Accidental Shepherd: How a California Girl Rescued an Ancient Mountain Farm in Norway

Summary

In May 1972, Liese Greensfelder arrived in the small Norwegian town of Øystese to startling news: Johannes, the farmer who hired her for the summer, had just been hospitalized after a stroke. Could she please watch over his place for a month or so, until he got back on his feet? Twenty years old and with no farming experience, Liese was dropped off the next day at a centuries-old mountain farm at the end of a dirt road high above the magnificent Hardanger Fjord—with 115 sheep, two cows, one calf, a draft horse, and a Norwegian herding dog to care for.

Although her employer had alienated his neighbors, they welcomed the American newcomer and offered her help. As "a month or so" stretched to a year and Liese struggled, she joined this tight-knit enclave of farmers, learning their stories and history, adopting their dialect, and growing familiar with the grass-based farming practices that had sustained them for generations.

From moments of levity to soul-battering challenges to the yearnings of a young woman awash in a sea of masculinity, Accidental Shepherd is a candid account of Liese's year in a remote farmhouse. Confronted with dangers and obstacles for which she was utterly unprepared, she tells a story of remarkable resilience and records the fascinating but rapidly vanishing traditions of the community that took her in.