Summer heat!

Life is very boring around here lately.  It is too hot to do anything!!!
 
I'm know there are other hotter places in the world but Japanese humid summers really are miserable!  And actually this is the first year in a long time that I've had to live through it for any length of time.  Usually I'm in California where it is hot but a dry desert heat.  This oppressing humidity starts my head to pounding even before I get up!

John and I don't go for a walk during the day anymore and I don't get much movement in until nearly 8:00 at night.  John is in a bad mood too for most of the day and, giving him the benefit of the doubt, I think the weather is making him cranky. In this picture he took refuge under our bed for awhile and attracted all the dust bunnies under there...

We start the air-conditioner from about 8:00 am and it stays on all day which I've always felt guilty about but really, without air-conditioning we are liable to succumb to the heat...  We are all getting older and my body at least doesn't seem to adjust the way it used to!

For all that, Tetsu still thinks he's a young man, until he comes gasping into the house begging for water and a cool towel.  He still goes out to do yard-work which he claims he loves but I'm afraid I'll find him prostrate.  The other day, for some reason only known to him, he decided to cut the weeds in a large empty lot halfway across the neighborhood.  When he didn't come back for an hour I tracked him down by the sound of his weed-whacker and I brought him ice water and asked him to call it quits.  He didn't come home until 2:00 in the afternoon!!!  The hottest part of the day!  He said the various neighbors kept coming out telling him he should stop, bringing him cold water bottles and warning of heat stroke.  It wasn't until some man came out dressed in working wear and took over the job that Tetsu finally gave in and came home.

"Tetsu!  You think you can still do these things but the neighbors just see you as an old man who is going to die on the street if someone doesn't step in and help him!  Please come back inside by 11:00 at least!"

Tetsu thinks I am a bossy nagging wife and pooh-poohs my harping at him...

Another project that Tetsu has embarked on outside is to add some life to our yard that no longer is protected by the forest.  This also entails some heavy physical work because he rolls tree stumps from where the loggers piled them and brings them back to our yard (getting permission of course). 

Now the tree stumps have been arranged at the edge of where the forest used to be. 

 In this picture every other tree stump was originally a tree that had stood there and the ones in-between are what Tetsu rolled back.  I guess we can find ways to enjoy the new look of our yard...

Anyway everyone living through the summer, DON'T OVERDO IT and stay cool!

Caught in the rain

John and I took advantage of a break in the rain to go out for a walk.  Unfortunately I misjudged how much time before another downpour and we got stuck out in the fields as the storm clouds rolled in and thunder became audible in the distance. 

Before the rain we enjoyed the flowers and the sparkling countryside.  The sunflowers finally have enough sun to bloom.

 A nothing bit of clover looks quite pretty in the leftover jewels of raindrops.

But we did get caught out in the rain... and me without an umbrella, though an umbrella doesn't do John any good he is so close to the ground.  We were on the other side of this field near where the pig farm is (the white buildings in this picture), when it began thundering and raining in earnest.  Remembering the lightning strike earlier this month, I tried to quicken our pace and make a run for it but John isn't a great runner.  I can just hear him say,

"Tanya-san, I'm at a jog the whole time when you are just walking.  How can I go any faster?"  (You notice John does not call me Mom.  I am still an underling in his eyes.)

We stood out under a tree (smart move? dumb move?) when someone drove by us and went down the country road.  At the end of the street I noticed the car making a U-turn and the driver leaned out of the window when she got to us and handed me her umbrella.  That's why there is an umbrella in the above picture!  I had no idea who she was but she seemed to know me.

"My child goes to the elementary school.  Just give any teacher the umbrella when you get a chance and tell them it is Mrs. T's."

Wasn't that nice?  She must have recognized me as the crosswalk guard.  I still have no idea which child is hers or where she lives but I will try to get this umbrella back to her before I forget her name!

John and I came home dripping but we still can't touch John to be able to dry him off...  He had to drip dry!  Another reason why John doesn't like the rain!

Sewing finally!

This did start out to be a quilting blog but I haven't been reporting much on what I've been sewing... That's because there haven't been too many finishes...  And what I have finished have been smaller projects.

Last week was Tetsu's birthday and I was racking my brain for something to get him even though he says he doesn't want presents.  I did buy him something but he seemed more grateful for the handmade present I made him...

