Day 119-Icelandic goat ranch

   May 2-Sally was back in the classroom today. She was pleased that the classroom dynamics remained good, even although nearly all of the student showed up today.  The kids also were back in the classroom today after a long weekend off.  After the school bus did its routine morning run, it returned to Bifröst and picked up Spencer’s class to take them to Varmaland as well to be first graders for a full day.  Since most of the kids in his class are going to be at Varmaland for first grade in the fall, this experience was an opportunity to get a feel for it.  Although Spencer will not follow his classmates to Varmaland next year, he will be making a similar type of move because his Gunnison kindergarten class will move from the Lake School building over to the Gunnison Elementary School building.  Talking to parents of Spencer's classmates later, we found out that some of the kids insisted that they not wear the Hraunborg shirts, because this trip meant that they were now in the "big kid" Varmaland school, not the Hraunborg preschool!

   The Bifröst parents club put together a visit to the Háafell farm today to see the goats in the early evening.  Most farms have sheep or dairy cattle around here, and farms devoted to goats are fairly rare.  Alex was particularly excited about this visit, because she
"leases" goats from Ann Bertschy as a member of the Get Your Goat 4-H Club back in Gunnison.  Ann raises cashmere goats and sheep at "the goat ranch" north of Gunnison.  So long as the kids take good care of their goats and properly comb out and clean the cashmere for Ann, they can show the goats at competitions and get to raise the goats’ kids as well.

                                 Jóhanna, the owner of Háafell, spoke extensively with Alex about the goats.  Goats were brought over by the first settlers, but they have never been as common as sheep, horses, and cattle.  Consequently, the number of goats in Iceland has never been high and they were in some danger of dying out with the changes in farming practices over the past century.  Jóhanna and like-minded farmers are now trying to reverse that trend; in fact, she is the sole breeder of a specific subtype of Icelandic goats.  I know that our sample size is to small to make any real conclusion, but it seems to us that goats must attract naturally good-hearted people, Jóhanna reminded us of Ann to a remarkable extent.  She even invites people to foster her goats as well, in an arrangement that is similar to Ann’s.  She enthusiastically invited Alex to come out and to spend more time with the goats and it seems likely that Alex will do so, if she finds the time for it. 

The kids with the 12-year old buck, Prins.

   Since the does were kidding, everyone had a great time holding and petting the baby goats.  Since Icelandic goats were not bred to serve specific purposes, they are more general-purpose animals and Jóhanna raises them for milk, meat, tallow, and pelts.  She has also been combing cashmere from the goats' necks and has sent it off to see if it is good enough to be spun into yarn.  She is still waiting to hear about that.  We bought some salves and soap that she has made from the goats' tallow.

   Háafell is located east of Varmaland, so we decided to take the scenic route home up the valley towards the farm at which Alex had attended the birthday party the day before.  We saw lambs, an old bridge, and a large, 4-story  house that was built by a wealthy farmer in the early 1950s.  We found out later that the house is now run as a foster home for troubled children from Reykjavík.  We stopped for burgers at Baulan and then headed home.