The countryside

I have an evening class in a few minutes, something that I'm helping one of Tetsu's friend's with.  The man is in his eighties and as a former English teacher, he began teaching an English class to seniors at the local community center.  He asked me to help and so I go every couple of months for a couple of hours.  Everyone is rather slow paced and deliberate in their English but they are keeping themselves active and young by stretching their minds.  And all of them are going off to England for a trip in June so they all have even more incentive to speak English!  I'm in the room just to give them listening practice...  (though I'm not going to be able to imitate a British accent...)  Today I baked a batch of cookies for them to have at their break time.

Most of what is in my camera are pictures from my neighborhood walks...  Japan is turning green and the flowers are coming out!

Just a green field with a farmhouse in back. I don't think this is a crop of anything.  It may just be a resting field for this season.

This is our good farmer friend Mr. Y who supplies us with greens a couple of times a week.  Looks like back breaking work doesn't it?  Mr. Y got into farming AFTER he retired from an office job and when he was in an office and driving around the countryside (something to do with agriculture) he had a bad back.  But once he got into the rhythm of farming, his back strengthened up and he has no complaints any more!  Go figure!

Flowers....  The rape blossoms are edible but maybe not at this stage...  I think they are too long and stringy now.  They make the countryside so cheerful!

Some variety of plum is blooming not far from us.

And this is another variety of plum (I think.)  Look at all those petals!

Near a farmer's shed was this profusion of daffodils!

And this colorful display and three or four other planters like it are now decorating the construction site where a new bridge is coming in over our little stream.  The flowers are silk and rather garish but I thought it interesting that the construction company would go to the bother of decorating the little detour that cars and pedestrians must be inconvenienced to use while the building is underway.

I often take my camera with me trying to catch a photo of the wild pheasants but they are extremely skittish and won't let me get close to them.  This wasn't a great picture but I spotted this handsome fellow and crept up on him taking a picture every few steps.  This was the closest I could get and still stay in focus (walking on tiptoes is not conducive to great photography....)  I will try to do better.

And that has been my week of walking!