Cursed

It’s a curse. The phone always rings, tourists always come each time we sit down to have a meal or coffee.

This evening, Unni and I go to the golf place to have our evening coffee instead of having it at home. Just as we were about to pay, some ang moh comes up to the counter asking where he can get a room for the night. I say out loud ‘Oh No’. Sian lah, just when we were about to have coffee, plus a piece of cake!

Unni asks him to go get a drink and wait. Shortly after he and I cycle back, where I show him his room at the Tuna.

American. He asks me where I’m from. I tell him Singapore and he blabbles some unknown language to me. Which I later deduce it’s either Japanese or Malay perhaps. Then he asks me if I’ve picked up any Norwegian and goes on to say lucky people speak English here, and how it must be a language I’m not that used to from where I come from. The final straw comes when he asks me which part of Singapore I’m from. ???? I was contemplating whether I should say I’m from Tua Kong Walk or whether I’m from the Eastside or Siglap. (I bet even if I said Siglap, he’d have gone ‘oh, ok…’

Confirm already. He has no idea where or what the hell Singapore is.

So I tell him, “Singapore Singpaore… It’s a city state.”

I guess it was a ‘A-ha’ moment for him, coz he thought I was from someplace in Malaysia. Well bonus points for getting it close enough, compared to other people who thought I was from someplace in China. He wasn’t sure coz he has never been to the FAR EAST or Asia. And he tells me he’s a pilot somemore…

Anyhow, the American’s staying one night. Hope he doesn’t leave the place in a mess like the last American family did.

A goat, a frog and 2 damsels in distress

Been getting my off days on Tuesdays for the last 2 weeks. The good thing about getting the off day during the weekday is that shops are open. As I was telling Bcc, the even better thing about getting a weekday off is that working through the weekends ain’t that tough. Coz Unni would always say we can shelve some work to the weekdays coz it’s the weekend!

Past 2 Tuesdays, Bcc and I have been hiking up mountains. Bcc is pretty fast when it comes to hiking, but the thing is that she has the high tendency to lose the path. Coz she will just look down and go straight ahead. Sometimes we end up heading straight into a patch of trees. Other times she’d be going ‘Where’s the path??’ Then we’d have to look around and either of us would go ‘There!’ and then we’d have to either go through another grass patch or back-track to get to THE actual path.

2 weeks ago we hiked up the mountain where the Svolvaer Goat is situated. This is the Svolvaer Goat.


Of course we didn’t go all the way up. Coz you need a guide to bring you up. The original plan was for us to walk to the base of the goat. Chiong-ing through the trees and over the rocks. But somehow along the way we got lost. To begin with, we started on the wrong track.

We were supposed to take the left one, but ended up taking the right one. Apparently the sign on the right says ‘Track’. So we followed it. And ended up face to face with massive boulders we had to cross. We were about to turn back when some guy comes chiong-ing out of the bushes. Big burly military guy, he was able to literally pull us up the rocks. He was wearing mountaineering boots (for hiking?!), and had an altimeter watch somemore. Damn hardcore lah, and so of course we lost him soon after, coz he just went charging ahead.

Well turns out that we took the wrong path. So for a section, we had to chiong through the trees to get back onto the actual path. On we trudged, up up and up.

Then we hit another patch of rocks. Rocks are tricky business. Coz it’s easy to see the marked path on the ground, but on the rocks, there’s no path. It’s a free for all, go with your creativity and just navigate. Lucky for us, this time round another guy comes along and leads the way for us to get past the rocks.

We walk walk and walk. Along the way we got to see great views of Svolvaer below and we saw some people on the goat too!

After a long while, it becomes apparent that we seemed to be walking away from the goat. Not a good sign. Turns out, we were walking towards the frog. Ah what the heck, so we ended up heading towards the frog (see top right hand of picture below!!!).

We reach the frog. Nearby, we find this too. I guess we could walk out to the middle of it. But who dares to man?!


After this, we turn around and start the walk back down. Along the way the trees were starting to turn yellow. And each time we walked past them, we unleashed a yellow cloud of pollen, which gave our clothes an orange tinge.

The walk back down was much faster than going up. Reaching the bottom, we had to navigate our way over rocks and boulders. And as usual it was tricky trying to figure out the right path. So we had to go scout what was ahead and decide which way to walk.

3 hours later, we reach the bottom. Yay! Coz I was tired, hungry and my shoes were wet. Once again. The journey of the most adventurous pair of Ah-sicks in Singapore.

