Day out to the Farm

We went on a little day-trip out (south, I think) to a place called Rosenheim with our family friends, Hallvord, Harumi, Alf-Eivind, and Eiri, and their cousin. First we visited some more of their family and we all went down to a nearby farm that welcomes visitors. We saw all sorts of animals, and C had a great time playing with the other boys. I thought it was nice for him to be in a Norwegian-speaking environment again, since the schools are on holiday and we don’t have a lot of Norwegian playmates. I also tried to speak some Norwegian with the family, but just ended up miming to the boys how to properly roast a marshmellow (they never did before!).

There were wild strawberries on the road and we stopped to pick them. C’s hair is also getting a little wild! Time for a haircut, I guess.

C has just popped in an early blueberry!

We found some early blueberries, and the children had a ton of fun picking and eating them.

A favorite book of ours is Blueberries for Sal, truly a children’s classic. Ruby is just like Sal, plopped down in her own little clump of blueberries.

Just as we were leaving the blueberry area (Ruby was the last to leave), Ruby stepped into a little gully in the bushes and fell down on her butt. I took this picture as she was getting up. C exclaimed that Ruby had fallen in a “blueberry hole”.

Here we are arriving at the public farm. There were a few other families there, too, and some people taking horseback riding lessons. Thar be chickens!

Ruby is chasing around the chickens saying “big huge pigeons!”.

Ruby, being a city girl, was a little confused about the chickens roaming around. She chased them yelling “big huge pigeon!”

There’s a peahen and some little peachicks.

That’s our tour guides, Hallvord and Alf-Eivind :).

Just a little movie of a rooster crowing.

C’s getting a kick out of being at the farm, and I was fascinated by the peacocks. I’d never seen the peacock do the tail-shakey thing, but it makes an awesome sound! Unfortunately, I didn’t capture as much of that on the video as I thought.

Farmyard Tales is a favorite book around here (really it’s a series of stories), and on Apple Tree farm there is a mama pig and five baby pigs — just like this farm! C was stoked.

I thought it was slightly crazy that the barn was build on huge piles of rock.

I was mesmerized by the tinkling of the sheep bells. I found it really really soothing. And the sheepies were cute, too.

The sound of the bells of the sheep tinkling was mesmerizing. It’s more of a deep tone, so “tonkle” might be a more appropriate onomotopeoia.

That’s the cutie baby Eiri in the other half of the double stroller. We’ve always been hardcore Spartan parents and refused strollerly coddling. Alf-Eivind and Eiri have this big pimpin’ stroller, though. At different points during our adventure some children would want to walk/run, and some wouldn’t, so Ruby and C took turns in the stroller, too.

I’ve always been curious about your stroller ideas. Would you mind explaining? If they get it together, we may be coming over next month. It would be great to see Hallvord and his kids too!

I was upstairs at Hallvord’s cousin’s house, and I heard someone playing the piano. I peeped through the stair railings and saw it was C playing the piano.

C knew I was watching him this time, but was still doing some interesting work with the piano. Near the end Ruby started distracting him and his concentration was broken.

Reminds me of this young picture of little C.

We just missed a train, so had a super long wait until the next one. Hallvord took the kids off into the forest to distract them with more blueberries. I can’t believe how much energy that guy has!

I took my first Norwegian dance class with Hallvord, he was awesome.

I really see Harumi in Eiri’s.