[renee]

I would have applied for this job if I had been 30 years younger. Lillhårjåbygget  is one of the last working farms in the roadless countryside. 4 miles across the open fells from a dirt track,then 15 more miles to a village.
Years routine. The snow leaves the area mid May . Crops are sown by hand, mostly potatoes and other root crops and oats. Mid June the animals can come out of the stables and they are allowed to roam over the mountains. They can walk up to 5 miles a day and are brought home each evening for milking. End of July, hay is mown. Some of the better fields mechanically, otherwise by sythe.
Mid August the farm closes and the animals are driven to the higher pastures 10 miles further into the mountains for a month. Again hay is made and stored (it is brought down with horses and sledges during the winter.) The other major activity is producing butter and cheese.
In September everyone returns to the main farm and starts storing food for the winter which sets in mid October.
Shopping is done at the end of March when there is still snow which makes transport possible. By the end of April until June it is impossible to reach the far though the ambulance helicopter can come in emergencies
They also use snow scooters now but still rely mostly on horsepower.   

[lachlanandmarcus]

Amazing!! Thank you for posting this - fantastic if hard work

[Lesley Silvester]

Amazing that farms are still run like this.

[Mammyshaz]

A  nomadic lifestyle almost. I have total admiration for the people who live this way.it would be lovely to experience their way of life for a couple of years through the different seasons.  Hard work but the rewards of the labour must be so fulfilling.

[tizaala]

And there I was, thinking this place is cold ,wet and misserable,    Sod that, they are welcome to it......

[Bionic]

Very interesting. Such a different way of life.

[jaykay]

That's a hard way to live!

[RUSTYME]

I could quite happily live that lifestyle , although my broken , knackered , falling apart , 55 year old body says otherwise .
 The snow would always be my nemesis though , i hate the stuff , and it knows it .
As you say though renee , 30 years ago  ?

[pheonix]

 

That's a hard way to live!

i agree.
i dont have any tractors or power tools etc on my croft and its knackering year in year out.. handsawing wood and pruning back trees for 10 yrs has given me repetitive strain in my shoulders. i used to use the ponys for pulling timber and carrying rocks but it is v time-consuming. iv had so many blisters etc from daily manual work but then im  the only one here...... with the morale of others and no council tax / bills to pay etc then it looks a great place to escape from the real world.

[goosepimple]

I expect there aren't many distractions so you just get on with it, that's the way it is.  Would be an interesting experience, I like it when it snows here and we get cut off if the road closes, feels right somehow.

[sandalfarm]

I LOVE the snow...it is easier than hot arid conditions and so clean and envigorating. I love horses and would really like to have them working with me, I think they benefit from the interest, not stood in a field bored waiting for the human to come and feed them...YES, I could do this.

[renee]

Amazing that farms are still run like this.

They are few and far between. My neighbour takes his cows up to the "Fäbod" summer pastures for two months every year . They wander loose all day then he drives them home in the evening. I sometimes help him. One evening we were about three miles from the fäbod in an area that was new to me. Some of his cows are very old and I was folllowing the oldest. Her pelvis is so lodesided and she creaks at every step. I was just wandering after this cow in my own thoughts them it dawned on me. Here I was in one of the most isolated areas in following a cow :thinking:The next have an hour I just prayed that she knew her way home
I could take my sheep up into the mountains as I have grazing rights but as I have all the land I want back in the village I don't bother. Besides, my fäbod cabin was dismantled and rebuilt on the farm in 1907.

[SallyintNorth]

I love hearing about how things are over there, renee 

And it always looks so idyllic - the sky is always brilliantly blue!  (But I suppose none of us gets our camera out in wind and rain, eh?  )

[renee]

Very interesting. Such a different way of life.

I have lived here 4 years now and it is so different to the life I have been used to. I try to learn as much as possible. The region was so isolated until the arrival of the railway in 1924. I was at one open air museum and read the story of one of the farms in the roadless land. The parents had left three children to fend for themselves and gone to Stockholm to try and earn money . The eldest boy was 14. During the winter the youngest died. In early Spring a skiier came by, and the two children asked him when Spring would come as their parents had romised they would return before the thaw and they had their dead brother out in the barn. Now this was in 1911.

[renee]

I love hearing about how things are over there, renee 

And it always looks so idyllic - the sky is always brilliantly blue!  (But I suppose none of us gets our camera out in wind and rain, eh?  )

True, but their is wind about 5 times a year in the village. The air is so dry here that even the rain doesn't feel wet! and when there is no sun