Week Two: The Farm
Lofthusgård Horse farm
The weather has been beautiful. Big blue skies, sunshine and very reasonable temperatures around -5˚C by night and 3˚C by day. After morning chores I can be found sitting on the front deck of the main house, drinking something hot and soaking in the vitamin D.
I totally forgot to mention last week that I have been enjoying some snow shoeing with my new best pal, Molly. She is some breed of spaniel or bird hunting dog, and together we frolic in the forest surrounding the farm. Light enough to be held up by the deep snow, Molly runs off on her own but very kindly comes back to check on me periodically. She is a nut and found part of a moose hoof the other day. The perfect hiking companion.
The massive 25 year old stallion called “the old man” caught my right pinkie toe this morning as we strolled out to his private paddock. It is pretty sore and swollen but I think I will survive. I love the old man, he is such a gentleman and makes this lovely deep grumble sound as we walk together.
The father of my host, Andres, excused himself early from dinner tonight and said, “please excuse me but I must tend to my rabbits.” He has seven large rabbits that are fed nightly. They have burrowed under the snow though, so I have yet to see one.
In a dinner conversation about the wolf population of Norway (a classic tale of human exploitation as they were once hunted to extinction) Andres mentioned another interesting wolf population occupying a small island in the middle of Lake Superior. “Isle Royale!” I exclaimed completely interrupting him. “Ah, you know it? he asked me looking surprised. "Yes, I have been there!" So had he. We talked about the island and the colorful mushrooms lining its trails. And how Andres thought that you would be able to drink the water there, as you can here in Norway. Only to find it contaminated by a pesticide that persists today. “When did you visit the island?” he asked me with a tone that I thought suggested a possible overlap. “2017” I said. “The same summer my sister was married. When were you there?”. “1987” he said.
The full moon happened on the 19th, and it was huge. February is always a sneaky month, slipping by so quickly.
There is a berry here called a Cloudberry or sometimes “Mountain Gold” - an orange or golden raspberry. This berry is so coveted that one can be fined for picking them prematurely.
I have a new favorite day dream: I’m hiking in the Norwegian wilderness and come across some berries. Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, lingonberries, any would satisfy the fantasy. I pick some, eat some, and then continue on my way.
I have realized that simple things like eating a wild berry off a bush or kneeling down to drink water from a stream are what I want my life to be.
In a discussion of careers and futures, mine in particular, my hosts lovely mother said something very wise. We were talking about the extraordinary student loans I will require for a graduate program in Midwifery, and regarding such debt she said, “it is an investment in yourself.”
One of the keys hanging in the photo above unlocks all the public hiking cabins in Norway. Dreamy.
Thursday - I went on a little road trip to pick up some second hand lockers for the horse school. It took all day and I got a lovely little tour of Norway. Beautiful churches, classic farms with a white or yellow house and red barn, and saw the largest lake in Norway. Got to experience a Norwegian gas station and Norwegian gas station coffee.
Oh, and Annicken told me all sorts of stories about the horses and the Vikings. Did ya know that viking is actually a verb, as suggested by its suffix. So really they were Norse people or Norsemen who went viking.
I am really getting to know the horses now and they are a herd of characters. I have my favorites and am still slightly afraid of the young stallion known as “the young man”. The two youngest ones had another grand escape the other night, galloping back and forth the length of the farm. We had to jump on the quad with a bucket of grains to catch them. I’m going to miss them all dearly, even the escape artists we have started calling Tweedledee and Tweedledum (I find it rude to call even a horse dum, so I call them both tweedledee).
On Friday the now waning moon rose at 11pm, fading away at it’s top right side, surrounded by quintessential clouds and perfectly framed by the little window above my bed. Almost too idyllic.
