Arrival on goat farm in Ausserferrera, Switzerland

After a weekend back in Basel of unpacking and repacking, taking care of items on my check-list and also seeing a couple friends and enjoying the nice weather, here I am, back on the 'road' by train and bus, direction Graubünden in the Swiss Alps. The ride is spectacular, already starting from Walensee between Zurich and Chur, looking out on the left side window: the deep blue lake and huge rocky mountains approaching Walenstadt. Starting from Chur it just gets better and better and the final bus rides approaching Andeer and Ausserferrera are spectacular, going quite steeply up a narrow stretch along a turquoise river and rock formations and high cliffs.

Getting off at the bus stop in the little village of Ausserferrera, Michael, the farm owner with whom I exchanged a few short messages on Workaway and Whatsapp, walks up and shows me to my new home for the next 2 weeks, with him and Nicole and another volunteer from Australia, Lauren. At first glance the village seems to be mostly a few houses along the road, almost all wooden Swiss chalet style. I also realize that many of the wooden houses are actually barns, since they dont have windows, but are as beautiful as the houses. I get my own room upstairs in the house, all wooden and everything very comfortable and clean :-)

Arriving at 1pm was coffee time, a perfect time to arrive, settle, meet everyone and ask a few questions about the farm, the work and the goats. Where are the goats actually? I read there were about 70 of them but I don't see them! I find out they are separated into 3 groups:

- 18 milking goats and 2 males are up high on the Alp for the summer (1,5 hour hike up from the village)

- their babies, 21, are in the 'kindergarden' group here in the village, on a pasture just up the road. Three of the mothers are staying with them, they are the 'kindergarden teachers' and are there to 'teach' the babies how to be goats (although one of them was also teaching them to escape!)

- the remaining 24 goats are the babies from the previous years, they have not been pregnant yet but are now grown-up enough to get pregnant so they also have 2 males with them. They are in a pasture a bit down the road close to the river.

All very well organized!

Meeting the goats - the kindergarten group in the village

After coffee, we first go down to the vegetable garden and harvest the onions, spread them on a big space in the sun for them to dry. That afternoon there wasn't much else to do for us volunteers so Lauren suggested to walk up to see the milking goats, yes! It is a 1,5 hour hike to get up there through a very steep path in the forest.

So up we go, first crossing the river and entering the forest, walking up and taking breaks to catch our breath, seeing the beautiful green moss and red mushrooms making it look like a magical forest, finally arriving up where it is cleared and where the sound of bells announces we are almost at destination.

Up in the Alp, Marcus and Steffi are the 2 shepherds who are taking care of the goats from June to September, milking them twice a day (starting at 4:30am), herding them to different pastures to graze during the day and after the evening milking. Every 2 days they send the fresh filtered goat milk down to the valley on a tiny cable car just for merchandise (or occasionally a sick goat).

It is 4pm by the time we arrive and time for the afternoon/evening milking. Marcus and Steffi are both super nice and welcome us to milk with them. Okay let's try! Oh no it is actually really hard to do, nothing comes out when I try! How do they do it to have so much milk coming out?! They get almost 1 liter in 30 seconds from each goat, it is impressive to see. I managed to get about 3 milliliters and that was already quite a success compared to zero that I initially thought. It is really all about the technique. Lauren manages much better, she has experience milking cows. The tricky part is not only the technique itself, it is also making sure the goat doesn't just walk off! Indeed they are not put in a stall to be milked. Marcus and Steffi just walk around and milk the goats where they are. The goats seem pretty happy about it, kind of look back and them hold quite still until it is done (less then 1 minute). It is a different story when a stranger comes along and does it, they probably say: 'Who is this new person and what are they doing? why does it take ages? No way I'm out.' and walk away. Not easy for a beginner! I choose to take the role of holding on to the goat that Lauren is milking. I'll try again another day maybe.

The 2 shepherds are well equipped in the mountain hut, they have a little gas stove, the water is outside and there is a bucket to wash our hands with the warm water that they boiled and a bucket of cold water to rinse. The dry toilet is a few steps about the hut in the rocks. In the main rooms there are several mattresses. Outside they have a tiny vegetable garden also with some herbs. We brought them some chocolates from the village. They offer us some fresh mint and homemade jam with wild berries they picked to bring back down for us. I'm wondering to myself if I would manage to live up here, maybe I could try for a week, maybe next year.

It is getting cold and we want to get back down before dark. The forest is such as beautiful , with a different color in the dusk. Nicole and Michael are waiting for us with a delicious meal with mostly food from the garden. It is so nice to be here.