Numbers

Well, we've come to the end of August.  Hopefully September will be the start of cooler, more comfortable days in so many ways!  

I took today's photos on my 5:00 AM walk yesterday morning and there were mystical pockets of fog lying low on the fields the between forests.

I found August very trying...  The heat and the short bout of heat stroke did me in.  Irritations and tempers were high maybe because of the heat, maybe because of the Corona limitations in our lives these days.  Though we stay Corona free, the pandemic gnaws at my mood...  Has anyone else stopped wearing lip-stick?  Or sometimes make-up completely?  The lip-stick got stuck in a back drawer early just because of all the mask wearing.  Gradually, it seemed ridiculous to wear any make-up at all as I rarely met anyone and when I was out in public only my eyes show anyway.  The idea of getting dressed up, even in nice jeans and something other than a t-shirt, also got put aside because I have only been cleaning and walking and both resulted in being sweaty.  So this summer I just felt old and colorless and frumpy.

I finally got fed up with the way I was glued to the iPhone and iPad, looking at the disturbing news local and from afar. 

"I'm being controlled by this iPhone!" 

For nearly 15 years I have always kept a pedometer on me and in recent years it has been the iPhone pedometer but I felt like I'd made my goal in life to get my 10000 steps in everyday come hell or high water, and with the lack of summer activity I'd spend an hour just pacing in the bedroom every night to get my steps in.  Ridiculous.  The purpose is to stay healthy not to keep my step numbers up!  I made the decision this week to uninstall the pedometer app on my phone and though I will continue to walk whenever I can I will not allow myself to be controlled by the numbers.

 

In a similar vein, I managed to opt out of the competition groups on Duolingo.  I have been studying Spanish with Duolingo for the past 4 years and I've really enjoyed it, but somewhere along the line Duolingo started a league competition to keep us motivated.  A group of random people using Duolingo were "competing" each week to keep our scores high by studying more and more lessons.  Well, I was watching the numbers again and spending over an hour a day to stay in a "league" and I found I wasn't enjoying Spanish anymore.  It was more fun when I did a lesson a day and didn't compare my scores with anyone else.  So now I've gone back to studying Spanish one lesson at a time on my own time schedule...

The other photos today are of the very small shrine in the forest not far from us.  This is where I sit and watch the sun rise...  The shrine is uninhabited and I have no idea when anyone is there.  Maybe neighbors stop and give a short prayer when they walk through the forest but there are never any cars or people when I've come by and I have been here later than 5:00 AM.

At the entrance on the other side of the field and forest, there is a tall Torii gate.

But on this day, just me and the spiders.

The other numbers I've been keeping my eye on are the Corona cases in Japan and elsewhere where my loved ones are.  Japan now has had 68000 cases, our prefecture Tochigi has had a little more than 300 cases and our city of Nikko is staying level at 13 cases. 

Sigh.  I hope to be less controlled by numbers in the month of September...

Out on the farm

I have 4 sewing projects going at one time but actually am only making progress on one of them right now.  I devoted the relatively cool mornings to getting block number 5 done of the McKenna farm quilt.

  

All the animals piled up on top of the other like Musicians of Bremen's children's story.  No instruments though...

I made a major mistake when putting this together as I took off the Heat-n-bond paper from the back of the sheep I'd just made and did a bit of extra pressing when GASP I'd forgotten to put the non-stick applique sheet under the piece and ended up bonding the sheep to the kit instructions!  So the sheep got a paper back layer stuck to it and the instructions sheet now has a big hole in it.  I guess I'm not going to make this block ever again whether I want to or not!  It's the first time I've even been so absentminded as to bond something together that wasn't supposed to be bonded...

Block 1 was the scene with the horse and scarecrow.  Block 2 was with the cat and it makes up the right side of the large scene.  Block 3 was the pigs.  Block 4 the animals around the water trough.  And this month is the stack of animals...  I think I have three more blocks to go!

A week of heat

I think I'm back again after a week-long blog break.    I don't have much to show for my time away but I guess I have a few pictures that I took on my adventures (not).

Most of my time away I stayed to myself and kept my Kindle and my Bullet Journal handy.  I searched out cool places and found a number of cool (ish) parks.  I spent an hour or so at various sheltered benches in this park which is near the main river in town.  Still it was hot so on another day I went further near the mountains as I'd remembered there was this completely shaded hiking path farther up the river.

