Finally, Some Sunshine!

7 May 2013

The sun, the glorious sun, showed up today!  I was in hog heaven.  But again, timing was everything and I couldn’t get out in it much because we’d invited some cousins over for dinner.  I at least got to lay on the lawn chair out on the deck and take a bit of a snooze, though, so that was something special.  It was even in the 60s so it felt like summer!  Everyone was outside and no one was in a bad mood today – it’s been awhile since the weather has been this nice around here.  Thank you, Jesus!

Kory did a bit more work for Turid this morning at her art studio – getting her bench and shelf all set up (below).  Kaleb studied for a big math test he has tomorrow.  He’s so motivated now to get 100% on the test when he knows I’ll give him Norwegian chocolate as a prize.  I’m going to fill a suitcase full of that stuff to take home and keep him motivated, as it really makes a difference.

I cleaned the condo a bit today – something I’ve been putting off since we got here – but we didn’t just have company coming for dinner – we have guests arriving from the U.S. to stay with us for four weeks, so I thought the dust bunnies had to go to make room for them.  They are just sleeping here, as their son and daughter-in-law live a stone’s throw from our place, and there’s no room for them there, so Kory offered to let them crash here.  It’s a good deal for them.  Kaleb’s a little put out that we are all three now going to be sleeping in his room, but that’s why he has a bunk bed, so there’s room for us when company calls.

We had a lovely dinner with Kory’s mom’s cousins tonight and I picked their brain on all things Norwegian, trying to get more ideas for articles for the LaConner paper.  One of the guys is a retired farmer so I wanted to know a bit more about Norwegian farming practices and what it takes to make a living as a farmer in Norway.  Surprisingly, it only takes about 20 dairy cows, or about 20 acres of tillable soil to either be a full-time dairy farmer or vegetable farmer.  The government subsidizes farming so well that it’s not a lot of work to make a go of it, but even still, small farms have stopped farming at alarming rates.  I love that organic produce costs the same as conventional here.  The government really subsidizes that industry because they think it’s important, but no one will pay extra money for it, so they have to level the playing field.  Works for me.

The other shocking fact we learned tonight is that the oil reserve money Norway now has totals enough to give each and every citizen 1.3 million dollars.  They have no idea what to do with all that money and they haven’t spent a dime of it- it just keeps growing.  They don’t want to spend it in Norway because that will mess with inflating prices on everything else, so they just hold on to it and have a lot of meetings.  It’s so Norwegian, to hold that money close.  But somehow it’s going to have to balance out the fact that over 600,000 Norwegians that are eligible to be working, are not.  They are on some form of disability or sick leave – yet most of them can work, they just don’t want to because they get nearly the same pay as if they were working.  Now that’s a system that won’t last long… but part of the discussion around all the oil money is the fact they need to have some money for this new generation of kids that don’t know how or don’t want to work.  Insane thinking.  The immigrants are going to end up taking over the country.  Already Oslo has a 30% immigrant population, up from 25% just a few years ago.  Norway’s borders are open and people are flooding in to do the work that Norwegians just don’t want to do.  The old Norway is disappearing quickly.