Once upon a time, a romantic couple went to Norway on honeymoon, fell in love and never went back......

This may sound like a strange thing to do but, after many years of searching, Norway was the only place we felt we could live our dream of running a small farm. So here we are.

We bought our farm at Svoen just before Christmas 2009, and, after an agonizing wait to make sure nobody else who might have prior claim on the place wanted to take the farm (complicated Norwegian law), we moved in on Norway's national day, 17th May, 2010. And so the work began.

The farm had not been run for almost twenty years, but at least part of the barn was in good enough condition to allow us to buy 25 beautiful spælsau (old Norwegian breed of sheep) in the autumn of 2010. This autumn we plan to keep a number of their ewe lambs to increase our flock. They will, I am sure, feature regularly in this blog.

We feel very privileged to be able to build up this farm again and, despite the hard work, occasional disappointments and battles against the weather, we don't regret our decision for a moment and know that it will all be worth it!

Thursday, September 8, 2011

It's already autumn, and I'm desperately trying not to think about the coming winter, but I suppose one of the things about being a farmer is that you are in touch with the seasons and learn to work with them.  It seems the last two years have been a challenge for everybody weather-wise, with two hard winters each followed by late and lacklustre summers.  The amount of rain we have had this year is just unbelievable; it's a miracle we have managed to get both cuts in!  Anyway, we have survived, and one of the reasons for beginning this blog is to try to stay positive, so here goes...

Although it may seem like a rather random time to begin a journal, you could say that it is the beginning of a new sheep year for us.  The sheep have come down from the mountains, it is almost time to wave goodbye to their lambs, and then the whole cycle starts again with the coming breeding season.  Also, we are now just four weeks in to the new school year at the college where I work.  These however, are just convenient coincidences and the truth of the matter is that I simply haven't got around to doing it until now!

I hope in the coming months to report on the various jobs and projects going on at Svoen.  So, until my next post, I leave you with some pictures of my lovely girls on their way back home from a summer in the mountains.
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