A hut trip: Turtmanntal

This past weekend we dragged Hilary, and Ryan with Sophie; and Tinu and Elsbeth with Lena and Elias to a hut in Turtmanntal. Six adults, five kids. It took us three hours to hike in from the end of the bus line, which included pauses for breastfeeding, and kids doing some walking... The weather was excellent. Camera is still not cooperating, at least not on the "dumb" mode for idiots where all one needs to do is press a button. And sometimes not even with the manual focus mode. As a result, a lot of pictures were out of focus, and overexposed, unfortunately.

Lena standing in the doorway of the hut.


Emilie practicing "I see you" in the doorway. She figured out she can see people between her legs last week. She has a lot of fun with it.


Hilary making dinner on the wood burning stove. Sophie is right next to her. Sonja is playing with a balloon in front of them.


Dinner outside.


It took the first of the two nights to figure out that if five kids, ages three and under, are to sleep in one room, the best way of putting them to sleep is one at a time. (All at the same time did not work, at all.)
It was all fine and dandy, and the kids finally seemed to be asleep, when the cows started coming home. Some ten cows, each with a wonderful big bell tied around its neck. They could have chosen to be anywhere on this huge pasture, and where do they chose to come? Towards the hut. Ding dong, ding dong, ding dong... I saw Martin and Tinu try to intervene, and gave them a hand too.
First I tried what I would consider regular herding. (OK, so I don't really know how they herd cows.) Did not work. Cows 1, Dana 0. I then tried the bear approach: hands over my hands to make me look big, low voice. Cows 2, Dana 0. Then the dog approach: good girl, come this way. Cows 3, Dana 0. And the brute force did not work either, unfortunately.

So the cows came and surrounded the hut, and the ding-dong came across the baby phone that we left in the sleeping room, but it did not wake up the kids. May be it lulled them into a deeper sleep...? The next morning, the cows moved elsewhere. Until the evening, when once again they came towards the hut just as we were putting the kids to sleep. Did not even bother to try to chase them off that night. Just said hi to them when they came.

Those bells are big, and make a lot of noise.


Lena turned three on our trip, and we celebrated with an excellent carrot cake that Elsbeth carried in, and the two three year old girls played with bubbles. And we went to the upper hut for a view further into the valley.