*translation:
it’s summer here in sogn, even if the wind keeps blowing through the lilacs (still in bloom) and we’re still waiting for the strawberries. earlier this week, we cut the hay, and i joined in for the first time, got to know muscles i’d never used before, while raking the entire field with my niece and nephew (i was drill sergeant).
little t is no small person anymore, but a very rational being that asks a thousand questions and talks about the future. she remembers things i had long forgotten to have said and wants to know more about everything. i remember the first time we picked redcurrants in the shrubs here on the farm, just the two of us, she had maybe fifty words in her vocabulary and was so trusting. when little s saw these pictures, he asked why haven’t you got almost any pictures of me? because he’s always wandering around between trees and bushes and in the barn and playing in his own head, creating entire universes that only the luckiest get to take part of, and only as long as they never try to hold him back. they help me remember so much of my own childhood, and i am so grateful to be part of theirs.
later in the week we gathered the hay, and i impressed jostein’s grandfather with my bale carrying skills. he sat on the bench we made him last year and kept a pleased eye on the work, while the field was slowly emptied. one could easily be moved by less, thinking about all the years these fields were harvested in the past, the people who carried heavy loads here fifty years ago, and how it all looked back then.
we eat breakfast outside every day, jostein boils eggs and makes coffee on the stove top, we bring everything we find in our fridge and let the dishes wait. i’m slowly reading my way through a very ambitious summer book, and i’ve always got plans to do more than i am able to get done.