This is the place where the ojizou-san statues like part of the hiking path and I had heard that they were all wearing masks now though I guess that was only for the newspaper.  They were maskless when I got there...

...and they weren't social distancing.

This was the magazine cover with the ojizou-san wearing masks.  Actually ojizou-san don't have ears so it was probably hard to keep the masks on.

But as expected, the path was cool!

And a bit lonely.  There weren't any people on the trail while I was there and I decided not to go too far in as there were Beware of Bears signs around.

I found a nice rock to sit on and look down over the river and the gorge.  Just listening to the water was refreshing!

I don't really have to go far to find ojizou-san.  This scenery is within walking distance from my house.  I've given up trying to walk to the crosswalk at 7:00 in the morning (and walking back at 8:00) as it is just too hot and humid and instead John and I go out about 5:00 in the morning to this nice spot (with a bench!) and watch the sun rise in the still cool morning.

Bad picture I know, because I've blown it up quite a bit, but I wanted you to note that the dog was wearing shoes... or socks... I'm not sure which.  Humans in Japan take off their shoes when coming into the house and often people will wash their dog's feet when coming back from a walk to keep the floors clean, but this dog has his own outdoor footwear!  I would NEVER be able to get footwear on or off John.  And we can't even wash his feet so we do a lot of mopping everyday!

This was taken another early morning near our house.

I got clever one day and even took my quilting with me when I went to the park.  Thanks to that day I'm more than half finished quilting this Hugs and Kisses Quilt in Blue.

But when the heat got too overwhelming I spent time in Starbucks and department stores... not exactly social distancing but not talking to anyone either.  I tried to go to the library but was told that the library was open for browsing but the chairs and desks and benches were off limits.  That was a shame as it was nice and cool inside but I think the library was trying to prevent people, like me, from camping in them just to get away from the heat.

The heat is still on full blast in Japan.  Between Covid19 and heat stroke it is a challenge to stay healthy!

Blog break

Things are rather exhausting around here lately.  I’m going to take a few days off from blogging.  No one has Corona so don’t worry about that!

At a later date!

Obon holidays

Ending the second week of August and it is hot and humid and exhausting.  We turn the air conditioner on around noon and keep it on for the rest of the day.  That only cools off the living room and dining room area so often when I go to bed I'll have to turn on the bedroom air conditioner for a couple of hours but for most of the night we sleep with the windows open and the fan blowing.

I feel for the two cats in the outdoor cat-house though they have good shade.  Also Cleo who insists on living upstairs.  He doesn't much like John though they greet each other pleasantly enough now.  Cleo and the cat-house Patora are over 15 years old and if any of us is going to get heat stroke I'm worried about them but no matter how many times I bring Cleo into the cooler living room, he chooses to go back upstairs.

The last four days of this week are Obon, probably the most important holiday in Japan.  It is the holiday when departed spirits of ancestors return to their graves and then into the homes and so it is a big family gathering long weekend.  Maybe like Thanksgiving in the States?  Younger families will travel great distances to spend the holidays in their childhood home and the trains and highways are packed.  Actually, everything is packed with all the people taking advantage of the holiday to do sight-seeing or to make memories with grandchildren who don't normally live in the family home.  Another important part of the holiday is to visit the family grave together, sometimes twice, once to clean the gravestone, arrange flowers and sweets and incense, and bring the spirits home, another time to take the spirits back to the grave and send them off with prayers. 

That is the way NORMAL Obon holidays go but this year because of the pandemic, a lot of young families are choosing not to make the trek back to their family homes.  Some prefectures are strongly recommending reduced traveling, some of the families don't want the city residing younger generation to bring any unnecessary viruses home to the older generation, and nobody wants to spend too much time on trains and airplanes!

However the custom of visiting graves hasn't really changed and so the cemeteries are very busy places.  As John and I daily walk around the cemetery (it is cool and close and there are no cars to worry about) I noticed the cheery atmosphere the past couple of Obon days.

 

This is part of the "apartment" size section at the cemetery.  The graves are much smaller and closer together.  My neighbor just recently passed away and her son and daughter decided to purchase the smallish plot which is less costly but also very well kept up.  The lady's husband bicycles over now every morning to light incense for his wife.

