Smallholding, Family farm, Homestead, Agritourism Destination, Eco Lodge/Wilderness Adventures,
Vestland
It is challenging, interesting and very exciting things going on in Gripen this year! A lot of things to learn and be a part of. We have got our first calves, and our big new, very old fashion barn is getting built. Hopefully, soon we are making our own cheese from our own cows. The cows are old breed, STN dairy cows. The calf's will go with their mums, and we will share the milk. :-) Since I wrote those last sentences, I have had, with big sorrow, to sell my beloved cows and calf's. It is due to corona-restrictions 2020 and heavy draught summer of 2021, and a flood that partly ruined the new barn. I didn't get enough hay for the winter; the grass did not grow for the 2. mowing. So, this is harsh reality of farming, you never know what's next. The barn is mostly finished now, in early 2026, but it is still some building tasks left to do. Therefore, I am especially searching for people who have skills and/ or interests in carpentry, masoning and building generally. Since I am a rather little person, I am always happy to get some strong people here to help me with with heavy tasks. I am mostly run by willpower, who I do successfully, but sometimes it is nice to have some real body power. 😊
Then I must say that I want you to read the whole "about-chapter" concerning Gripen gard. It contains very important information that I need you to know before you send a request. :-)
The farm is a smallholding with sheep, “old Norwegian sheep”, chickens, cats, and dogs. We have a little kitchen garden where we grow vegetables, mostly potatoes, and we also have a market garden. In Gripen, the wwoofers have the full responsibility for the cooking, so it is important that you are ready for that. This is mostly because I don't get hungry like normal people, so I just forget all about food. I found out that it is best for everybody that wwoofers do planning and cooking, and share the responsibility for running the kitchen, with cooking, making shopping lists, and also do the shopping, if possible. I just pay for the food! And eat with you, of course! :-)
The farm is situated at the edge of the wilderness, with just a few neighbours, who we cannot see from the farm. The farm was neglected for many years and we (my wwoofers, friends, some relatives, my son and me, or what we call the big Gripen family) are now building it up again. There are many old buildings at the farm, which we now are mending. I have recently bought the farms first tractor.
If you WWOOF at Gripen, there are many tasks to learn and be engaged in, such as: building fences, haying, making firewood, forest clearing, operating the sawmill, trenching, mucking, painting, animal care, gardening, mending old buildings, stone walling, cooking, food production and a lot of other tasks. In Gripen it is mainly old buildings, one of the buildings is from approximately 1500. I have a sawmill, and we sometimes make our own materials for the restoring of the old houses. Last winter we did take out a lot of timber from the forest. The timber was milled into material we are using to build the new barn. This was the big task of the winter 20019/2020. In 2020 we started to build the farms new barn. We are doing it the old fashion way, as like the old one as possibly. This building technique is called grindbygg. It is a major task! And a rear chance to learn something really special! We are still not finished building, so I will still need wwoofers that like, can, or want to learn forestry and do building tasks. This can be hard, but it is a great opportunity to learn something rare! :-) Now, in the start of 2025, the building is still going on, the main construction is up, the roof is on, the walls are on, most floors are soon finished. It is very exiting! Now it is mostly the cow stable who need to be finished. It is starting to look very good! It is a big advantage if you are familiar with power tools, like drills, screw-machine, miter saw, angel grinders and such. If not, I hope you have the courage to learn using them. We of course use security gear for the different jobs. 😅
We are quite flexible and will try to adapt the tasks to the different WWOOFers’ qualifications and interests. Anyway, some of the farming tasks must be done when it is time for it, if sheep run away, we have a flood or hawk attack, we must act at once, even if it is late or we had something else planned. And then it is the haying, which must be done during summer months and suitable weather. Haying is the most important task we do during the summer, on this farm especially, and for other farms in general. So, if you want to WWOOF during summer, you must be ready for haying. Most wwoofers like the haying period, even if it is some long days with hard work. (Who I will be making up for later ;-) Haying is mostly in periods with good weather during June and July, but in bad summers where the grass have been growing slow, it could also be haying in August. However, I try my best to host my wwoofers according to the terms and conditions of the national WWOOF, of course. When it come to haying, the farms animals life depend on us putting in the extra effort in the haying! When my wwoofers put do put in this extra effort, because the nature of farming, I make up for it later. A situation where I will be ever so happy for this, is if we for example have dry hay on the hayracks, and a rainstorm is threatening it. In summers with a lot of rain, the sunny days are so important for the haying, that you must be prepared to help out in weekends, if the weather tell us to. This is because the haying is so important. So, this is a message to summer wwoofers; if you do not think you will be ready and persistent enough for haying, you should consider you summer stay. I say this because I want to be completely honest with you. :-) It is also an important thing to learn about farming; you can make ever so good plans, but when you work with nature, and are depended of the weather, you never know what is coming. So what we plan for the week, can all of a sudden be something else. Just to prepare you. This is not for wimps! After you have worked hard during haying, it will be lots of time off, and we celebrate with something special and some beer or something, depending of the group. I write all this to be certain that I have the right people, the committed people, here during haying! And, -when you commit to this farm, it will, as long as I am here, and maybe beyond, this farm will be a little yours!
