Norway #5 Ok kiddies. I'm using an old, tried and true method of maintaining readership. Cliff hanger. But this time it's with a twist. Last time I teased you with the sheep slaughtering but never actually got to it, and the conventional cliff hanger would fill you in on that now. But not me. Hehehehe..
This next week was between the farm and our big trip to the sheep island, so it was a fairly normal week for us. If the word normal could be applied to any of our experiences at this place.
Our week began with wood shop. Yes, I'm sure visions of middle school appear in you heads that the mention of those words, and your not too far off. Our first project is a wooden box. One piece of wood wrapped around and laced shut in the front with birch root. A top and bottom are added, and some carving is done for a final touch. The project isn't all that difficult. What makes it hard is we use a lot of hand tools. A band saw is the only power tool, really. So all the cutting and carving and fitting is done with chisels and knifes and hands. I'm not all that good yet, so mine has character. And our teacher is amazing. I'm working on cutting or kifeing something and thinking I'm clever and he comes over and shows me a better way to do and had it half done inside of 30 seconds. It's really impressive, and as usual, I'm realizing I have a lot to learn.
One of the ingredients for our box is roots of birch and eye of newt to simmer in a black cauldron of raven's blood.... OK, just root of birch. So we went and got some birch roots, which is a story I'm sure you are dying to hear. Tough, I'm gonna tell it anyway. Birch trees grow all over Norway, with some conveniently located just behind the school. Inconveniently it rained that day. All day. And all night before. And the area that the birch call home is conveniently, well, wet land. So we were slogging in the rain in a marsh digging up swamp crud to find Birch roots. Not something I've done in San Diego. Sometimes, if you stood still too long, the boot would sink into the swamp and get stuck. Which would be OK until you tried to walk. I spent several minutes unsticking a foot after nearly falling on my face when my first step didn't work.
The box is progressing well. The side is wrapped and glued, and the bottom has made it so far without any major defects. The side has one, it became asymmetrical when I glued it together. Oh well. Character, right?
The next two days were spend sailing. We took out the small boats, and I and Sara got into the small one and took off. Sara's spent some time sailing before,which is why we 'took off'. We tacked our way upwind to see the next town a little closer, which seemed like a cool goal. Sara and I were not really working hard, more like relaxing with some turns worked in when the land got too close. We chatted for most of the trip, and I have to say, she's a cool chick, for 20 years, she's got things more together then I do now. Our conversation turned to the school, and how she has done this kind of sailing at another school in Denmark. At some point I got the flavor that she may not be excited at doing this again in the cold Norwegian winter. We shall see if she hangs out or not. At one point in our journey, I looked out to find the other 2 boats, and they were way behind us. We later found out that they were 'aiming for the bubbles'. There is a machine that blows air into the lake to keep it from getting stagnant, and they were sailing back and forth over this froth point. Easily amused. And between us and them I could see a small kayak, heading our way. Vegard was catching up to us. His teaching method of the day was to take out his kayak, and cruise between the 3 boats and comment on our performance. He was now trying to catch us. We sailed on. And he climbed on board about 3 minutes later. Our best sailing wasn't that good, but it was good enough to warrant a 'stay near the other boats' comment. That was encouraging. Our big boat trip on the next day was very cool, very cold in fact. And raining. And big wind. We headed out into the fjord to go back and forth in easily the biggest wind we've seen yet. Sailing over the choppy waves with the wind pushing the boat sideways was an experience. Moving the sail is much harder, sometimes impossible, and the leaning effect of the boat resulted in the comment :'If the water starts coming in over the side, just let this rope out all the way' I got while working the back of the boat. It sure kept me focused. And the cold! It was near freezing with some ridiculous wind chill, and working with wet ropes. Good times.
Our last day was not sailing, but working on the boat house. It needed a rock wall fixed and extended, some boards nailed to the beach, and other fun stuff involving axes. The rock wall a bunch of large rocks stacked. No cement, no glue, just piled just right. Let me tell you, have respect next time you see a wall made of large rocks, it is much harder then it looks. Moving these things took 3 people with crowbars, and that was the easy part. Picking which rock to put in which hole to make the wall stable, that magic touch was far from obvious. We got most of the jobs done fairly quickly, which was good considering the above mentioned cold.
Stay tuned for next week's harrowing tail of Sheep Island!
Hope all is well in you neck of the woods,
-Byron Posted by byron at October 23, 2002 06:17 AM