A computer "sleeve".  I guess one could call it a sleeve, it isn't a bag because it doesn't have any handles though I've offered to add handles if he wants some (he doesn't).  Tetsu bought a new laptop computer in March but it sort of has taken over the desk in the "sunroom".  Unfortunately, the cat house cats also make use of the sunroom when it is raining out or especially stormy and they like to sit on the chairs but they will occasionally get up on the desk.  We have already had one "accident" with a cat spraying on the desk and I could just imagine the fury if a cat peed on Tetsu's computer!  He had been putting notebooks and papers on the computer to dissuade the cats from sitting on it but I decided to make a waterproof sleeve that the computer can be slipped into easily... thus no handles.

I found this waterproof "fabric" and asked how one goes about sewing with it and found that I already had a silicon (I guess) sewing machine foot that sews on plasticized fabric.  I made the sleeve according to the computer's dimensions and then I also added a felt lining (as sewing the fabric meant that moisture could still get through seams).  Tetsu was thrilled with his new laptop sleeve with cats and a John dog on it.

Tetsu's sister, whom we see about once a month, asked me to make her a drawstring bag...  I had made her this same bag nearly 20 years ago and she claimed it was such an easy bag to use and wanted another one to replace the first.  I still had the original pattern though I haven't made it in the past 20 years. 

This is an easy project that I did in about two days by hand.  Just combine triangles, add a top piece folded inside to hide the inner seams and then add the bottom with bias tape hiding the base seams.

I also finished machine quilting the baby quilt panel completely forgoing the walking foot.  It came out much to my satisfaction and I still don't know why my walking foot was such a trial.  It was connected right...  It probably could be oiled but it was moving smoothly.  I cleaned the feed dogs and bobbin case because it seemed to me that the walking foot was moving more quickly than the feed dogs (because the top fabric pulled ahead) but in the end I just felt that there was less a possibility of ruining this quilt by just freehand quilting all the straight lines.

I am now sewing down the binding on all those scallops.

I was with my patchwork group on Friday and the purpose was to put borders on a quilt we are making for one of the members.  This quilt has been in the making for years but we never had a person in mind to give it to.  We decided that we'd all feel inspired to finish this for our newest member who never sews for herself but helps us with all the other projects we make.  Basting and quilting will begin next month.

And while I was at Mrs. Furui's house she got me started on crochet beading!  This is one of those projects where the purpose is to see if I can really do it!  I got the instructions on the basics and then came home and raided my bead box.  Actually there weren't enough of any one bead to do much of anything so that is why this looks so hodge-podge.  I guess I can say I can do this craft now though I don't know much what I am going to do with the skill.  By the way, I will have to go back to Mrs. Furui to find out how to join the ends to make a bracelet as I don't know how to do that yet...  Right now this looks like a long yellow earthworm...  Yuck!

And finally...  advice needed.  I have put the final quilting stitches into the Selah quilt.  This is also ready to be bound.  The question is, do I need to do some quilting in the center of this quilt?

Everywhere else is heavily quilted, the outer border with feathers, the inner square with a lattice, the flowers with stitch-in-the-ditch, the word Selah also outline quilted, but the rest of that center is a bit puffy...  I can't figure out how to quilt around the words "Pause in His Presence".  This is hand quilted so I don't want to start using a filler stitch with the machine.

Can I leave this as is or should I put more lattice in the center?  Any other ideas?
 

Thunderstorm

It has been a somewhat quiet week around here...  Wait!  No it hasn't!  There was one VERY unquiet afternoon... unquiet hour when we had a thunderstorm.

Last Saturday the neighborhood had their summer festival and Tetsu was basically in charge of it and had been preparing for it for days.  Did I ever mention that Tetsu became the head of the homeowners association for our neighborhood?  Remember, the one I didn't want him to get involved with?   He bowed to pressure and is doing his best to fill the shoes of his predecessors before him... with all its headaches and the problems involved!  ANYWAY...