For staying in Gripen, as you understand from above, it is best if you are highly motivated and have a high level of energy and like to cooperate with others. This is actually very important! :-) Farm work is physical, and to learn you must participate in the different activities we do while you are here. You must be prepared to be sweaty, dirty, tired, and challenged. You must also be able to endure some sore muscles for a while. After some time, you will develop some good farmers muscles. :-) I think I should say that if you have hay fever, Gripen is probably not the best place, since we are haying a lot in the summer, and feeding with hay in winter. Allergy towards dust is not so good either, because my house is old and scruffy, and some old corners are difficult to get dust free. Cats and dogs are living in the house too! Just so you know.
I want my wwoofers to stay at least 14 days, as a rule. Gripen is situated in the countryside. Because of this it is not so easy to travel from here, there is no buses in the evenings or at weekends. My car cannot be used for travelling, but I have some bikes you can borrow. This means, that if you plan to go to Bergen or other places in evenings or weekends, you must be prepared to hitchhike or bike. This also means that if you are in wwoofing mostly because of travelling, you should probably choose another farm. :-) I just want to be honest about this, the wwoofers I want is the ones who are interested in farming and want to learn and participate in the daily life on a smallholding, be a member of Gripen family and commit to this. :-) Regarding the travel to Gripen, HERE IS A VERY IMPORTANT THING TO CONCIDER: you must avoid arriving or departing in weekends, early mornings, or evenings, because the lack of buses. This is the Norwegian countryside. :-) An good alternative is to stay the night in Bergen before an early departure, or after a late arrival. If you travel by car, you do not need to worry about this, of course. Another very important thing, is that my wwoofers can communicate well within the group in English.
My house is not the biggest, but I will do all I can to comfortably house my WWOOFers. We only have a small bathroom, the water pressure is not at all that great, but there’s mostly no problem taking a shower, even if the boiler is small, only 50 litres, so we must share the hot water. For the same reason, we don't do morning showers, because that occupies the bathroom and the toilet to much when everybody needs it. :-) I will house you inside my farm house, or in a big lavvo (tipi-like tent) with a wooden floor, in the loft of the smokehouse, in the new rooms in the barn, or in small cabins. We will whatever make it as good as possible! Some like to sleep in some of my tents in warm summer nights, for the fun of it. I have a lot of returning wwoofers, and they can sleep where-ever. "First timers" have first priority of the best rooms/sleep-areas. It is VERY IMPORTANT for me that the WWOOFers thrive in Gripen, and that they have a great time together while staying, learning while participating. For this to happen, everyone must put effort into it, help each other and be kind.
