Comings and Goings

These are just some pictures I like that I’ve taken in the last few days.  The internet guys finally came this morning.  Our internet has been working today.  I’m hoping it will stay that way this time.  Sure, it’s easy to think you just use the internet for Facebook, but when it’s gone you realize you threw out the phonebooks and look up stuff online.  Your recipes are all online, and so is your calendar.  So it’s good to be back.  I may even get to stream some of a Craftsy class tonight after the kids are in bed if it’s still working.

It hasn’t just been the internet, though.  Things feel like they’re falling apart left and right.  Our piano had a few stuck keys, and it had been ages since it was tuned last, so I called our our piano tuner.  He and his wife are on the tail end of homeschooling as their youngest is now 16.  He was so delighted with all the little kids in our house and he let them get up close to the inside of the piano.  He gave each of the kids a tool to use, and they screwed and unscrewed parts and found out how it all was put together.

It turns out a matchbox car was under one key, and a penny was making the other key stick.  I have no idea how the kids got a matchbox car stuck underneath the piano keys.  Our tuner friend said he’ll let it slide this time, but as a rule of thumb, piano tuners get to keep whatever toys they find stuck inside the piano.

His excitement about this beautiful instrument was contagious with all my kids, and I just love that.  People who take the time to share their passion with a young child have the power to change someone’s world.  Seriously.

Then the handle fell off our oven.  Then Knut figured out a quick coat-hanger styled handle just to make do until after harvest.  Then a week later the oven figured out it was being tricked and is beeping at me that the door is broken whenever it is plugged in.  So the stovetop still works, as long as I don’t mind the constant beeping, and if we want the beeping to stop we have to unplug it.  So we may have yet another repair in our future.

The landscape in front of our house is changing a bit.  Slowly but surely.  This soy bean field just got dug up and prepped for next spring, except for the part Knut marked off with orange flags.  We’re expanding our bottom yard, and converting it from a yard to a pasture.  I can’t believe we’re actually doing this!  Knut has been researching (in the last few months) the best type of grass to plant for animals, and it will get fenced off, and then…then we get some animals.  Most likely some steers, and possibly some dairy goats.  Don’t forget David’s pigs, but those would go in the woods, and not in the pasture.

We’re getting bits of snow and bits of rain.  The kids are working out their costumes for tomorrow and we plan on visiting the grandparents and the retired bachelor brothers who we rent land from tomorrow night like we do every year.  Silje is putting a costume together with feathers and crepe paper and glue.  I hope it won’t be raining.

My house looks like small bombs have gone off in each room by the time everyone heads off to bed each day and I have still not decided if that is a sign of a really good day or a really bad one.  I just cannot seem to stay ahead of it this time of year.

This harvest feels like it will not be done in the near future, and it feels like there is a constant stream of repairmen or farm vendors or hunters dropping by my house needing something, and Knut unfortunately drops by the house to say “hi” usually at the worst possible time.  Well, about half the time it turns out that way.  When I’m bringing a toddler to the toilet, or just got the baby to sleep, or finally got a kid focused on her history assignment.  What is worse is when he’s too busy to stop by at all.  I need to get the kids out riding with him more often.

Then there’s the mornings when Knut gets off to work before anyone in the house is awake.  Ingrid wakes up around 6 am when no one should really be awake so she comes and snuggles with me in bed.  Then about an hour later Silje climbs under the flannel sheets with Ingrid and I, and we lay awake and discuss all the deep thoughts we have about God and take turns making Ingrid giggle playing peek a boo.  It’s a blessed, busy life right now.  I’m thankful I get to share it with you all today.