The next few photos are from the butchering of lambs that my friends, Kristen and Tony, raised on their property. The lambs had to be weighed before being sent to the slaughter house and one needed to grow some more. Tony butchered four lamb and Kirsten and I made lamb rolls. Enjoy!

Proper tools are needed when butchering.

Tony is ready to start of the first of four lambs.

The first leg of lamb is ready. That is what's for dinner tonight.

The inside.....

Spices are ready for the lamb rolls to be made. Lamb rolls are first salted in water and salt, then frozen until ready to use. Defrost and cook. Last it is pressed is a roll press. It is slices and used on sandwiches. A very traditional Norwegian food for the winter.

This is the first step in making the roll. Using one side of the lamb, you add lots of spices and onion as well as cut off extra meat from the butchering.

The sides are sewn together into a roll and stuffed with more meat and spices.

Randi's roll is almost ready. Just have to 'patch up' the end.

Finally, we put a net over to make sure our stitching doesn't come apart.

A bag full of legs of lamb.

A tub full of delicious lamb meat for any occasion; ribs, chops, tenderloin, etc.

Dinner is ready!! Served with potatoes and salad.

Another sure sign that the winter is closing is: snowplow sticks are 'planted'. A 'Veivesen' machine first drills a whole in the ground (not sure how deep) and then put the snowplow stick in. The white line on the sticks is a reflector so you can see where the road goes when you drive in the dark.

This is the local small boat harbor with the neighboring island "Grytøy" in the background.

This is a tree called Rogn. Scientific: Sorbus aucuparia. This type of tree is scattered all over Sandsøy. Moose love to eat the leaves and the bark of it. There are about 30 moose on this little island, so they have lots of food. The red berries are very sour. Also called Rowan or European Rowan. Look it up in the Wikipedia!

Some plants have faded already and others are still 'showing off' their colors.

The girls and I had a wonderful walk in the beautiful fall colors; picking leaves to preserve and shells to do crafts with. The weather is changing making us change what we wear, too.

This beach is not quite as good for bike riding, but an excellent place to find perfect rocks for throwing and skipping. Many different minerals gathered in one spot, too. Mrs. Coor will get another Norwegian rock to add to her rock collection.

One of Veronica's Fairy Houses. There are soooo many places to build and soooo many things to use to build fairy houses. The fairies on Sandsøy will have nice places to live this winter.

The kids spent 5 hours biking, berry picking and playing at the beach. It was a great fall day.

Here is Veronica picking Norwegian Cranberries. This type of berry grows only in arctic areas. Also called Cowberries in English. The kids decided to donate the berries we picked, about one gallon, to the local assisted living home.

Beach biking, too!

Here comes Barbara on great mountain bike trails.

The trails are only prepped by sheep, so larger branches are left behind. Rebecca got one stock to her bike.

The lowest grades, 1-4, are off school every Wednesday. The middle grades, 5-7, are off every other Wednesday. I take the kids on adventures on these days sometimes. Here is the beginning on one such day where we went out bike riding and berry picking for 5 hours.

Beautiful ground covers on Sandsøy. Photo taken by Kirsten Slagstad.

The white ground cover is what we call reindeer moss that you can find many places on the island. This particular area of the island is called 'the white hill' because of all the reindeer moss growing there. Here is a link to Wikipedia where you read more about the different varieties: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladonia

Photo taken by Kirsten Slagstad.

Gorgeous views from the area we went sheep gathering. Looking west toward the south end of Bjarkøy, where the girls go to school. Photo taken by Kirsten Slagstad.

We were so exhausted after a long day of herding, counting and organizing. The people who wrestled the sheep were even more exhausted. When going to bed last night, the Northern Lights were incredible. It was the first sighting for me in probably about 20 years. It was mostly white, but had some green as well as pink in it, too. I watched for about 20 min, but it kept going after that, too. Check out this link for more information and photos on NORDLYS, Northern Lights:

www.northern-lights.no/

The farmers had a very organized system to keep track of all the different lamb. It was so much fun to be able to help and experience this. There were no sheep farm on Sandsøy when I grew up, but a long time ago, almost every family had a few sheep each for wool and food. 

Veronica helped in the weighing process. You almost had to 'ride' the lamb to get it into the scale. Veronica did a great job, and she enjoyed doing it, too.

This is Tone, the farmer lady (like Kim?). Next on the program was to weigh every one of the lamb to decide wether it was male/female, good or bad weight, ready to go the slaughter house, being held to feed and grow some more or being held to keep for breeding for next year. A big job since there were about 250 lamb.

Here are the adults that were free to go. They will go into the back country for another few weeks. Being away from their lamb for the first time, they made lots of noise.

They are pretty cute, arent's they?

The first job was to sort all the adults. The sheep that are too old, utters not good or other reasons, will be sent to the slaughter house - like this one! Ola is in the photo; the farmer.

Not much extra space when 400 sheep/lamb are in.

The kids were making sure no sheep/lamb would escape on their way into the barn. (Wave swimmers: check out Veronica's t-shirt on the right).

On their way to the into the barn.

Beginning of the next day when we were collecting the sheep from the cultured land and herding them into the barn. Here is Barbara and the herding dog 'Ozzy'.

The sheep Veronica herded are in!

Gorgeous fall colors all around us.

Here is a small flock of sheep on their way in to cultured land....we're getting closer to the farm.

Veronica and I herded one lamb and one sheep from the back side of the island all the way to the cultured land. You can see Veronica as a little white dot in the left of the photo (right side of the far left fence post). The sheep we herded are far away in a distance on the right side of the large plastic covered hay balls. The compacted plastic covered hay balls are storage for the farmer. When he needs more, he pulls a ball into the barn and shreds it before feeding the animals.

Evidence of sheep ahead.....

More herders. This couple has wild sheep on a different island (very small one where no one lives). They are also parents of the husband in the family who owns all the sheep on Sandsøy.

Sheep collection has started. There are about 400 sheep/lamb on the island owned by one family. Lots of people showed up to help herd the sheep back to the barn for sorting, weighing and sending to the slaughter house. Here are a few herders heading to the very back of the island. We spread out over about 1 1/2 miles and walked toward to cultured land hoping to catch most of the sheep on the way. The adults have bells on them, so they are fairly easy to hear. The lamb don't have bells, but they usually stick to their mother.