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WORK TITLE: Accidental Shepherd
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WEBSITE: https://liesegreensfelder.com/
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COUNTRY: United States
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PERSONAL
Married.
EDUCATION:Earned B.S., M.S.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer.
WRITINGS
Contributor of articles on research advances in the fields of science, engineering and medicine to journals and periodicals.
SIDELIGHTS
Liese Greensfelder grew up in California with an intense love for the outdoors. She earned degrees in plant sciences and has published hundreds of articles on research advances in the fields of science, engineering and medicine. Greensfelder eventually settled on a five-household cooperative in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where she jointly manages a 120-acre forested parcel for old-growth habitat.
In the memoir, Accidental Shepherd: How a California Girl Rescued an Ancient Mountain Farm in Norway, Greensfelder discusses her coming of age in California in the Beat generation. She lived on a farm in rural Norway and took over its operations after its owner was hospitalized. She had a great deal to learn about farming, Norwegian customs, and the traditional agricultural community she found herself in. Greensfelder learned to speak Norwegian so she could interact better with the community, of which she writes about from an ethnological perspective. She outlines how she persevered under her circumstances to accomplish what she had set out to do on the farm and in life.
Writing in Library Journal, Catherine Lantz commented that “Greensfelder’s engrossing account of farming emphasizes the value of tradition and community and is highly recommended.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor found it to be “a sobering and insightful account of one woman’s time in a place that time forgot.” Reviewing the book in ForeWord, Jeff Fleischer concluded: “Packed with great details and memorable characters, Accidental Shepherd is a compelling memoir about the myriad challenges of farm life.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
ForeWord, December 23, 2024, Jeff Fleischer, review of Accidental Shepherd: How a California Girl Rescued an Ancient Mountain Farm in Norway.
Kirkus Reviews, December 15, 2024, review of Accidental Shepherd.
Library Journal, January 31, 2025, Catherine Lantz, review of Accidental Shepherd, p. 1.
ONLINE
Liese Greensfelder website, https://liesegreensfelder.com (May 25, 2025).
Liese Greensfelder grew up in Northern California, hiking the trails of Mt. Tamalpais and the Sierra Nevada. At 17, she spent a year in Denmark as an exchange student, and later lived in Norway for three years, where she ran a farm, studied at ag school, and worked in the crew’s mess hall aboard a Norwegian coastal freighter.
With a B.S. and M.S. in plant sciences, and a master’s certificate in science communication, she has worked as a county farm advisor, spearheaded an agricultural development project in the Guatemalan highlands, and has written hundreds of articles about recent research in science, engineering and medicine, both as a freelancer and as a writer in the news offices of three University of California campuses. In 2011, she co-edited and contributed articles to The Nature of This Place: Investigations and Adventures in the Yuba Watershed.
She and her husband live off-grid in a 5-household cooperative in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where all members jointly manage their 120-acre forested parcel for old-growth habitat. Given the seven owl species that visit the land, and the regular appearance on trail cams of mountain lions, bears, bobcats, foxes, ringtail cats and other critters, they think they’ve done a pretty good job of it.
Liese Greensfelder; ACCIDENTAL SHEPHERD; University of Minnesota Press (Nonfiction: Autobiography & Memoir) 27.95 ISBN: 9781517917661
Byline: Jeff Fleischer
As a young woman in 1972, Liese Greensfelder took what was supposed to be a short-term summer job working on a sheep farm in the mountains of rural Norway. She recounts what happened instead in her engaging memoir Accidental Shepherd.
When Greensfelder arrived in the farming community of Hovland, she learned that the farmer who hired her, Johannes, was in the hospital recovering from a stroke. So rather than learning his trade from him, she needed to rely on the generosity of neighbors as she became the de facto head of Johannes's farm. What was already a difficult assignment proved even more complicated because of the farm's condition and lack of modern equipment. With her employer still recovering, Greensfelder extended her stay and wound up spending a full year keeping the farm afloat.