I found some "interesting" things on my visit yesterday.  A cucumber horse and an eggplant cow!  These have something to do with the Obon custom of welcoming the spirits home.  Something about riding a swift horse to visit and spending leisurely time with the family (the plodding cow).  I'm not sure about this custom so don't hold me to it.

This must have something to do with the same custom.  I found these straw figures on another grave along with a paper lantern.  I think the purple one must be the cow and the green one must be the horse...

 

This doesn't necessarily have anything to do with Obon though the family may have wanted to get the grave built in time for Obon.  It is a brand new grave that I'd never seen before.  Isn't it cute!  Paw prints leading to the altar and a paw print incense burner!  I love it!  No flowers there yet but maybe the family will be coming today.

The Obon spirits are visiting when the Nikko skies are just beautiful.  We've had storm after storm including wind and rain and some of the huge cedar trees along the cedar grove have blown down.  The storms last an hour or so and then the skies clear up into beauty.

This is looking back at our white house there between the trees.

Quilts in Progress

No finishes around here but I am working on two quilts simultaneously.  The Hugs and Kisses quilt and the Raise the Roof quilt.

I actually have 5 projects to do work on, on my project to-do list.  The Hugs and Kisses for Leiya and Tony.  A blue Hugs and Kisses for another baby due to a friend in October.  The Raise the Roof quilt which I also call my Log Cabin quilt.  25 Days of Machine Quilting, which I had high hopes for and ordered Lori Kennedy's book, and the McKenna Farm quilt block number 4.

A block of McKenna's I can put together in about three days.  Tracing the pattern onto heat-n-bond, ironing the bond onto the materials provided, and tediously cutting out the pieces and collaging them and setting them by iron.  I'm not going to do the quilting until the all the blocks are made (gulp!)

The 25 Days of Machine Quilting I thought was going to be a great Covid stay-at-home project and as we are on loose stay-at-home directives I suppose I'm not behind on this but I haven't really started.  

I tried the first chapter of the book and realized 25 days of quilting meant practicing ALL DAY (to get the results I wanted) and I had other quilting goals that I'd like to get done first.  Namely the Raise the Roof.  So the 25 Days book has been shelved (literally) and I've moved back to the Raise the Roof.

It is a big quilt and there is a lot of quilting to be done (and that's why I never considered hand quilting it).  There are three quilting patterns going on so far in this quilt (what will I do when I get to the border?!)  

 The stars have just got an uninteresting curved line going through the points.  

The white areas have a many petaled flower.  

And the darker logs have a swirly feather going on. 

Chip oversees the project but she misses many of the mistakes and I've had to do a lot of ripping out so the going has been slow.  My spray basting held up miserably (I may have been stingy in applying it) and the three layers of sandwich were flapping and shifting WHICH I ONLY NOTICED AFTER I'D FEATHER STITCHED A QUARTER OF THE LOGS!!! and the backing was wrinkled and folded up under itself.  I spent a day ripping out one side of the feathers, spread out the quilt again, saturated the the three layers with spray baste and then safety pinned all around the borders to hold things down.  All this withe me sitting on the quilt and smoothing it out beneath me as I pinned...  There is no room in the house that is wide enough for this quilt (which isn't saying that the quilt is so large as the rooms are so small.)

My next downfall was when I was merrily quilting the feathers again and somehow got the pattern mixed up in my head and had it going in the wrong direction (from the other three sides).  SO... Again, I spent a day ripping out a whole block of feathers (I'M going to know if it isn't right even if no one else notices.)

And finally I'm back on schedule. 

Until this is closer to done I can't really start on the Hugs and Kisses Quilt in Blue as I think that will be machine quilted also.  So the H&K in Blue is still hanging over my chair.  I did find backing for it!

And the original Hugs and Kisses is slowly getting quilted!  The quilting pattern is a challenge because there is so much twisting and turning of the quilt.  There's a lot of love going into this quilt!  I have one more side to go and then on to binding!

Where's John?

It is so dang hot and humid around here!  I barely move and am certainly not getting much done!

I felt sorry for John because his fur was getting so long so I asked the vet if his staff would give John a shampoo and trim.  John is the first dog I've ever owned that needs "grooming".  Choco and our dog, Shoko before her were short haired, Pointer type dogs.  John has the flowing wavy fur that is supposed to flutter in the breeze I guess but actually it only gets matted.  John is NOT happy about getting brushed.

