Young Karolina grows up on a farm in the Alpine mountains. Early on, she starts keeping a diary. She writes about the beauty of the mountains and lakes, about the hardships in the life of mountain farmers, the long working hours, about playing with her siblings. About snow storms in the middle of summer, about the danger of bands of robbers roaming the area. Detailed and true to the facts, she writes about daily life on the mountain, about working practices and tools, about being with her family, about food and drink, about the intimate relationship to the animals. In a mischievous tone, she chronicles customs and rituals, the life of a girl in a world that no longer exists in the same way.

»In front of me there are many notebooks that look like the ones used in primary school. They are records. I have leafed through them and read many passages again and out of this evolved the decision to unite these writings into a whole. (…) The girl whose story I’m telling has wandered from her mountain home of ›Pinzgau‹ into the world. She set out on her journey with a heart full of great hopes and a head full of ambitious thoughts. (…) The glow of the firn of her mountain home, the rushing of the wild mountain waters, the blooming splendor of the Alpine flowers, the wondrous clarity of mountain lakes, and the thunder of the waterfalls—all of these things together have formed her soul. She has carried her mountain home into the world in her heart and in clandestine longing, she never parted with it. «