The Season

It’s still Fall, but we are a few inches deep in snow already.  I’m fighting the kids to keep the autumnal decorations up at least through Thanksgiving, because according to them, Christmas is just a few days away.  At any rate, we have started the season I lovingly refer to as “Hibernation Season.”  Of course, we never hibernate as much as I wish.  Lately it seems like we are constantly in town for some reason or another.

This is Solveig stuffing her mouth like the rest of us with some store-bought lefse.  Buying lefse at the store is sacrilege in this family, but I couldn’t help myself.  I’m too busy to make some now, and there’s something about snow on the ground that makes me crave it like nothing else.  (For those of non-Norwegian descent, lefse is much like a potato crepe that you butter and sugar and hoard from all other family members.  Most of the stories of stealing and hiding in my family all have the common theme of lefse.)  Lefse is essential to hibernating.

The kids are really into board games right now.  Sorry, Monopoly, Ticket to Ride, Sequence are constantly out.  They’re finally at the age where they don’t lose the pieces all the time…at least not as often.

I didn’t bring in my geraniums for the winter hibernation, but I did bring in the begonias before they froze.  I have a tendency to kill house plants by the dozen.  I did this quiz once a few years ago to find out how many plants we needed in our house for proper air purification during the closed in winter months.  Our magic number for our square footage was 18 plants.  At the time we had 0 because I had killed them all, so I went out and bought 2, which I killed after a few months as well.  I love my begonias next to the bird feeder outside our kitchen window every summer, and I wanted to hold onto them this winter.

I think Knut discovered my house plant problem.  He noticed I was watering them with water from the sink, which is soft (yet still extraordinarily rusty…we’ll say “mineral rich”) well water.  He told me to start using our filtered water that we use from the fridge.   So far, the 2 plants that we have inside haven’t died using this water.  In fact, they’re looking pretty healthy.  He may be onto something…  I may even buy one or two more this month.

The fire in the fireplace in our living room is now running around the clock again, as Knut has been in to get the chimneys swept and wood brought in.  The gas furnace was turned off, and we’re back to just burning wood in the fireplace and corn in the basement corn stove on the other side of the house.

So the living room is now the place to be, and the kids wander out of the t.v. space in the den and climb in a chair to read a book, or gather up for a board game often.  There’s something about the fireplace that just draws us all away from technology and into reflection and study mode.  This is the time of year we get the most schoolwork done.  Wool socks are hanging out to dry all over the house pretty much all the time, after the kids cross country ski and snowboard or sled in the ditches during their frequent recess times outside.  This is the time of year when we consume an extraordinary amount of hot chocolate.   It has started early this year, but to be honest?  That’s just fine by me.