Unfortunately the weather forecast for the festival day was for heavy rains and the festival was being held on the grounds of the community center a block down from where we live.  The community center borders the remains of the forest which had backed up against our house.  Neighborhood men had been busy putting up tents for two days and there were booths planned to hold grilled sausages and pickles and fried chicken and water balloons etc. etc.  Although I don't much participate in the neighborhood doings, because Tetsu had spent so much time in committee meetings and organizing, I felt that I should make an appearance and before the rain began I headed over to the community center grounds...  I made my rounds saying hello to people and buying different snacks from the booths. 

Just as I had sat down to eat a baked potato, there was an enormous clap of thunder and everyone screamed and hid their heads... and then we watched a tree another block away from us go crashing to the ground!  Yes!  Lightning had struck the tree!  All the children were scooted into the community center and all the adults made for cover under the tents...  and I headed home in a booming lightning and thunder storm.  I could hear John barking frantically half way home.  He does not like the thunder than any of the rest of us.  But after an hour the storm had moved on and the neighborhood continued with their festival.  I didn't return.

The next morning Tetsu and I went to check out the fallen tree...  Can you see how the tree broke off halfway down and how the shards of bark just exploded into different directions and got hung up on the other trees in the forest?  Scary!  So...  Maybe I'm a tiny bit grateful that we don't have to worry about exploding trees next to our bedroom anymore...  Think positively!
 

Completed... hopefully

From yesterday, the forest cutting has ended and the big machines have lumbered on their way to other forests.  And what are we left in their wake?

Well...  light for one thing.  There are small differences in my day due to the amount of light we now get.  I wake up earlier (this being summer that means pretty early) and the room is already brightening.

I now turn to a small mirror mounted next to the bathroom window when putting on make-up.  There used to be only enough light from the vanity mirror over the sink and now more light comes in the window.

I go upstairs and I am brought to a standstill by the patch of light on the floor which has never been there before!

The sunroom really is a sunroom with all the light that streams in the windows.

The "front" yard even gets light where the sun wouldn't reach it after 12:00 noon.

All that is very good I suppose... it just takes a bit of getting used to. 

A joy I am greeted by each morning is the scenery out my bedroom window now.  With the forest gone I see the fields and the farther forests and even the mountain range in the distance if the weather is good. 

So Tetsu and I have been trying to make the best of the situation...

Yesterday I was telling three friends about the disappearance of the forest.  One friend knew ahead of time how upset I had been, it was the first for the two other friends to hear of it and they caught the end of the conversation about how I had been upset but they didn't know why.

"What happened?  Have you been ill?  Was there an accident?  Is everyone ok?"

When I explained about the forest the one friend's reaction was,

"Oh!  Don't scare me like that.  A forest?  That's not like someone is sick or in the hospital or something."

I get this quite a lot.  Most people who walk by the land where the forest used to be say to me,

"You must be so happy to get all that light now!"

The third friend in our conversation yesterday had just looked at the pictures of my Michigan trip and the visit to my grandfather's summer home with it surrounded by forest and said,

"I can understand just looking at your pictures your special love of nature and forests and while most of us wouldn't mind the loss I think from childhood you were wired to love trees..."

I was grateful for those words of understanding.

In the meantime we hear rumors of more upcoming forest cutting and this sets me off again.

A neighbor says, "yeah, I heard that the landowner for the forest in FRONT of your house and the whole area still left behind you is considering cutting down that acreage too."

DO NOT TELL ME THESE THINGS!!!  I AM TRYING TO ADJUST MYSELF TO WHAT IS LEFT AND I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THAT THINGS ARE GOING TO CHANGE SOME MORE!!!

Tetsu and I seriously talk about moving...  Would there be anywhere else more in the countryside that we could adjust to?  But we do like our house...  just not the changes to the forest.

Should we think about a permanent retirement home if we could even find one to our liking (and be able to afford)?  We are 64 and 66.  How many years left do we have to enjoy our own home anyway?  We were hoping to spend at least another 10 years here but maybe this is the time to move on...

Tetsu has always wanted to move back to Northern Japan where he grew up and where we met.  Should we think about a move there?  But it is SO cold in Northern Japan!  I don't think I am up to icy, long winters and there are actually very few people we still know in that area.  Our children have no connections with the north... Everyone's memories are here...

A sight I've never seen before...  the back of my house!

So...  stay here and make the best of it?  If the rest of the forests are cut down then...  erect a fence so that I can't see out?  Go ahead and enjoy the sun, plant a few trees of my own even if they will take more than 10 years to reach full height, build a sundeck for backyard sunning?

