Lambing Season

Farming in Iceland requires special efforts to work in difficult climatic conditions. Long winter nights, frosts, storms, earthquakes, and the cost of food, all require special efforts to farm. Only a small part of the soil in Iceland is suitable for farming. Farms located near the mountains also take on the risk of avalanches, rockfalls and the risk of being isolated during snow storms. Heavy rains provoke landslides that destroy houses and block roads. Icelandic farmers used to it for many centuries, but now urbanization time is come and the family way of farming is about to disappear. The farm I visited is located in Seydisfjordur Fjord in eastern Iceland. Despite the lack of hot springs, the fjord has proved to be one of the favoured places for settlers since the settlement of Iceland began. Over the past centuries, the population of the fjord has migrated from the ocean side deeper into the fjord, leaving behind the foundations and stone ruins of relocated buildings. Growing up on the ruins of one of the abandoned settlements, Dwarfgastein Farm is named after a special stone in which, according to legend, dwarfs live. The owner of the farm, Sigur, is 81 years old but continues to run the farm alongside his wife. Thorunn, his daughter, takes on all the hard work. Their grandson, Julian, comes to help them.