Getting to the end

July started. Time is flying fast, and there is much to do and see still.

Fifth week

This week started calm. Working at the factory. Carrying the goats back to their pen. The more they grow, the better escape artists they become. Its impossible to keep them in one place. They are outside around the clock in the summer, but get bored waiting for that time to come. Now they are spending nights inside.

On Wednesday, we tried to color yarn with the lupin roots we prepared last week. This was a failure, the color didn’t stick at all. The roots also got moldy after waiting in the liquid for a few days.

From Friday to Sunday, I was spending time in Reykjavik. I visited three museums there. Two of then on Friday. The first one was the settlement exhibition. This museum is built around remnants of a Viking age settlement. They had many informative boards, and interesting items found. This was the smallest of the museums, but somehow I still spent most time there. The next one was The saga museum. Stories of old sagas told with very realistic wax dolls. Here you get earphones to hear the stories as you walk through the museum. In the museum shop, you can buy books of many sagas. In the evening, I went to a brewery pub. I got some good beer, and tried the fermented shark. That was quite bad in flavor, but fun to try.

Saturday, I visited a tattoo festival downtown. (One of my co-workers told me about this a week ago.) I drew a picture of a funny photo I had taken of the goats. I had messaged two of the artists beforehand, and got the tattoo from one of them on Saturday. It turned out perfect. I spent the rest of the day just walking around the city. The houses around are very tightly built, and they come in many shapes and colors. Even with the tourist herds, it looks cozy.

Sunday was my last day in Reykjavik. I left the biggest museum for the last. The national museum of Iceland. There was so much to see, and read. You get a full picture of Icelands history there. Most interesting things are the graves from the Viking age. The sceletons are well preserved. One of them is a warrior, buried with a long sword. He is buried with some axe heads, arrows, shield, and coins. Next to him, lies a skeleton of his horse. These were amazing to see with my own eyes. The museum also holds many crafts and tools of those times.

Sixth week

This week we had some new craft to try. Tallow shampoo. We started by boiling some lavender, to get a good scent. Then we mented the tallow, and added some oils. Avocado oil, grapeseed oil, castor oil, and olive oil. We also put in some shea butter, E-vitamin, and applecider vinegar. We then added the water from the lavender. After heating the solution for awhile (not boiling), we mixed Sodium hydroxide with water, and then poured it in with the oils. This hardens the soap. Last we poured the shampoo to their molds, and let them harden.

We colored some more yarn. This time using birch leaves. I spent two hours picking these small birch leaves from the cemetery yard. The yellow turned out so much better than the lupin in my last post.

Seventh week

Week started of with moving the sheep to a new area. Hulda has trained the sheep to follow a sheep call. They know new grass is coming when they hear her. The lambs have grown wool. Now they look like tiny sheep.

After work everyday, I wash some eggs. The hens at the farm lay about 40-50 eggs daily. They need to be washed, and packed for selling. The cracked or ugly eggs will not be sold. They are eaten, or made into ice cream. I have had the privilege to eat a lot of ice cream here.

The ducks also lay eggs daily. One of them lays the most beautiful pastel green and blue eggs. Speaking of the ducks, one of them was abducted the other day. We believe a fox took her. So little predators in Iceland, but population of about 10000 foxes. The ducks are slow, and easy to grab. Hulda moved the ducks closer to the barn, so they can go inside whenever they want.

I have no pictures of me knitting, but I knitted a hood from my hand spinned yarn. The hood is not photogenic anyway, because my skills with spinning changed the quality of the yarn a lot

Another thing we made this week, was rhubarb jam. I cut some stems of the rhubarb, and chopped the into tiny pieces. Then we added about half and half of the stems and sugar. We cooked the jam for three hours, and then it was ready to pour into jars. The jam is really good when you use enough sugar.