BLEHHHH

Heavy eyelids, runny nose, sore throat, sleepppiieee

Had 4 cups of Ho Yan Hor Hearbal Tea before the nose started running

IS: it's NOT WORKING leh!

Big Cows, Big Food

Fiska-Molle came by the other day.

It's the big truck which comes to unload feed for the animals into the cow house. There's a huge sack on the roof of the cow house and the pipe running along the side brings delivers the food to the sack where it's stored for use to feed the hungry cows. (Recall post on Cow house where i mentioned how the feed comes falling down from the ceiling... here's why!)

As you can see from the relaxing driver in the corner. 4000kg of feed does take a while to unload.




Now i keep thinking the roof is gonna collapse and bury me in tonnes of animal feed.

Bet the cows in the cow house would love that.

_________________________________________

Oh yah and see the red cow house wall facing the man? the one with the white sign at the bottom right corner. I took one afternoon to paint the bottom half of it. On a really really shaky ladder. Coz of the good weather, summer is the best and only time to paint. So lined up on the task list is more paint jobs.

So it's gonna be more shaky ladders and red arms...

Latest Stock Check - 28 aug

Bad bad situation.
Animals keep running away.

Current list of lost animals stands at

1 black and white rabbit
1 white rabbit

1 big white (which Unni caught yesterday. phew)


Then there's Silly Billy No. 1 which keeps running away. We have no idea how it gets out. Unni fixed the fence at the animal pen already. But it still managed to get out. We figured it probably jumped over the fence. He gets out and starts eating the little trees in the garden, and so i've always gotta go over and drag the big guy back to where he should belong. Good thing is that he is easy to catch. Bcc tells me that the runaway goat last year was so difficult to catch. Exactly how silly is Silly Billy No. 1? He actually comes running to you when you approach him. Then when you open the door to the animal pen, he trots inwillingly.

Coz he gives us so much work to do, we tie a leash around him and to the fence. But the silly thing sometimes gets entangles itself up and gets caught in the fence. Now the only solution. Either make a higher fence or kill the goat.
.
.
.

Worse still... 3 baby rabbits were spotted at the garage. Unni told me that Inge saw 3 baby rabbits and 1 dead baby rabbit. I was like ARGHHHHH! coz it means that they are gonna be running around and digging up the whole garden in no time. Some kids came round the other day and saw it too and they were saying how cute those little bunnies were. If i weren't working on the farm, i'd say that too!

________________________________

So in conclusion. The big mystery is, how the hell does Silly Billy No. 1 gets out.

But the even bigger mystery is: Which naughty rabbit was out and about having rabbit babies?!?!?!

FOG vs SUN

Saturday was a day of crazy weather. Or as Unni put it, a fight between the sun and the fog.

7.30 I get up to get ready for the cow house and it was all foggy outside. The whole of Hoven could not be seen. And the horizon was no where in sight. Just like that, the fog had taken both the mountain and the sea.

So at 7.30, the score stood at Fog 1 : Sun 0

Things seemed to clear up in the afternoon. Hoven was starting to appear again. For a moment there was actually clear skies.

So it was 1 all. Of course we were rooting for the sun.

But come evening, happiness was shortlived as the fog returned from the sea. But the sun fought back, and for a moment it looked as though the sun was taking charge. Exactly how fast does the weather change. This quick…

8.38 pm

8.42 pm

8.51 pm

And so,

It was foggy for the rest of the night.

Cold and foggy.

Bleh.

Floor-like sea

After coming back from the evening milk today (25th aug) unni tells me that she has a plan. For us to go out on a boat trip to have our evening food (aka coffee or whatever hot drink rocks your boat plus bread). The sea was exceptionally calm tonight. Or as unni says ‘like the floor’. So it’s the best time to go out, coz it’s still and won’t kenna seasickness! Which I’m really afraid of. Which is kinda ironic isn’t it.

Unni packs the stuff in a cooler box. There’s hot coca, hot coffee, croissants, bread with cheese, some jam to go with it. And milk, if anyone wants. We wear our ‘rubber’ (read: boots) and walk towards where the boat is parked. The boat is a little one, seats about 6 people and has an engine at the back.



It was such a déjà vu feeling. First before heading out to sea in the boat. There is surely the bailing of water. We didn’t have a bailer, so Unni used the cover of the cooler box whilst Inge went searching for a makeshift one.



Then to get out. Backpaddle. Or do it Inge style. Use the shaft of the paddle to push off from the rocks. Both achieve the same purpose though.


Once at deep enough water. It’s time to start the engine.

