It is with great joy that we can finally announce a Church of Pain Congregational Event here at Vestrønningen. Oslo SusCon may be gone, but we proudly invite you to the annual CoP Summer Revival—CoPCon!
From June 17–19 2022, we will welcome around 20 people to our beautiful farm just one hour north of Oslo (and a half an hour north of Gardermoen airport). If you are coming from far away, we are flexible on arrival and departure dates.
After a couple of years of quiet and near solitude, we are excited to awaken from the pandemic slumber with a heaping helping of good times, good company, and good old-fashioned pain! While we’ve been waiting to welcome people back, we’ve been steadily working on the property to make it an even more pleasant place to be and to open up even more possibilities for camping, pulling, tree-to-tree suspension points, and creating small places to sit and enjoy the surroundings.
We look forward to welcoming friends, old and new, to the Church of Pain for this Summer Revival! Mid-summer’s Eve will be close enough to taste and you will know it because the sun will be up for about 19.5 hours a day! So come and join the Congregation for our special brand of weirdness and celebration! There will be hooks, blood, laughter, fellowship, and good times with good people! After the last couple of tough years, we could all use a good hooking with our brethren, sistren, and whateveren! As Brother Curtis famously instructed Jack and Ellwood Blues, “You get wise. You get to church!”
Fee
Crew—NOK 2000
Participant—NOK 3000
Formal crew spots will be limited to five. To be on the crew, we need to know you and preferably have worked with you in the past. You should be at team leader level. If you are a practitioner, or an aspiring practitioner who wants to help out, we will do our best to include you!
We will provide food for everyone—breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The sleeping arrangements will be like your favorite festival: tents or hammocks around the farm or you can sleep in your vehicle if that is your style (we have plenty of places to park).
Due to ongoing Covid concerns, and to protect everyone at the event, everyone attending must be vaccinated for Covid-19!
You don’t need to be a member to come—but you might be one when you leave!
Check out pictures by Katarsis Foto from the last gathering we hosted.
Welcome to Vestrønningen!
We are looking forward to seeing you out here on our little farm! We want to make sure that your visit to us is as comfortable and enjoyable as possible. With that in mind, here is some practical information.
Our farm, Vestrønningen, covers an area of around 46 000m2 (11 acres) at the end of a small road. It is a mix of forest and field and is generally secluded and peaceful, although you may hear one of the neighboring farms’ tractor or chainsaw from time to time.
Getting here
The address is Øgardshøgda 382, 2332 Åsvang. Its located in Stange, Innlandet.
Car
If you come by car, your smartphone should easily lead the way. If you want directions from E6 going from Oslo, you may follow these: take exit 65 (Rv 3) at the big white bridge toward Tynset/Elverum/Trysil, then exit to Fv 24 toward Kongsvinger.
At a big, white building and a church, turn left onto Tomtvegen toward Åsvang and follow this until a four-way intersection where you will turn right onto Åsvangvegen. Then, turn right onto Øgardshøgda toward Amundrud and go 0.9 km until you see a bright pink mailbox on the right. Follow the road, stay right at the Y, and you will arrive at our lovely farm.
Train
If you come by train, get off at Stange station. Trains to Stange station will land you about 12km away from the farm. Train R10 will take you there. The train runs for the most part once an hour, between Drammen and Lillehammer (or Dombås), be sure to check the schedule for Sunday or holiday travel. Oslo Airport Gardermoen is one of the stops between us and Oslo.
There is a bus that goes from Stange to Åsvang but you could literally walk to our place faster. If you need to be picked up at the station, you will need to coordinate with us (or someone else who has a car) for a ride. Also, the train station is right next to the taxi office.
Accommodations
Sleeping
We have a variety of pretty places to pitch tents and hang hammocks. We encourage everyone who has a tent or hammock camping solution to bring one and enjoy the summer weather. You may also sleep in your vehicle if you prefer. If you need to sleep in the house, get in touch with us and we will see if we can arrange it—there are a very limited number of indoor sleeping spaces in our little house.
Bathroom
We have one bathroom in the house with a shower and a side-by-side outhouse farther up on the property. Feel free to pee in forest or field to help us save precious well water.
Showers
We have a shower in the house but, because it is in the only bathroom and because of the strain that hosting so many people at the same time will put on our small water well, we encourage as many people as possible to bring their own solar shower if they have one. We will set up shower structures (with a screen for privacy) where you can hang your water bags. We also request that you bring biodegradable soap for washing.
Wi-Fi
We have Wi-Fi but our internet connection is very slow.
Food
We will be making vegetarian (ovo-lacto) breakfast, and vegan friendly lunch and dinner, quite possibly including our own home grown and locally foraged ingredients. There will be coffee, tea, and some snacks on hand as well. We will also have two grills (one omnivore and one veg.) in the event that you want to eat something that you have burned yourself.
If you bring things to grill, be aware that there will not be space available in our refrigerator (because cooking for so many people dominates all available refrigerator space). If your grillables need to be kept cold, please bring a cooler. If you have a 12v or mains-powered cooler, we can provide power but need to know beforehand in the case of 12v so that appropriate plugs can be set up. The rock basement under the house is a bit cool, but we would not recommend storing meat there all weekend.
The closest stores are Kiwi Romedal, Joker Vallset, Joker Åsbygda, and several options in downtown Stange.