I took John to the vets (he sits in the back of the car happily now!  No carrier!) and the trimmer asked if she should cut back the trim around John's tummy.  

"Oh, please take that frill off his tail too...  And around his ears...  Oh, and around his paws!  Just take it all off!  He just collects leaves and stickers and he won't let me touch him."  

She was a bit surprised but I left him in her care and my vet brought him home to me when she came over for some English time.

"John!  You're so handsome!"

All that fur is gone now from around John's feet and it is amazing how stocky his short little legs look now.  Gone are all the curly waves.  But he looks cute and he has a nice new summery bandana now!

He HAD a nice new summery bandana.  It fell off a couple of days later and when I showed it to John and asked if he wanted me tie it back on, he came right over, let me slip it around his neck...  and then tried to BITE me!  BAD DOG!!!  I sure can't read my dog's messages very well.  More likely, he is such a mixed up dog that he doesn't know what he wants himself!

Another shot of John when we were out on a walk.  One of the walks that I had to bribe John to join me on.  He is not fond of going for a walk and when I suggest it he will look down at the floor and take a glance at me out of the corner of his eye and then go pout in his circle. 

 

Yesterday John wouldn't join me for a walk so I headed out on my own.  Two of my neighbors were walking towards a field...

 

"Where's John?"

 

I explained how he didn't like walks.

 

Once at the field the farmer stands up and asks concerned,

 

"Where's John?"

 

I explained again.

 

I waved goodbye to everybody and continued on my walk but pretty soon a car pulled up beside me and the driver leans out of her car window.

 

"Where's your dog?"

 

Another explanation.

 

And to make my round complete I headed over to the cemetery where one the office workers was  outside smoking a cigarette.

 

"Where's your dog?"

 

Another quick explanation.

 

It is nice that so many people take an interest in John's walking habits.  Too bad John himself doesn't take the same interest...

Outdoors

I had a nice long chat with Takumi today and he asked me what we were up to.  I was telling him all about Tetsu's activities and realized that Tetsu gets a lot more done in a day than I do!

Tetsu goes out around 10:00 every morning and does yard work.  And not just our yard!  He joined a volunteer group and he and 4 or 5 other people do weed whacking for some of the older people in our neighborhood.  His volunteer group has torn down old sheds and cut tree branches and do some weeding.

Separate from the volunteer group, Tetsu "volunteers" to cut the weeds along the road in back of our house.  In former years this wasn't such a big job, but as the forest was cut down last year, the weeds along the road get so much light that they thrive at an alarming rate.  Tetsu feels all the weeds narrows the road and makes it difficult for cars to pass at the turnouts closer to the fields (they can't pass right here!  The road isn't wide enough for two cars!)  This is the road after Tetsu has cut the weeds on both sides of the road.  Even though there is the blue fence there, the weeds grow OVER it from the other side and tumble into the street!  To do this stretch of land it takes Tetsu at least three days....

At home Tetsu has been climbing ladders to trim our trees... 

And working in his garden.  He's back there somewhere...  Remember, this is actually not our garden.  Our lot ends before that grass begins.  From the grass onward is part of the old forest.  Actually the flowers aren't looking so great right now partly because of overgrowth all around and partly because most of the plants were adopted.  

A whole lot of the plants Tetsu just moved from the forest and arranged them in the garden.  He's move 10's of these plants because they give some greenery and this season they are blooming!  Most of the rest of the plants are "rescue" plants...  The home and gardening section of one of Tetsu's favorites stores puts flats of unsold, bedraggled plants on sale for 20 for $5 or something and Tetsu's made at least 5 trips to bring home unwanted plants.  That adds up to a lot of bedraggled flowers!

But Tetsu is most proud of his vegetables though he hasn't gotten quite as much as a harvest as he'd hoped... 

Green peppers.

Pumpkin.

Actually a couple types of pumpkin.

Okra.

Eggplant.
Cucumbers...  Tomatoes (that were all green today) and Edamame which we ate before I remembered I wanted to take a picture.

I go out occasionally and pick these burdock root leaves to serve with noodles or in a salad.  The red ones could be used for pickled salted plums but I don't make those...

The only other chore I do in the Tetsu's garden is to pick blueberries!  We got so many this year and I just pick them and freeze them. 

After working outside for 6 hours Tetsu's finally ready to come in and shower, change, eat and then take a long nap!