Kaijonselkä – previously called Häyrilä – is a former dairy cattle farm in Kaitanen at Joroinen in Finland`s Lakeland Region. There were 20 cows in the old stone cattle shed untill the Summer 2007. Nowadays Finnish horse Halla and her foal Aaro stroll in the fields.
Former Guesthouse
The same family has lived at the farm since 1718. Also the lineages of famous Finnish sport commentator Raimo Häyrinen and Finnish poet-writer Saima Harmaja stemmed from Häyrilä farm in Kaitainen. Harmaja`s lineage to the farm can be tracked down even to eighteenth century.
Häyrilä farm operated as a guesthouse halfway on the way from Juva to Joroinen. After the guesthouse was closed the accommodation operation paused for dozens of years. The cottage hiring started at the end of the 1970s with a cottage, at times there has been more cottages for hire. At this moment Kaijonselkä hires the other appartment of the main building as well as the Kaita and Pyhitty Cottages.
The Cattle
The first milk liters from the farm were sent to dairy on first of May 1974. In the year 2005 Kaijonselkä farm received the Gold Award of Walter Ehrström Foundation for producing excellent milk for 25 years.
The last milk liters were fetched on May 9, 2007. The cattle was sold to other farms and offspring of these cows are still safe and sound and producing milk in Northern Savonia, Lakeland Region and Kymenlaakso Region.
The Lost Cartwheel
Once in the early years of the 1990s the master of the farm, Heikki, came home and announced that there is only three wheels in the sludge wagon. A wheel was dropped off and got lost on the way from a shop to the farm. The wheel could not be found despite the searches but the funny story lived on. For a long time the farm was referenced as the Cattle Farm of the Lost Wheel.
The wheel was found years later from the shore of a lake in Kaitainen, far from the road. The wheel was not usable anymore after the many years of being lost.