Then there was some angry exchange of Norwegian words between Inge and Unni. The problem had come. The boat wouldn’t start. Cato was the last one to have used it. Desperate, Unni tries to call Cato. But no answer. So Inge continues fiddling with the boat. While I continue to sit and enjoy the scenery.

Shortly after Unni and I start paddling. Not really the dragonboat style, more like skulling style. We take one side each. Awwww such a nostalgic feeling, getting to paddle in the water again. Of course in true dragonboat style, I attempt to keep with Unni’s timing to maximize our efforts in getting the boat to move. But also in true dragonboat style, the timing is never spot on. After a few feeble attempts I heck it and just focus on paddling.

I thought that was our boat trip already. Us sitting in a boat, just 20m from the shore, sipping our hot drinks eating the bread. But somehow Inge got the boat to start. So yippie, we were on our way.

We head towards the golf course. Along the way it was nice to see Hov from a different angle. Pity we left home a little late, coz the sun had already set and it was beginning to get dark. But the sky was a pretty pink, so of course it called for tones of pictures!!





Nearing the golf place, Unni tries to call Frode to see if he wanted to join us but he had already left for home already, so we stop in the middle of the sea to have our evening food. Wha, like so got atmosphere hor. Sitting in a boat in the middle of the sea, with the sunset sky in front of us and the mountains behind us, sipping hot coca and eating cheese and bread.

After our evening food, Inge starts the boat again and we go towards the harbour, where the lighthouse is. It was getting dark dark by then. Soon after a casual conversation with another fellow seaman, we left for home.

When we got back to shore, Mitsy was nowhere to be seen. Mitsy is the super hyperactive cat. She’s always running around, killing mice in the garden and follows Unni whenever she goes out. She had followed us all the way to where the boat was. But we didn’t take her on board with us.


She didn’t come back the whole night. So the next day after cleaning the service I d to go hunt her down. Some of the campers said she had been there the whole night. So good thing, she was still alive and kicking. I went round the rocks to look for her and then one of the campers called out to me, they had found her. Yay!

So now all the animals are back in the house.

Protein rich milk

Twice a day i feed the young calves milk. Sour milk which comes from a big barrel which sits beside the area where the calves are kept. The milk's been there for goodness how long. Milk gone bad and the cows can still gulp it down as though it's the best thing they've every had. No wonder cows need 4 stomachs.

Anyhow, there has been tonnes of flies these days. Must be coz of the warmer weather. The flies love to hang around the milk. some of them drown in it and so of course it goes to the cows and they still lap it all up.

On saturday, while preparing the milk, i found a dead mouse in the barrel. Ewwwwwww! It looked like the kind of mice that Mitzy kills.


I give a constipated scream and Inge asks me what's wrong. I tell him i found a dead mouse and he says 'oh, they like milk.' *diao*. So i scoop it out and throw it out to the grass.
.
.
.

Sunday i find another one. I go 'Ahhh!'. Didn't bother telling Inge this time round.
.
.
.

Monday i find another one... this time sian already. Been there, done that. So as usual i scoop it up and throw it out.


So i've concluded that either mice love drinking milk. Or it's just a case of three blind mice.

Here comes the sun

20th August.

After disappearing for 4 days, Blue and sunny skies finally makes its return...

but it only lasted till the night,

when cloudy skies returned againnnnnnnnnnnnn....

Cow fantasies

So far i'm having a pretty good time working at the cow house with the animals.


But if I had my way with cows…

… I’d toilet train them to poop outside and not IN the cow house

… I’d prefer them to come 1/4 their original size, so their poop would be 4 times less as well

… I’d get them to drink mineral filled water and not eat grass, coz moving grass to the young cows is sweat-breaking work.

… I'd wish their udders were on their backs so I wouldn’t need to get down on the ground to clean them

… I'd wish they understood English, so they know when to stand or move when I tell them to, and not make me resort to using physical violence when they don’t listen to me

… I'd wish they only needed to be milked on weekdays so that I could get the weekends off. Once a day instead of twice a day would be a bonus too.

... I'd wish they came in cool colours like hot pink and powder blue and not just the boring old brown, white and black

… I'd wish one cow produced the same amount of milk as 15 cows do

… I'd wish they’d be more fun, so you can play with them. Sorta like dogs or cats. And not just eat and sit around all day.

… I'd wish I had a moo-ing translator, so i know what in the world they want or need. Coz sometimes it just drives me mad.