I will be very happy if you start your request with the word “carrot”.If you want to find out more, check out my homepage gripengard.no and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gripen.gard/ ow watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6QkaMpVHcg
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Learning opportunities
Vegetable farming
Fruit or nut farming
Poultry farming
Sheep or goat farming
Forestry
Meat processing
Vegetable or fruit preservation
Green Building
Food justice / sovereignty
Mechanics / tools / technology
Methods or systems
Biological pest control
Holistic management
No-till farming
Regenerative agriculture
Host type
Self-sufficiency property
Certified organic
47
Hectares
|
116.1
Acres
Accommodation
Helene Olli
Member since 2015
Languages spoken:
English, Norwegian
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Response rate: 52%
Response time: typically within 5 days
Vestland
Bergen Airport, Bergen bystasjon. Then you go to Flatøy to change bus. The nearest bus stop is Håtuft, but buses go there only daytime on weekdays. Find the buses here: https://Reise.skyss.no/Planner/Travel-plans?timetype=DEPARTURE&ts=2023-07-28T10:45:49
Reviews
Merle
Germany
•
May 2026
I came to Gripen for the first time last summer and if you're still questioning whether you want to come here; yeah you want to! I have kind of been coming back all the time since my first stay, so I can also reccomend staying whenever basically. Feeding sheep in the colder times, more maintenance and creating in the summer and through that becoming a part of the farm, leaving something there, that makes you want to come back. And also a nice farm like this obviously makes nice people come there, so good to make new friends;)
Thank you for everything, Helene and see you soon
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Malin
Germany
•
April 2026
I had a wonderful time at Helene’s place. I stayed about three months last summer and felt right at home. In July, I helped with other wwoofers harvesting hay. The field is on a slope, and the grass is still dried on racks in the traditional Norwegian way. It’s sweaty work in the hot sun, but after a day, you know exactly what to do and can just get on with it while having a great time with Helene and the other volunteers.
Whenever we finished work or took a break, we could jump into the amazing lake just a five-minute walk away. Helene also let us borrow her canoe, which we took out for paddles a lot.
From late August into September, we mostly focused on repairing things around the farm, which I really enjoyed. For example I got to build several new gates. In between tasks, I could cuddle the lovely dogs and sheep and saw how much Helene truly cares for them.
In the kitchen, we were free to cook whatever we liked. I ended up baking a lot of cakes and pies, which we all enjoyed together outside in the sun. We always had fresh eggs from the garden chickens and sometimes I could make jam once the berries were ripe.
Early October was 'Wool Week,' where Helene and a friend hosted workshops on spinning and natural dyeing. We helped out by keeping the fires going for the dyeing process and keeping the guests happy with homemade cake.
I met so many nice people and I’ll definitely come back.
Thanks so much for the amazing time!
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Reply from Helene Olli
I have had many hundreds of wwoofers since I started my WWOOF membeship in 2015. I have had so many fantastic wwoofers during this time. Sometimes some are more than fantastic and really stands out! Malin is one of them. I can't explain how outstanding she is. She can do everything. She work, she cook, she bake, she make! She made the best gates we ever had on this farm. All by herselv, even if she never built anything like it before. She is a natural talent! No problem handling tools or powertools. She was good with everything she did, and was a great friend for the other wwoofers that wore here at the same time. She became a valued member of the Gripen family, and I am very much looking forward to the day she comes home to Gripen again.
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Samuil
Bulgaria
•
August 2025
Beuatifull place. Helene was very welcoming, kind and a great host. Wwoofers who were there were also very nice. Great place!
Reply from Helene Olli
Samuil is a great guy. He help with everything when he was here, he was good both in a group and could work independently. I was very lucky to have him here, and he is allways very welcome back!
Martin
Germany
•
August 2025
Helene is a very kind and warm-hearted person. I had a few wonderful days with her and really enjoyed my time there. The surrounding landscape is absolutely beautiful as well. I can highly recommend staying with her!
Vanessa
Germany
•
March 2025
Wow, these three weeks on Gripen gard with Helene have truly been amazing!!! She has taught me about a sustainable and ecological life style and that you can fix and repair almost everything by yourself :D Since it was still the colder months of the year, it was a little more relaxed than the summer months. But you can always find something to do at Gripen. Every morning I fed the sheep and collected some hay. I also fixed some of the fences, painted the bathroom in the barn and together with Helene and Hannah we demolished an old wooden shed. We also prepared some old beautiful chairs for restoration. It was very touching to see the connection Helene has with her animals and how much she dedicates to them. Helene always made sure that her Wwoofers feel comfortable and I always felt very safe with her. I definitely want to come back again to gather more Gripen experience and give everyone a big hug :)
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Reply from Helene Olli
Thank you so very much for your generous review! WE had some really good days together. OI am looking forward to se you again, and Andreas for the first tine. You are most welcome whenever! Give my regards to Andreas, and have a lovely time in Greece!
Best, Woodcreaturemama! :-)
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Hannah
Denmark
•
March 2025
I visited Gripen gard the first week of March. I had a great experience with feeding the rams and doing other tasks on the farm. Overall it was a very relaxed week but from my understanding the summer months require a bit more. I wish I could have come in the summer to experience the haying season. Helene is very kind and generous and always wanted the best for us and provided great meals and accommodations.
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