Cherry blossoms at night

I need to make a run into the next city over... This will be short.

Last night Tetsu and I were driving home from somewhere and we went looking for cherry blossoms that might be lit up. The cherry blossoms are there and in the main parks they are lit up, but the main parks have too many people and too much festivity. We were looking for some quiet place without a lot of hub-bub.

No.... no lights on the cherry blossom road. No lights at the residential park... but wait! Lit up cherry blossoms... at the... Jr. high school!

Actually the school was lit up for soccer practice and the cherry blossoms just got the benefit of back lighting. I tried my camera on dark and night mode... I guess I really need a tripod.

Friends?

Choco has lots of issues with strangers. Not even strangers! She just doesn't like some people!

Choco doesn't like children especially. And she doesn't like boys even more. And to say it plainly, she doesn't like Y-kun.

This does not faze Y-kun very much. He barges in the door and Choco starts barking from her cage.

"I'm going to tear this cage apart and get you!"

Y-kun clomps around the house chasing cats. This sets Choco off again.

"Why does Choco bark so much?"

"She thinks you make too much noise. She doesn't trust people very much. She's afraid you might hurt her."

"Do you think she'd learn to like me?"

"Um... Choco learned to like N-chan, the 6th grader... but N-chan sat quietly and talked to Choco and gave her snacks."

"I want to give Choco snacks!"

I supervised as Y-kun fed Choco snacks through the bars of her cage. And gradually Choco loosened up while Y-kun spent quite a long time (nearly 15 minutes) talking to Choco and poking his fingers through the cage.

"I don't think that is such a good idea. I don't want you trying to touch Choco when I'm not around."

But actually I could see that Choco was enjoying the attention. Pretty soon Y-kun was even able to "hold hands" (hold fingers) with Choco through the cage and pet her. Wow! I wouldn't have thought Y-kun would have the patience to make friends with Choco nor be able to be quiet for that long!

A bit later the other boys showed up. Y-kun went back to being his normal sassy self.

"Ha-ha-ha! I touched Choco. She and I are friends. She doesn't like you guys. She only likes me. Too bad for you!"

That hurt the other boys' pride.

"How did Y-kun become friends with Choco? Can we try?"

"Yeah, I heard that N-chan is the only person who has ever touched Choco."

"N-chan was bragging to me too that she could pet Choco. I can't believe Y-kun can too!"

It seems that Choco is a topic of conversation at the elementary school.

The other boys spent a minute or two feeding snacks to Choco but she'd had enough with boys for the evening.

"Bye Choco! I'll bring you snacks from home next week and we can be friends again!"

Y-kun went home happy. Choco slept well with a full tummy.

Tractors

I haven't been out and about much since spring vacation ended. As you know, I live with a forest on one side of me and a residential area on the other side... And behind all that are fields and fields and fields. My very own walking park!

The farmers mainly grow rice and the rice fields are being flooded this week. Later soy bean fields will be planted. Mostly soy beans for feed. Lotus root is another crop we see often and also leeks and green onions. In the hot houses are various leafy greens and bell-flowers.

Just walking one morning I realized how many tractors the farmers have to keep and how many different kinds there are. Some farmers have their own farm equipment some stored in sheds or under protective roofing, but I think the rice tractors are owned by cooperatives and the farmers take turns using the machinery. There is equipment for packing down the field edges, for turning the soil, for delicately planting rice sprouts and later for threshing and hulling the rice.

Today's pictures are some of the tractors along our morning walking route. I have absolutely no idea what they are used for. Any ideas? Sort of colorful and all the tractors look like they are looking forward to getting back to work.


One last picture that I took along a highway of a tractor rental place. I wonder how they got all their tractors up on the wall! Sort of an eye-catcher!

BLOCKHEADS

This year I am the neighborhood block head. (BLOCKHEAD!) This means I go around collecting homeowner fees every couple months, I pass around notices and memos from the community a couple times a week, I distribute pamphlets and schedules from the city offices monthly, and I attend regular meetings. I REALLY dislike being a block head (BLOCKHEAD!) but the job comes around to us every 7 years. Not too bad but nothing to look forward to.

Tetsu conveniently bows out of block head (BLOCKHEAD!) responsibilities. His logic is that if he goes to meetings or shows his face too much, then age-wise he would be handed chair responsibilities in the hierarchy of community service. He is not very fond of the homeowners association's politics... So he sends me... his foreign wife who isn't really very useful to the association.

Tanya can't lead meetings, she can't write reports, she's not even very good at calling people and asking (begging) for participation... (my formal, humble-style Japanese is not very good.) Thus I do my block head (BLOCKHEAD!) duties and the homeowners association doesn't try to involve me further.

This week I glanced at the city notices when I passed the block messages along.