… MOST IMPORTANTLY, I just wish milk came straight off the shelves in the supermarket, so we wouldn’t need to go through alllllllllll this hassle
.
.
.
.
then again, things can't always go the way you want them to

so just gotta TOUGH LUCK, SUCK IT UP!

Latest stock check

After monday's morning milking was done, i went to tend to the rabbits. Heading towards the cow house to get the animal feed, i spotted the big white just sitting there and as Unni would call it... 'relaxing'. So i put my bucket down and walked up towards it slowly.

It hobbled away into a corner which was filled with lots of machinery and stuff. i found it sitting in a corner. That's a good thing about rabbits. They love to corner themselves. So i crawled in and grabbed it by the skin on its neck, dragged it out and got hold of it. Yippie.

So now the current stock list stands at:

8 rabbits
3 goats
18 cows

and 1 irritating fly that is still buzzing away in my room

Cow sex

Milking cows. In order to get milk out of them, they gotta have calves. DUH. So that’s why there are the young calves in the cow house. Kids of the current milking cows. Unni was giving me a lesson on cows today when we were having a conversation about the problematic cows talking through the cow house to the blind cows.

Well for those who are interested to know. Cows carry their calves for 9 months. They milk all the way till about some time before they give birth, so they can stop and rest for the big day. Then after they are milked for about 3 months before they get pregnant again.

Most of the 17 milking cows are pregnant now. With expected births next month. So there I was thinking that with that many cows, there must be crazy cow sex going on on the farm. I was still imagining how they had to bring the cows over to the bulls which are grazing at another area for the magic to happen. Till she mentioned about how the vet comes around… to inseminate the cows. And once again, it was another light-bulb-going-off moment. Right, cow IVFs.



So you can imagine that all the cows and bulls on the farm are virgins and will live the rest of their lives celibate. No wonder the other time when one of the bulls ran away, it ended up running towards the area where the cows were. (a passer-by came knocking on the door telling us that one of the cows was running loose on the road) In order to get the bull into the cow house, Inge and Filip brought all the cows in. As well as the bull. With their current sex life. No wonder the bull escaped and ran towards the cows searching for a lady friend. Goodness knows how it got past the electric fence!
.
.
.
.
Unni’s pretty glad that I’m learning new things about cows everyday.



Oh yah and by the way, an update on my current rabbit situation.
Caught the black-white escapee on saturday. The one which was in cahoots with the goats to escape. Luck was on my side. Silly rabbit was inside the cow house and when I went to catch it. It ran for the door. Good thing the door was ajar and it ended up cornering itself. Whahaha, so I ended up being the heroine which put the runaway rabbit back to its cage.
.
.
.
on sunday some c gin nas came by the animal pen, and apparently they didn’t put the stone back on top of one of the rabbit cages. The big white, which previously pulled a Shawshank-Redemption stunt on me by digging it’s way out of the cage. It’s huge like a pillow, but the damn thing moves pretty fast. It’s the elusive rabbit which I didn’t manage to catch, but Tor Alfred did. And so it ran away, making it the 5th time I’ve lost a rabbit. Unni was so mad she confronted the kids. As expected they just pointed fingers at each other. So now I gotta go catch it. Damn those c gin nas.

Unni’s now worried that if we don’t get it, pretty soon we’d have tones of little rabbit children running around, coz there are 2 other rabbits which are constantly running around and digging holes all over the place. (I used to think that they were wild rabbits, but find out today that they happen to be fugitives which escaped and were never caught). Ha, no rabbit IVFs here.

Aha. So there IS such a thing as rabbits which escape and never get caught… hmmmmmmm… maybe I should just grant it it’s wish to elope with the other fugitive rabbits and lead their lives in the wilderness.

Changing routines

As mentioned in my previous post, to ensure that they give good milk, the milking cows gotta feed on fresh grass everyday. So the electric fence is moved twice a day, each time after they are milked they have a new plot of grass to feed on. Yesterday, the fence in front of the farm was moved to the maximum area it could cover, before the cows piss the neighbour off by starting to graze on their land. So this morning, we had to move the fence to the other side of the farm. Nearer to the cow house. Inge put up new wires for the electric fence and bounded up the area just beside the cow house for the cows to graze.

After the morning milking was complete, we let the cows out. Because of the new field, they didn’t need to walk down the slope and across the road to where they usually grazed, but now all they needed to do was to walk out the door and there was their new grazing area waiting for them to destroy with their hooves and poop. After having grazed on the other plot of land for weeks, as expected, our super programmed cows most probably wouldn’t be able to register the new change in plan in their cow CPUs, and so they just stood around, not knowing what to do. They probably were expecting to continue walking back where they came from in the morning, but were perplexed with the fact that a new electric fence was blocking their way.

