Ponies and Generosity

When Vilde was here over the weekend (Anders' daughter, for those of you just tuning in) we drank pink champagne to celebrate her arrival, and Hilde made these wonderful little figures out of the wire and foil from around the cork. She just absently bent the first little wire dude into shape while we were having a conversation, and it was so expressive that I started free-associating on what kind of character he was. First he was this jaunty happy jogger, then he was a serious downhill skier, suddenly morphed into a depressed old man with terrible posture. We had a lot of fun creating little stories for each figure, and took some photos.
I contributed. The deformed dog is my creation. Your welcome!
Today I befriended a 12 year old. Our neighbor, Nicolina. She has a pony. She's awesome. On Wednesday she's teaching me how to ride a horse! And she invited me to watch her jumping competition over the weekend. Her ponies are really cute. The little one isn't for riding. He's really old and fat and kind of surly. It's funny actually, being around him in the stable, I sensed this vibe of kind of a grumpy old man, like maybe a character Danny DeVito would play (except in horse form). I was asking Hilde about him, and she said he's 24 years old! I had no idea ponies lived that long. He's so friggin tiny! And fiesty. He escapes alot. I love it! Just look at that belly.

Yesterday, Sara & I were left alone in charge of the farm while Anders and Hilde went to Hilde's farm overnight. It's such a wonderful house, it was really pleasant and cozy to have it for just the two of us. We kept the woodstove in the kitchen burning and drank tea and ate delicious food and played the radio loud. Before it got dark, though, we had a great little adventure on the 4-wheel bike. Neither of us had driven it before, I had only had a 2 minute lesson from Pete on how to work the thing, so it was extra fun. Today we saw a 4 year old neighbor driving faster than we had been going yesterday, so clearly we were not being super daring or anything, but it was good! We went up to Anders' little mountain hut on an old abandoned summer farm, and fantasized about living there during a snowstorm in the dead of winter. That is one cozy little hut! It's all stocked up with everything you'd ever need, essentially. Even a little radio and tons of extra sweaters and knit socks. And there are berries growing right on the roof so you'll never run out of jam either!Hilde and Anders came home tonight, and gave us each early going-away presents. They gave us presents. Doesn't that seem just too ridiculously sweet?! I am SPOILED ROTTEN. It's official. I'm being taken care of, living in a beautiful house with tons of delicious food and doing really pretty minimal amounts of work.. AND they gave me two of my very own Moomin mugs. The most beautiful wonderful whimsical little mugs (really expensive too, which is partially why I hadn't bought any for myself already). I can't believe it! I think it's just nice to know that such kind and generous people exist in this world, honestly. Warms my cold little heart ;)
And then, before retiring to our respective bedrooms, we sat around drinking wine and sharing pig stories. Well, I was the only one without a pig story, because I have never formally met any pigs, which they were all very sad to hear, and they recommended that I do so at the earliest convenience. So, to all you pig farmers out there reading my blog, I would love to come work for you to acquire some good pig stories, but I have a high standard of wwoofing now!! Pretty hard to live up to, really.