Seventh week

This week I worked more in the last phases of preparing the yarn. The packing and cataloging the skeins. Organizing shelves. Three groups of people came to get familiar with the factory. The factory is part of a tour with three other farms. The factory is only one of the main interests. All of the farms are part of developing regenerative farming. After I leave the farm on the 25th, Hulda and Tyrfingur will be flying to some regenerative agriculture expo.

I started some felting this week. I had no experience in this at all, but it was pretty simple. I used washed wool, that was cleaned from the wheels of the carding machine. I just wet the wool, and started rubbing it with plastic. I did this until it was stuck together. Then after drying it, I started to needlefelt. Not my best work, but a good first try.

The event I had waited for since Finland, was finally here. The Viking festival in Hafnafjörður. I was there from Friday to Sunday. I enjoyed my stay. On the first night, I was able to watch their strange 10 year old tradition of choosing a bacon king, and frying 30kg of bacon to serve the audience. The next day, A friend of Hulda introduced me to a few people there. I am planning to go return there next summer, with some stock to sell myself. Hopefully I can.

On Sunday, we planted over a 1000 trees. These trees will grow to be windblocks for those very windy days. We had only 5 doing the job, and it took us all day. My muscles were dead after, and I burned my scalp a bit. But it was pretty good exercise.

Last full week at the farm

Feeling kin of sad, my last week started. I am not able to see the old tradition of taking the sheep to the mountains, because this will happen in July. We were able to visit the highlands by car, so I saw the places the sheep will go. It took us a few hours to drive there. Some high places still had snow, and we had to cross a pool of water with cars. You cannot go to those areas with a normal car, so it was nice to be there. The roads were very bumpy. We made one stop at a giant waterfall. The photo doesn’t give it justice.

On Tuesday, we went to get new baby chicken. These chicken were extras from a chicken farm, and would have been killed if someone didn’t take them. Now at least they get a good life in the sun and grass, before becoming meat.

Wednesday, was a slaughter day. The previous chicken, have grown enough. Now they will be prepared to be sold. We had 8 people working on the line. First, the chickens heads were cut off, then they were defeathered. After this, their legs were removed, they were checked and washed. lastly, they were vacuum packed, and put to ice. All this took 7 hours, and about 300 chicken were slaughtered.

In the evening, and the day after, I taught Hulda how to fat tan fishskin. Iceland used to have a big fishskin factory, but it was strangely run down. There are few who make fishskin as a hobby, and one of them makes buttons, that are sold in Uppspuni. We used eggyolk, olive oil, and some ecofriendly soap for the tanning solution.

On Friday morning, I travelled to Westman Islands. I booked a capsule hostel there, and it was a very futuristic place. The hostels I have stayed in Iceland before, were all one bed in 20 bed dormitory room, so this was nice change. You have your own peace.

The Island was the most beautiful thing I have seen so far. I hiked mount Helgafell, and Eldefell. I saw the puffins.

I visited the Beluga Whale sanctuary. There are two rescued whales there, Little Grey, and Little White. Both seemed to be really interested in people. The staff told me they have a giant pool, but they like to stay by the window and watch people. They were rescued from china, and are getting used to more natural environment. This sanctuary takes injured puffins, and fixes them up. They are kept in, until ready to be released.

I also visited the museum of the first settlers in Westman Islands. The story of their fate is really interesting. I would recommend looking it up. The museum was tiny, but really interesting to see. They had wax figures of the family, and some Icelandic treats served at the table. The guide was able to tell me more about the house, and the Island as well.

Last day

I finished my felted art piece at work. After this, it was time to say goodbye to everyone. I visited the goats for the last time. they seemed to care more about eating.

We had one last thing to try. Tyrfingur had made coal out of bone. We wanted to see, if this coal could be used to forge metal. The bones felt very dence and heavy. However, our try ended up a failure. The coal burns too fast, and not hot enough. It was really interesting to try.

I am now on my last trip before leaving Iceland. I got many new skills, and experiences. I’m glad I chose this destination, and this farm. I will definitely come back some day, if not next year. Thanks for reading my posts, this is the last one.