And so it’s been hours since they’ve been introduced to the new area, and they are still standing around, not really eating as they should. Inge went down a few times in the morning to get them to move away and eat, progress has been little. They keep standing near the entrance of the cow house and moo-ing away. Unni says they probably wanna talk to the cow (a blind cow which is kept in the cow house all the time) which is inside, coz the cow inside keeps moo-ing back to them.


So it seems, that our super programmed cows ain’t that smart after all. They just need to do the same thing a million times to get into the routine of things. Change one element of the routine and they have no idea how to react to the new situation…


hm, that’s kinda like how I react to changes isn’t it…

THE cow house

Finally I’ve begun work at THE cow house. Coz Filip is leaving on Monday, and so I’ve gotta take over his chores serving the cows. The past 2 mornings I was the apprentice following Filip out in the morning so he could tell me what to do and what not to do.

First thing is to get the cows off the field, across the road and into the cow house. The cows are pretty well trained and know that it’s time to get moving, so all we got to do is to just walk behind them and they know where to go. Occasionally there would be the slower one trudging along or one of those trying to walk away from the pack. But a shout of some random noise coupled with the waving of the arms will do the trick in getting them back in line. If needed, physical action can be applied. Filip kicks the cows, coz he says must show them who’s boss. But I’m more for the TLC approach, more like patting the on the ass or just trying to nudge them aside.

The cows enter the cow house by a door at the side. Unlike the goats, they know how to take turns and not all charge and try to enter the door at the same time. Once inside, they go to their designated individual stalls. These cows must be programmed or something, coz they do know where to go and what to do. After they enter their stalls, they wait to be buckled in and for their food to come. We give them dry feed, 1.5 scoops for the milking cows and 1/3 scoop for the 2 non- milking cows. If there’s not enough feed in the wagon, there is a lever on the ceiling which releases more feed into the wagon. Like food falling from the sky… MAGIC.

Then it’s time to clean the udders. Or as Filip calls it, the tits. The udders gotta be clean clean clean of dirt or cow poop before they are milked or the milk may be contaminated. Which more importantly would cost Unni KR20 000. So we take a cloth and clean the udders and another piece of cloth over again to make em dry. It’s important to know where to stand while cleaning the udders coz the programmed cows know which side you are gonna approach them from and will make space for ya if you pat them on the ass to let them know you are coming through. Then Inge comes by with the milking machine and starts the milking process. Transparent pipes run along the ceiling and the milk is transported to a big tank in the milk room.

cows which have been milked lounging around whilst waiting for the rest.

the white pipes (coz it's filled with milk) at the ceiling send the milk to the milk room
the drain behind the cows is for them to poop and pee into and is collected in a massive tank below the cow house

After taking care of the milking cows, it’s time to tend to the younger cows and the calves. 6 calves are still drinking milk and so we’ve gotta warm some milk for them in a bucket which is put into another bucket of really hot water. Whilst waiting for the milk to warm up, we get grass to feed the young cows. A machine releases the grass from the ‘tractor egg’ as Filip calls it, onto the wagon beneath which we then wheel to the hungry, waiting young cows. By then, the milk is about ready for the calves. 1.5L in a bucket each and they will gulp it down in like 2 seconds. Much faster drinkers than the goats.

younger cows being fed grass


*tractor eggs are the great white balls you see in the fields (this is some random pic of another farm on the island), a machine wraps balls of grass in plastic to be kept for later usage and a tractor comes along to pick the big balls up and stack them neatly in a pile. Filip and Inge harvested about 400 of these balls this summer and it’d be used to feed the cows through the winter and the rest of the year.*

The most important thing left is to move the fence. The electric fence. Twice a day the boundary is moved back so that the cows can graze on a new plot of grass and poop on it too. First time out moving the fence I had no idea what the move was for, I thought it was just to allow the cows more area to roam. Second time we move the fence, Filip tells me why and it was like a light-bulb-going-off moment. ORHHHHH. I told him what I thought it was for and he was like, ‘You thought it was for them to go sight-seeing?!’. So far everyone who has heard it just can’t stop laughing. *Hmph*

Waiting on the cows hand and foot is almost done. We head back to the cow house and by then the milking is almost done. Before they head back out to the fields we gotta rub some fat on their udders. It’s some really greasy stuff which leaves my hands waterproof after I’m done, even though I’ve scrubbed and washed with hand soap (so I’m glad I went to the service, coz I got to deal with the heavy duty floor soap, which got most of the greasy feeling off). Then it’s time to release them from their buckles. These super programmed cows know immediately to head for the door once they are released. Those who were a little more urgent immediately pooped onto the floor up. Toilet trained cows I tell ya.

