Let's Go Fly a Kite! It's Fun and We Can Afford It!

When Knut and I lived in Norway, money was always very tight. To have a large pizza delivered is about $40. As a result, we had no choice but to make our own fun, or to seek out the cheapest fun available. This resulted in us attending an unusually large amount of potato festivals, bunny jumping competitions, farmer’s fairs, and live stock auctions. We also picked berries, took long mountain walks, played “stick” with our dog, and jumped from rock to rock on the shore. We also learned to kite.

As you can imagine, the beach of the North Sea always has a cold wind. Even on the quietest day inland, the wind at the shore whips your hair and demands you take a sweater. Excellent for kiting. In college I bought a small, but good quality multicolored kite to bring to Norway. This lead us to two interesting experiences:

1. Cows are actually extremely curious. We brought the kite to Haa Gamle Prestegaard (the site of my dead whale story) one pleasant afternoon. There’s a rocky pasture right up against the sea and during the fine months, cows are left there to graze. Knut and I clever avoided the cow pats and got the kite into the air. The cows paid us no attention. Unfortunately, it was one of those days where the wind isn’t very predictable and the kite would be soaring one moment and crashing to the ground the next. Then I noticed something interesting. When the kite crashed and I started winding the string up, the cows would look over. They moved closer as the kite jumped towards me. Eventually, I gave up winding the string and just pulled it to excite the cows. I’d let it lay there dead and they’d walk up to look at it. Then, when they were practically nosing it, I’d pull the string and they’d jump back. I can’t tell you how long we did this.

2. Some people will take the simplest things to “The Extreme.” Sandnes put an announcement in the paper for a family kite day. We went with our little kite and admired bought kites shaped like airplanes and some amazing homemade ones shaped like sharks and squids. Everyone was having a very nice time with their kids flying their kites up and down the sand. Then we noticed a particular guy who was using the canopy thing used to para sail. Mind you, he was standing on the beach like the rest of us, but he made a huge show of tugging this thing back towards earth. Knut and I immediately starting shouting “Kiting… to the EXTREME!!” I took several photos of Knut in dramatic poses attempting wildly to control our little kite.

These pictures are from a little earlier this week. A few years ago I bought a beautiful 1950s Chinese silk kite shaped like a carp from a Chinese bookstore in Evanston (they also sell 1950s propaganda posters). Since I am of the persuasion that toys get upset if you don’t play with them, I always felt bad that it was just being used as a wall decoration. I was worried that flying it would ruin it, though. As an experiment I bought this Chinese kite from Cost Plus. It’s also silk and hand painted (nothing so fine as my vintage carp though). Since it didn’t come with string, I bought a drugstore kite and used that line. We put it into the air.

There is a reason kites are nylon and plastic these days. It was heavy and rather awkward, although once I got it positioned correctly it did fly. It was also a little difficult to get it to climb high enough to really maintain its flight. I did manage it, but at a particularly triumphant moment the cheap string broke and the butterfly soared free—into Lake Michigan. A nice Polish man helped me fish it out with his fishing rod, but it was really dirty and a little misshapen by then. Ah well.

I think I’ll keep the carp as a decoration