Now it's time for the Norwegian reality TV show Farmen again! It started last week and so far one person (of 14) has left the farm. There is a girl from Geilo in Hallingdal, so we are rooting for her. This week she is storbonde, the big farmer (the head farmer). The storbonde is in charge of the weekly assignments and makes sure that everyone is working and things are going well on the farm. This year there are a lot of nordlendinger, people from Northern Norway, plus one Same (a Sami person). He seems like a luring, a trickster or a clever person. Two years ago a Sami person won Farmen, so we will be watching this guy to see what happens.

I like watching Farmen because it gives me and my husband ideas for what we can do on our mini-farm (småbruk), as well as a sigh of relief for all the things we don't have to do since it's not a full-fledged farm. In addition it makes me grateful for things like grocery stores, hot showers, shampoo, and dinners with meat and vegetables. It also makes me look forward to summer, sitting outside in the sun, jumping in ice cold lakes (bading), and petting baby bunnies!

My husband has been getting more interested in raising rabbits for meat, so he bought a male rabbit this week to mate with our other female rabbits. We have four females, so if all goes well (from the male rabbit's side of things) then we should have about somewhere in between 4-40 baby bunnies in about 28 days. Sometimes it is hard to know whether "it took" so each female usually get 2-3 times together with the male. My husband is an educated butcher and meat-cutter, so that is why he is interested in selling the rabbit meat.

Fortunately the baby bunnies will arrive right about when the snow is starting to melt, and grass will start growing in May, so there will be a lot of free food for them outside. We are going to make cages that you can move around so that they will eat the grass and their droppings will fertilize the ground.

At the end of this week, I will be dancing in a performance of Alice in Wonderland put on by Ål Kulturskole (Cultural school), which features the dance and theatre students this time. There will be two performances, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. In addition we are excited to have visitors on Sunday from my husband's American relative and her aunt from Austria.

Check out this link: http://aalkulturskule.no/

Hvis du snakker norsk og bor i Hallingdal, må du gjerne komme på forestillingen!!

If you speak Norwegian and live in Hallingdal, you are most welcome to attend the performance!