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.

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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!