Long Overdue

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This is the long overdue premier posting of my Swiss Alp cheese making experience. I’ve been here over three weeks now and cannot even begin to describe what it is like. My plan is to post an entry every couple of weeks about something specific in my expereince. Things like the landscape, the cheese, the cows, and the people.
To begin, though, I’ll give a general intro to where I’m at. The place is Handegg Switzerland which is close to the massive village of Guttannen boasting an incredible 351 people. This is situated within the Canton (swiss provinces) of Bern and more specically Berner Oberland, Haslital area. We are located on a major mountain pass called the Grimsel pass pretty much in the heart of the alps.
I basically live in the cheese house or Kaserri as they would call it. We make cheese and eat downstairs and sleep upstairs. I am considered to be an alpler here which is someone who works on an alp farm taking care of the cows and making the cheese. We basically milk the 31 cows twice a day and make cheese right after the morning milking. This ends up being quite a long day. By the way, we means me and Jan, the actual cheesemaker who is from holland. He is a great guy and we get along well. We make two types of cheese about which I am learning a lot and they both taste great. Nothing like the swiss cheese we know about in Canada, these are much much better. We work for the farmer community of Guttannen who own the cows. Each farmer sends a few cows up the mountain for the summer and gets cheese in return which they or us can sell.
In a way its quite isolated up here. I have contact with other people but they are mostly tourists passing through taking a look at the cheese house along their mountain hike. It also is a severe handicap that I don’t speak german. That would make life much easier. I am slowly learning some of the things I need to know but am a long way off. Plus the swiss speak their own special type of german which can be hard even for a normal german speaker to understand.
All in all it has been a good and quick adaptation to the area. It is definitely a completely different way of life but a good difference as well. I really miss everyone at home and hope to be able to contact most of you at some point during my stay here. So all the best to you all and next time I have the chance I think I begin by talking about the whole reason why I’m here, Cheese!!!!

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Photos

Grimsel Pass
This is the mountain pass on which our place is located. The cows graze their way higher as it gets futher into the summer.

Guttannen
This is the town where we live close to. Most of the farmers live here.

Hotel Handegg
The cheese house is in the trees by the hotel. They both kinda work together getting the tourists out.

The Cheese House, My Home
So this is the cheese house. We make cheese and spend most of our time downstairs, but upstairs is where our rooms are.

Brightwald - Cows On the Bridge
The Cows had to cross this bridge to get to pastures on the other side of the river

Cows at Handegg
This is just a group of the cows grazing at the Handegg pasture, there's an incredible background scene here!

Cow at Handegg
Wildi the cow grazing at the Handegg Pasture, more like a hippo than a cow

Canada Day On the Alp
Celebrating Canada Day in Switzerland, a lot of people were confused, they find it strange that a Canadian and Dutchman are working on a traditional swiss alp.

Me by a mountain Stream
Just a random photo of me one evening when we went out for supper. Too bad my stunning good looks overpower the landscape. Well, ya I know I'm full of shit.