In my mind it all depends...  It depends on what the landowners' next move is going to be.  
 

Quilting

Today I have suddenly decided to do some machine quilting on a panel that someone gave me years ago.  If it turns out nicely I will give the resulting quilt to someone but as yet there is no one in mind.  It may NOT turn out so nicely as I have already run into snags.

I had thought that since all the lines in this quilt are straight that maybe this was the time to try quilting with a walking foot.  I have heard that people can do amazing things with a walking foot but alas, all I seemed to get was rippling and a pulling of the fabric.

 I am obviously not doing something right.  Instead of messing this quilt up further I have now switched to a free-motion quilting foot and at least I don't get bunching...  My lines may not be as straight and my stitches may be uneven but I think that is better than bunching and rippling.

**********************

I got a funny email a few weeks ago...  From someone I don't know and I never heard back from her after I replied...  The quilter wrote,

"I love your dog paw print quilting design. Looking to find how to download it so I can put it into my sewing machine. I have a brother a PES format.

Looking forward to hearing from you hope you still have it thank you."

Now what is this about?  I have a feeling that someone discovered on Pinterest a picture of some quilting I'd done years ago with dog pawprints...  There have been two quilts that I put my quilting skills to work to add dog (or maybe cat) pawprints to the quilts.  I don't know which picture the quilter found but at any rate I was a bit stumped about her request to download it and put it in her machine!

I am an analog quilter and there is nothing to download!  Whatever got onto the quilt came out of my head and heart and hands!  And that particular photo was a picture of a rather good try...  some of my other pawprints I'm sure didn't turn out as well!

Sorry to disappoint!

Two days of pictures

We have a three day weekend in Japan this week and Tetsu and I took a drive locally on both Friday and Saturday.

Friday we headed up the mountain to go to a touristy dairy farm...  BUT there was hardly anybody there and certainly nothing to see!

 Ah yes.  The sign tells us we are in the Kirifuri Mountains....  Kiri means "fog" and furi means "descending".  We are in the descending fog mountains.  I guess so! 

 We enjoyed a grilled barbecue lunch.

But there wasn't much around to look at.  There have been other times that we have come to this farm and I have been able to photograph wild monkeys but if they were around today they were well hidden.

And coming down the mountain this was the scenery in the town.  Yep, the fog has descended pretty close to the town...  The mountain range above is somewhere in all that.

So Saturday we headed in a different direction to a shrine that is about an hour away.  The weather held for us this day.

The shrine is in the mountains also and is surrounded by forest.  The moss growing on the steps and statues is deep!

 A quiet stream.

The Tengu god is well known for his long nose.

The shrine sells different charms with stamps for health and protection.  If you look closely, you can see some of the long nose figures on the stamps.  Devout Japanese love to collect stamps in their prayer books from each temple or shrine that they visit.

The shrine also offers prayers for traffic safety and after purchasing a new car the owner will bring it to the shrine to be prayed over and to receive a sticker that will be placed on the back of the car.  The white paper prayer wand is waved when the priest blesses the car.

Tetsu and I were more interested in visiting the shrine's garden and we found a wonderfully cared for pond and arranged garden.

Time to bring out the cameras in earnest!

 The mountains were full and green, the pond had carp and the irises were in bloom.

Koi (carp) food was offered and visitors with children enjoyed feeding the carp.

The carp know where the good things are!

 There was a sacred tree marked by the rope and the paper streamers.

All the trees are special to me.

Look at that tangle of roots!

We stopped at this tea house but actually had coffee instead of tea.

It was so nice to see the carp and watch at the dragonflies flitting from iris to iris.

He looks happy.

Such a quiet spot surrounded by nature.

I don't know why I like to chase dragonflies around with my camera.  Are they particularly pretty?

 "Boo!"

I tried getting artistic with my camera.

This was how I took the above photo.  Through a stone lantern!

But nature is artistic enough without me.

 Humans can be pretty artistic too.  Look at the beautiful cobblestone walkway.

 We took pictures of the hydrangeas too.

 The bridge railing.

 People purifying themselves with sacred water before entering the shrine.

That was a lot of pictures today wasn't it?  Gotta get out while the weather holds!