folding lawn chairs

today was this kind of day... 

yesterday, we went to the county fair.  and it was incredibly or not so incredibly similar to a county fair in the midwest.

lots of cows needing to be milked.  tractors.  horses. booths upon booths of horse riding equipment and accoutrements.  fried food.  but maybe that's where it differed a bit.  though there were booths selling french fries and pizza and churros (churros?  is that a thing?), the theme was øko (organic), local food.  so there were also people passing out cucumbers with little danish flags, while we waited in line with the rest of the fair-goers for two bento boxes of øko beef with spring greens and potato salad, one of which henry put his foot into as we set it down to eat... greg ate that one.  he hasn't shown any signs of parasitic invasion yet.

the man (an american... or maybe a canadian) holding the guinness record for 'fastest omelet maker' (making something like 400 omelets in 30 minutes) was there, showing danes how to make one omelet in one minute.

the boys pet the noses of cows.  william sawed (or rather his parents did) through a cattle horn (no longer attached to the cow), made a bracelet, and tried making his own yarn.  henry played with the water in the bucket under some rubber udders.  campers camped in their tents and campers outside the fair grounds and sat around in circles in folding lawn chairs, while their kids played in the dirt.

it could have been southern indiana, except everyone was speaking danish... and eating cucumbers... walking their little ones around in prams.  and i left the camera at home, so i have no photographic proof of any of this.  you just have to take my word.

...


again, today.  not very warm.  not very sunny.  fairly windy.  but whereas i was ready to conform my mood to the disagreeable june weather, greg got us out of the house and on an adventure.  not far from home.  the himmelev forest.

not a forest so much as a prairie, but apparently it is one day meant to be a forest in the way that we imagine forests to be... with trees and critters.

the only critters lurking about today were this little green and red water bug...

 and this billy-goat...

but the open space lifted the spirits on a windy, cloudy day in a way that a conventional forest could not have.  

and the lack of wildlife was okay, because there was this little swimmer, fully embracing what her surroundings had to offer, without a second thought of the cold temperatures of the air and water...

afterwards we went to the ultra-eco-friendly co-housing village where we can recycle our cans and plastic... because you might remember that recycling these things is something that simply does not happen in roskilde (and maybe most of denmark, i don't know).  and i find that to be sort of crazy.

william crushing cans

this co-housing neighborhood is comprised of 100 homes.  there is a small store where you could conceivably purchase all of your (øko) groceries for the week, a little cafe, and live music every sunday afternoon... just to name a few of the cool things that give this neighborhood a 20 year waiting list and houses that sell within an hour of going on the market.

playing with their tricycles...

and wishing we'd had about 20 years of foresight.  but we were only 11.  how could we have known?