall asleep randomly during the day even in the middle of a task. my forearms kind of hurt right now but thats about it.
other notes regarding life on Hestmanvågen:
bathing with a steel basin with hot water. a chamber pot is also used
home made cheese
propert's specially prepared leather and saddle soap
waffles
bobolink the cat sleeping on his special rock that has crystals sticking out
summer means more people on this little island. the other day we got some visitors by boat from the bay, who turned out to be a guy from San Diego, California (Richard) and his Norweigan friend from Oslo (Joar). they were exploring the islands and doing this thing where they jump off of really high cliffs, opening the parachute only at the last possible second. Richard had just left the Navy after 9 years in the Air Force and returned from a three year tour in Afghanistan in January.
cannot escape the technology
Kurt and Marie are exceptional teachers in the ways that they explain so naturally every step of a process or facts about something you are doing - the symbiosis between legumes and a certain type of bacteria, how to make good compost, when is the best time to harvest cabbage so far north, how to sharpen a scythe, how to make friends with the horse so that he will follow you....
Kurt leading the horse to work
it saddened me to hear of all their struggles in the 25 years they had encountered, from neighbors shunning them and big farmers threatening them to finally, the state taking away subsidies for small farmers completely after 5 years in Norway. still, they are happy and no one is the boss of them. they have no children, so when they pass away the farm will most likely be absorbed by their big dairy farmer neighbor. they have accepted this as inevitable and don't concern themselves with what will happen with their stuff and years of work after they are gone. for they have lived exactly the kind of life they have wanted to live, without compromise.
kurt and bobolink
oh yeah, if anyone is interested in learning more about small-scale/interesting farming, check out the US publication
Small Farmer's Journal feat. Practical Horse-farming Quarterly. it's been published since the 1970s and has lots of information on how to do very old-time farming/ kitchen/house stuff from a green anarchist perspective. good design too. of course this publication was of great influence to the Randeckers, so i've been reading tons of back issues.
...
anyway, i am off to Oslo on the 25th of July. i should have the internet again there, and for sure the entire month of August while i'm in Iceland.
that's it for now. keep on keepin on,
waffle of love
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