After the cows leave, it’s time to clean the area. Mainly to make sure that their mats are clear of cow poop. These mats were newly added thanks to a new EU law that stated that cows should sit on comfy mattresses. It’s supposed to keep them warm from the cold floor. And so Unni had to spend a whole load of money buying these mats for the cows’ royal butts. Inge was still joking about how the EU should make another law next year stating that all cows should wear shoes! Well according to them, the cows are pretty happy with their new VIP stalls. So it’s probably money well spent. Coz it’s important to keep the animals who make your money joyful and happy.


2 hours and many cow tits later, the work in the cow house is complete and we start all over again in another 12-14 hours later, 7 days a week. So as you can see, it’s pretty routine non-stop work being a cow and a farmer as well.

On being a c gin na

Kids, so far there have been many who have come on the farm. Cato’s kids: Rebecca and Tor Alfred, Cato’s friend and his son, Cato’s 2 lady friends and 3 kids, and the latest additions, Julia and Aina, Unni’s 2 foster kids who had come to the farm for a short holiday.

Of all the times I have said how others are c gin nas, the ultimate karma has befallen on me.

I’m starting to eat and drink like a c gin na (translates to ‘damn kid’)…

We can start with the jam. As I would have posted earlier, the adults (other than me) here all love eating cloudberries. The ‘GOLD’ of all jams, but so far, I’ve noticed that the kids don’t really have a liking for it. It’s an acquired taste I tell you. The other time Bcc and I had been out picking blueberries and before we left, Rebecca told bcc to come back with her favourite blueberries. We came back with some, made some jam, and since then, like the c gin nas, my ‘GOLD’ has been the blueberry jam.

Bread here at the house has usually been homemade corn bread. You can imagine, it’s the kind which is really brown, like wholemeal bread. When Tor Alfred and Rebecca were here, Unni kept buying and making other sorts of breads and buns. Coz the kids were more used to and preferred the white breads. Even though I’m an Oprah fan, and whatever she says is like the word from the bible for me, I don’t listen to her when she tells the world to ‘stay away from the WHITE stuff’. Can’t resist rice, white bread, cookies, biscuits. So like the kids, I was happily munching away on the white breads and biscuits during breakfast, tea time and at night when there’s night food for the kids.

Black coffee is the drink of choice for many here, since I only reserve coffee for special occasions when I need to stay up, gotta find alternatives. As popular as Milo is in southeast Asia, there is none here. The drink which comes closest to is O Boy. A chocolate drink which you are supposed to make from taking a glass of milk (cold or warm is fine) and adding about 2 teaspoonfuls of O Boy to it. Coz there’s so much milk and only 2 teaspoons of the brown powder, the result is a grey coloured drink. Not even the colour of weak milo, but more similar to that of drain water. But it tastes good of course. And so the kids love it. They usually have it for breakfast and when they take their nightfood before they go to bed. I usually take hot coca in the morning. At night, Unni makes a big pot of warm milk for the kids and I to make our cups of O Boy and we happily sip while we eat our white bread and biscuits.



Brus is also popular with the kids. ‘Brus’ is the common term for carbonated drinks be it Coke, Sprite, or the drink that all kids enjoy having. Eventyr Brus, or translated ‘Fairytale Juice’. Fairytale indeed, coz it doesn’t taste like anything, not orange, strawberry, apple or lime. It’s just sugared water I bet, with the gas added into it. We had it at Tor Alfred’s big birthday bash as well as when we have BBQs on the beach with the kids. The adults usually drink red wine or beer, but my mental allergy to alcohol means I join the kids and drink our happy juice.

And of course there’s the biggest weakness. Candy. Unni usually has it hidden in the cupboard from the kids and candy is usually eaten on weekends, as a treat. But of course adults are not subject to such restrictions. So I get to sneak to the cupboard to feed the sugar cravings. The other day Unni, the girls and I went to the local shop to get some groceries. And I went for the sweet shelves to check out the candy that they had on sale. I was like ‘wha wha wha, imagine having this this and that!’ But I didn’t bring any money out with me, so like the kids, can see but cannot touch. So when bcc calls and ask me what I want her to bring for me when she comes visit, the number 1 thing on my list is CHOCOLATESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!
.
.
.
.
Unni just gave me my pay for the 2 weeks since I’ve started work.