The menu
Is not ready yet… We’re not that good. But these are the meals from the 2020 summer event, the food was scrumptious (and we had way too much)—this year’s meals will be inspired by these.
Breakfast: Sourdough hot cakes / sourdough bread
Lunch: Lentils w. yoghurt (on the side) / Beans’n rice w. tortillas, salsa, yoghurt, green salad
Dinner: Potato soup with sourdough bread / Green curry and rice / Pasta with nettle pesto and focaccia
Everything was vegan apart from the yoghurt and the hot cakes (milk, butter, and eggs). We also baked some sourdough cookies, they included butter.
Food slinger
If you would like to be our maître d’Vestrønningen and help us heat the food, fill and empty the dishwasher, make coffee, etc., we can offer crew price for one person. June will also be doing this task but it’s nice to get some help. We will prepare the food in advance, pack and seal it in vacuum bags, and freeze it—all we need to do to prepare it is to remember to get it out of the freezer and heat the whole bag in hot water. Smart, right?
Hanging points
Our current setup allows for all kinds of suspensions ranging from the simple to postures with more intricate rigging. There are currently two different points to choose from. Our tripod made from 12 meter (39 ft.) long pine poles cut at Vestrønningen is placed down close to one of our fields and provides a secluded, yet open feeling of hanging in the middle of nature.
The second point is closer to the house, hanging in the midst of seven trees, with a forest backdrop and a view of our garden. Both of these points can be used for basically any kind of suspension. We can offer almost any style but do reserve the right to not facilitate suspensions we believe to be unsafe.
We are also considering buying, borrowing, or stealing a cube.
The weather
Since we are in the beautiful Norwegian countryside, it is always a good idea (even during the summer) to have a sweater, some thick socks, and a layer or two to keep you cozy if there is a chill in the air. We are considering a more weather-protected suspension spot in the future, but all our suspension points are currently outside.
While suspending outside in not perfect weather can seem intimidating to some, we believe that being pushed around by the wind, feeling the sun come and go as it filters through the clouds, and even experiencing a bit of precipitation can really enhance a person’s experience of Nature!
You can see an occasionally accurate weather forecast for our farm on yr.no.
Animals
The property is ruled by a senior cat named Lillepus and next to nothing happens on it that is not under her supervision. Her safety, well-being, and comfort are of utmost importance to us. Lillepus is not fond of dogs and attendance by dogs will, therefore, be extremely limited. If you want to bring a dog, please get in touch with us. Also, by law, any dogs in the area must be kept on leash at all times (båndtvang).
Photos
Yes, please! If you give us a copy of your best ones and let us use them for our channels, we will always credit you and will forever be grateful! If somebody does not want their picture taken/shared/tagged—no problem, just let us know.
Dangerous things
Surprising sharp things
We have done our best to clean up around the area but, due to previous owners’ relaxed attitude to burning and burying trash, we suggest wearing shoes when not directly around the house or in the yard (even though June walks barefoot all the time…).
Because Vestrønningen was actively farmed up until a few decades ago, there are remnants of fencing (regular and barbed wire), rusty nails, pieces of old machinery, etc. in rather unlikely places. We have found significant amounts of metal and glass buried here and there and have cleaned up a lot of it but don’t want you to get injured. While not super sharp, our property is blessed in areas by burning nettle thickets which can and do regularly sting June….
Bugs
In the five years that we have been here, we have seen three ticks (found on the cat). So, they are around but not pervasive. In any case, if you are walking with bare legs through the field and forest, it is a good idea to check occasionally for ‘moving freckles’ (just like everywhere else in Norway). Depending on where you are on the property, mosquitos and/or horse-flies may be present. You may want to bring some repellent. There are usually not many around the house during the day, but likely some closer to the forest and in the evenings.
Uneven ground and low tree branches
This not a park. Pay attention and remember: Spatial awareness is a key to survival.
Farm machinery and tools
If you would like to fondle any of our sharp implements or climb on any of our structures or vehicles, please ask first. Thank you.
Fire
In all likelihood, there will be a ban on fires during June (there almost always is). We will try to set up a place to have a fire but this will be subject to local conditions and guidance from the fire department.
Recreation other than Hookering
Among other things, you can go walking in the woods. Trails are marked with blue tags hanging from the trees and form a network of walking paths that is rather large. One of these trails runs through the NW side of our property so it is easy to get going if that is your thing.
We have been told there are some nice lakes where you can go swimming but we have never tested them. Stange is also a good area for bouldering with lots of cool looking problems dispersed around. We have spotted an interesting looking place about 11km from the farm.
Sticky, our 11,5-meter-tall chrome sperm, is a local sight. It’s pretty cool, but could easily have been twice the size. I mean, if you’re making a chrome sperm, why not go even bigger? They claim it’s the world’s biggest, and its real name is Seeding. Its located in Uthuskrysset—by E6, exit 66 to Stange.
Feel free to look at visitnorway.no if you want to do the tourist thing.
Please bring
• refillable water bottle
• tent or hammock, maybe a tarp in case of rain
• a sleeping mask (if you have trouble sleeping when the sun is up)
• bug repellent
• solar shower
• a pee funnel (for those without a penis)
• warm clothes
• head beamer
• good shoes (if you want to have a walk around the forest etc.)
• data for your phone (or patience for our slow connection)
• Dreamies or other bribery for Lillepus