Post-war years
Up until the 1930ies there where little technical equipment at most Norwegian farms. Most farming methods had
been used for centuries, but at Ougendal as well as other places the times where changing.
The old barn was partly demolished in 1930 to make way for a new, more modern one.
This is the one that still stands today, with a few additions as a new room for the milk-tank
when the dairy replaced the old traditional milk-barrels with a modern milk-lorry in the sixties.
Nearby town Egersund had got electricity as early as 1904, as one of the first towns in Norway. However, such luxury still lay many years ahead for the remote areas such as Åvendal, but electrical power finally came to the farm in 1947 when the neighbours formed a private electrical company, using the falls in the river from Spjotevatnet Lake.
It was taken over by the Public Electrical Corporation in 1954.
There were other technical progress too. In 1954 the first tractor arrived at the farm to much enlighten the often hard work, and three years later Mandius David bought himself a car.
Back then it was far from granted that you could own a car in Norway. After the last war luxury goods were rationalised, and it was not until the late sixties that cars started to be common in Norwegian homes.
Ruth Golf got married to Øystein Borsheim, and they emigrated in the fifties, first to Canada and eventually settled in Chicago where they still live.
Mandius David Golf inherited the farm from his uncle Georg in 1961, the same year as he became married to Inger, from the farm Fotland , 4 miles north of Egersund, by the famous falls in the Bjerkreim-river.
Mandius tried several occupations in his youth. Among other jobs he took hire on fishing boats at nearby fishing hamlet Mong and drove a taxi in Kristiansand for nearly a year. In the last couple of decades he has also been active as a local-politician in the Sokndal District.
He and Inger had five sons between 1961-72, and therefore he had to enlarge the house on the farm in 1970. His mother Sine also lived at Åvendal from 1963 so for some years they were 10 people living in the same house.
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