And I’m gonna spend it on CANDY!!!!


Woohoo!

Goat walking

Tor Alfred with Silly Billy No. 2

you'd have seen from bcc's comments form one of the previous posts that goat walking is one of the most popular activities with the kids. But mostly girls come by the house to ask to walk the goats. The other day 3 teenage boys came ringing the doorbell asking Unni if they could walk the goats. It was so hilarious coz one of the boys was standing in the back, trying to act cool with his hands in his pockets, and doing the ocassional 'spit-on-the-grass' to act sei.

We later saw the 3 teenagers walking the goats by the road when we were leaving... it was such a funny sight... should have taken a photo of it man!

apparently anything that has 4 legs on the ground you can walk. the other time when we were driving around the lake, we saw a man walking his cat!

Viva la France

so my sample size is not very big,
but i've gotta say this again that the french win, hands down.
they leave the house really really clean, wash all the dishes, clean up the sink, counter tops and stove, they even fold the kitchen towel back for you nicely, throw out their rubbish and fold the blankets properly...
norwegians don't even measure up close man (2 women and 3 kids left an even bigger mess for me to clear than 16 french tourists)...

but americans still hold the last place. BLEH.


another 10 french tourists came today...

ahhhhhhhhhhh....... at least tomorrow won't be toooooooo much cleaning when they go.

AGAIN!

went to the animal pen this morning, and to my horror... this was what i saw....


one of the cages was totally dismantled. So naturally, the rabbit made a run for it. and it was the same rabbit which ran away last time (the horny, humping rabbit). Unni gave away one of the fluffy brown ones and so we managed to put one of the 2 rabbits which had previously shared a cage, in a cage of its own. just one day in its new cage and it manages to run away.

it's virtually impossible that a rabbit in a cage can tear it into 3 pieces. i bet the goats have something to do with it. damn goats, must be trying to get back at me for giving them very diluted milk the night before (coz there wasn't enough milk in the house).

now that the cage was empty, i decided to clean it out. take out all the bedding....

BADDD choice. coz i ended up doing all the rest of the cages. and i think it had not been changed in a month. and my god did it STINK like HELL! i took a wheel barrow to contain all the dirty bedding, and i had to get new grass, put the rabbits in other cages while i cleaned their cage. It stank, the rabbits were not entirely the most cooperative (one of them tore the rubber gloves i was wearing... well at least i didn't lose any), it was tiresome work. and it took a damn long time lah.



see that's why it's better to stick to cleaning toilets...

Buttercup and Daisy

Buttercup and Daisy were the cows Elwin used to draw.

Elwin was our geog tutor back in TJ. He used to teach us physical geog. In an attempt to make things more interesting, he'd add in cows in his diagrams on land forms and call them buttercup and daisy. He thought it was darn funny.

So there you have it.

Buttercup and daisy.

Berry killa

Been living in berryland the past few days. Seen and touched so much berries, I’m not really that excited about them very much.

On Thursday I went out berrypicking. Cloudberries. The cloudberries are very ripe now, and if they are not harvested soon, they will all go to waste and gotta wait till next year. So me being the hardworking worker goes out for 4.5 hours in search of the priced cloudberry. I cross ditches, marshland, climb 2 fences to get to Hov, the mountain behind the farm. There are a hell lot of berries there man, so I walk and I walk and I walk, pick, pick and pick. For 4.5 hours I stop only once, coz I was getting hungry. So I pluck some blueberries to munch along the way. Well I hope it’s blueberries and not some other pseudo berry.

The day after, bcc and I head out to Hov again to pick more berries. We go the opposite way I went the day before, this time we pick some blueberries too, for the kids mainly, coz they love blueberries. Bcc taught me how to recognize the blueberries, coz there are a lot of other berries which pretend to be blueberries. But coz we couldn’t find the blueberry picker, we had to use our hands, which made our hands all purple. Lucky there were 2 of us, the bucket filled up more quickly. There was soooo much cloudberries that when bcc and I saw another ‘cloudberry field’ we weren’t excited at all, but were like ‘arggghhhh, coz we had to clear it all’. On the way back, we were like ‘don’t look, don’t look, just go. Only pick berries if they are in your path, if not, let them live and fulfill their berry purpose.’

blueberries

blueberries on the right and tasteless blueberry-pretends on the left

more cloudberriesssss! arghhhh!


our harvests, the fence we cross and Hov in the background

(i'm wearing the boots bcc bought me. a god send man! with that, can conquer any marshland!)