The book describes these and other daunting challenges: Greensfelder learned to muck out sheep pens, store silage to feed the animals in winter, and milk the farmer's cow. From gruesome and emotional descriptions of slaughter season to visceral scenes of rough winter, Accidental Shepherd makes the decades-old experiences engrossing and often educational. Johannes's neighbors become important characters as well, serving as Greensfelder's teachers, helpers, possible romantic interests, and friends.
The length of Greensfelder's stay meant she experienced the region's Christmas and Easter traditions, described in joyful terms. Such scenes show how much she became part of the farm community. Other standout chapters describe venturing into the mountains to find sheep and bring them back to the farm at the end of summer, managing a troublesome heifer experiencing first heat, and intense arguments with her ungrateful and demanding boss.
Packed with great details and memorable characters, Accidental Shepherd is a compelling memoir about the myriad challenges of farm life.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Foreword Magazine, Inc.
http://www.forewordmagazine.com
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Fleischer, Jeff. "Accidental Shepherd; How a California Girl Rescued an Ancient Mountain Farm in Norway." ForeWord, 23 Dec. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A821798345/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f15bf413. Accessed 27 Apr. 2025.
Greensfelder, Liese ACCIDENTAL SHEPHERD Univ. of Minnesota (NonFiction None) $27.95 2, 4 ISBN: 9781517917661
A real-life adventure story set in the wilds of Norway.
"A California girl," as she calls herself in her memoir, Greensfelder came of age in the counterculture and rubbed shoulders with Beat poets. Her adventures didn't begin until she settled on a remote farm in Norway, not knowing any Norwegian and knowing little about farming. When the owner of the farm was hospitalized and unable to work, the young Californian took over the operation and learned about raising sheep for meat, not wool, and learned about the customs of a traditional agricultural community. She also learned to speak Norwegian; her narrative is peppered with Norwegian words. Strong on ethnography, it's a reliable guide to the kind of rural life that no longer exists--tractors replaced horses--and the kind of insular farmers who have largely vanished along with an ancient culture rooted in the land and its spirits. This gritty memoir is a testament to the resilience of an outsider who not only made her way in a patriarchal society but also became a Norwegian celebrity: Years ago, she wrote and published an account of her experiences that became a bestseller in Norway. In this book, she returns to her days as a shepherd and describes her loneliness, her longing for companionship and romance, and her remarkable ability to labor in a hardscrabble environment.
A sobering and insightful account of one woman's time in a place that time forgot.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Greensfelder, Liese: ACCIDENTAL SHEPHERD." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Dec. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A819570314/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=0ee1c575. Accessed 27 Apr. 2025.
Greensfelder, Liese. Accidental Shepherd: How a California Girl Rescued an Ancient Mountain Farm in Norway. Univ. of Minnesota. Feb. 2025. 280p. ISBN 9781517917661. $27.95. MEMOIR
In her early 20s, Greensfelder travels to a remote town in Norway to spend a summer working on a farm learning about agricultural practices. She learned Danish as an exchange student in high school but will have to work to understand the local Norwegian dialect. In this mix of coming-of-age and farming memoir, she arrives to find the farm's owner and sole occupant laid up in the hospital with a long illness. At that first meeting, the farmer gives Greensfelder full authority to act on his behalf for a farm that has been in his family for 10 generations. In the pre-internet age when these events unfold, Greensfelder relies on her neighbors as she manages the land, buildings, and livestock. Over time, she falls in love with the landscape and begins to feel at home in spite of the grueling physical labor and the weighty responsibility she carries for the animals enduring the harsh climate.
VERDICT: Greensfelder's engrossing account of farming emphasizes the value of tradition and community and is highly recommended for nature, agriculture and culture collections.—Catherine Lantz
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Library Journals, LLC
http://www.libraryjournal.com/lj/reviews/xpress/884170-289/xpress_reviews-first_look_at_new.html.csp
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Lantz, Catherine. "Accidental Shepherd: How a California Girl Rescued an Ancient Mountain Farm in Norway." WebOnlyReviewsLJ, vol. 150, no. 1, 31 Jan. 2025, p. 1. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A826502626/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=698c1e76. Accessed 27 Apr. 2025.