When we get back, we berry sort and Unni makes some jam. Homemade jam is da best I tell you. And blueberry jam rocks my socks!

this bactch of cloudberries has been the best batch picked so far, must be coz we climbed higher up the mountain slope to pick them, they are freckle free, big, red and plump. well those who go the distance are rewarded.....

making blueberry jam. add sugar and mash.
you don't want blueberry stains on your clothes man....

Homemade jams
L-R: Blueberry jam, cloudberry jam, strawberry jam

I should probably head out again to clear the cloudberries behind the farm. And I want blueberriesss!!! Ha, I’m the same as the c gin nas!! But after 5 times of berrypicking, it’s not sooooooo exciting to see the berries man… but well, gotta pick em now, if not wait till next year.

At least for now, Unni has enough cloudberry stock frozen to last the next year. Christmas has been saved!

*they eat cloudberries on special occasions, and it’s a must have for Christmas*

On tourists

Tourist season's not that busy now, but there are still the ocassional tourists who come to stay in the cabins. French and Norwegian tourists are clean clean clean man! They wash the dishes after they've used them and even take out the sheets for you and leave them folded neatly in a pile, which saves alot of trouble.

Americans... blah. the other day 4 americans came, the next morning we had to serve them breakfast. they didn't want any fish. fussy people. anyhow, after they leave i go to clean up. and they left all the dishes for me! and we are not talking about having put the dishes in the sink for me, they left coffee cups, half drunk glasses and spoons on the table for me to clear up. I remember last time Maribeth Erb who teaches Tourism says that people behave differently when they go on holidays coz it's something different from their normal routine, american tourists as though they own the world and everyone is supposed to fall to their feet and do everything. BLEH. well good thing was that they made the beds, but all tourists so far make their beds anyway, so they don't get any brownie points.

so it's still: Europeans 1 Americans 0

A very KEWL party for Tall Alfred

Cato and his kids left on Friday (11th aug). But before they did, we had a big PARTEE to celebrate Tor Alfred’s birthday. He turns 7 on Monday (14th aug). Tor Alfred is Cato’s younger son. Tor as in Koppies and Tors. Funny thing was that when I first heard it, I thought it was Tall Alfred, so I was expecting to find a Small Alfred somewhere. Bcc was laughing so hard when I told her. *hmph* Anyway T. Alfred is not tall, he's little for his age. He's 7 but wears clothes for 5 year olds...

Tor Alfred and sister Rebecca

15 of us were at the big party, us and Cato’s friends and 3 kids. So it was 5 REAL c gin nas. It was crazy man, so we put them all at the end of the table. The party was supposed to be a surprise, bcc, trond and I packed the candy packs for the kids and blew up tones of balloons to be hung up. We had to do it in a secret room, so that Tor Alfred would not find out. Each time when we heard someone walking outside, we’d stop blowing the balloons and go ‘shhhhh shhhhhh!!’. Ha, it’s so funny to see adults fussing over balloons and candy.

The balloons went up on the wall outside where we had the dinner. We put some Norwegian flags up too. People put up Norwegian flags when they celebrate special occasions. Imagine me having put up a Singapore flag at my MacDonald’s 21st birthday party…. Hmmmmm…..

Good weather, so we had the dinner outside. We sang the birthday song for Tor Alfred, in Norwegian of course, waving those sparkly sticks, but of course the problem was that we were waving it in daylight, so effect not as nice. It was rather amusing seeing the adults just stand there and wave their sparkly sticks. Reminds me of the time when we had both the guys and girls team Mooncake festival gathering, when the girls were playing with the sparkly sticks swinging and throwing them around, and the guys just stood there holding them.

Dinner was Tandoori chicken! It Rawked man! Must be coz there was rice and the Indian food reminded me a lot of food from sg. Then it was strawberries and cream for dessert… double YUM.

Presents, presents and presents! Tor Alfred received an array of things, from a golf set to clothes to a little bell. Each time he opened a present, he would say ‘kkkeeewwwwlllll’. I’m getting the impression it’s the most ‘IN’ way to describe something, coz to him and Rebecca, everything seems to be cool. Very ‘kkkkeeeeeewwwwwwwlllllllll’.

T. Alfred got a golf set for little people from Unni

According to Unni who said that Tor Alfred was ‘very satisfied’ after the party. So, success to everyone who had helped to put it together.