Yuck. The district is allowing hunting again this spring, from next week to the middle of June. It is a war on the crows and wild ducks and herons that seek refuge in the rice fields and the forest. I am EXTREMELY ANTI-HUNTING! It breaks my heart to hear the rifles going off in the forest or see a duck drop down from the sky. STUPID! STUPID! STUPID!!

And there halfway down the city notice it said,

"Bird control and hunting will be allowed from April 29th to June 16th except for the week of May 4th to May 10th which is Bird Week."

BLOCKHEADS!

Cherry blossoms

I've got scenery pictures today. Gradually the cherry trees are blossoming farther and farther north. This week the trees are in bloom in Utsunomiya (but not yet in Nikko). Tetsu and I went to take some pictures.

Obviously this park is famous for its many cherry trees. Even over the small stream winding through the city, the little footbridge had cherry blossom decorations.

It was still early enough that the crowds weren't out yet. But different tents were being set up for selling noodles and skewered chicken and such. Various groups were already spreading out tarps and saving ground space for "Cherry Viewing Parties" to be held later in the day.

A neighborhood cat was enjoying cherry blossom viewing in his own way.

Can you see all those people on the left side of the picture? The railroad tracks were inundated with photographers vying for the most photogenic spot. On Sundays a steam locomotive comes down these tracks taking tourists and locomotive fans on a short but beautiful ride along Japanese countryside. And the cherry blossom season is considered the most beautiful! I sidled up to a couple of people camped out between two or three tripods and huge cameras with lenses as long as my arm.

"When does the locomotive come by here again?"

"Not until 3:30. (It was a bit before 12:00). If you want a good space you've got to claim it early."

Well, with all the professional cameras and decked out photographers I definitely felt small and measly with my toy camera (and I had been so proud of it a few minutes before!) I shuffled away and decided I couldn't complete with the serious camera people. Sorry. No locomotive picture. How about a picture of this morning's newspaper picture? Hey, maybe my camera can do that!

Japanese cherry blossoms are short lived, but that's what makes them all the more beautiful.

Friday progress

My friends Rumi-san and Mrs. Nakazawa came over on Friday for a bit of patchwork.

They both have so much homework that it is difficult for them to make progress in anything. But it is all of their own doing!

"Oh, this is so cute! I want to make this too!"

"That looks like it would be fun to make, can you make me a pattern for that?"

"If I'm going to make this quilt for myself, I'd like to make it for a friend too. I'll do double the work."

Rumi-san is working on a Bible quilt, a daisy quilt and a small applique wall hanging.

Mrs. Nakazawa is working on TWO Bible quilts, the same daisy quilt AND a cat quilt! Mrs. Nakazawa is my cat mentor.

Neither ladies have a sewing machine and Mrs. Nakazawa seems to think that the sewing machine I loaned her won't run unless I'm in the same room. She brought it back on Friday and did her sewing in my dining room.

And look what she got done on Friday! Isn't that adorable?! Oh, I wish I had joined her on this and had been working on the blocks along with her!!!

Oh this is going to be a winner!

Goldilocks

Well, our family has a new purchase.

20 some years ago, we moved into our house. And we had minimal furniture! But our American friends were returning to Washington (you met Evan earlier this week) and they gave us all the furniture they had used while living two years in Japan. Bookshelves, refrigerator, dining room set, closets, carpets, curtains and SOFA!

For 20 some years that sofa has served us well. But in the course of its life children have jumped on it, (I don't know how many English students I've had to scold about jumping on my sofa. Had they never seen one before? "A sofa is not a trampoline!"), and our old dog who was in diapers lived on it, cats have peed on it and scratched it and everyone of us has spilled something on it. All the stains and scratches proved our sofa was a vital part of our lives!

One year Tetsu decided the sofa was so dirty that he dragged it outside and hosed it down. Bad move. Now we had a dirty, smelly, sopping sofa and it didn't dry in the few hours out in the yard. The inner parts seemed to have been made with a lot cardboard and drenching that mess meant a dirty, smelly, sopping, LUMPY sofa... which eventually molded.... That was one of Tetsu's less brilliant ideas.

As a result of the hosing, the springs also rusted and would break regularly. And Tetsu, who felt responsible would turn the sofa upside down and tie the springs back together with twine and wire. I don't how many times I argued for a new sofa but he said "not with an old dog occupying it" and later "not with cats who will scratch it."

The dog has been gone nearly 8 years. The cats seem to be content scratching the walls. The sofa springs broke again.

"WE NEED A NEW SOFA!"

For the past couple of months we've been combing recycle shops. (We thought we would be less likely to get upset if the cats scratched a used sofa). Nothing suitable. Finally we found an outlet corner in a furniture store and much like Goldilocks we spent a few hours flopping down on various sofas.

"This one is too hard."

"This one is too low."

"This one is too narrow."

"This one is too cold. (I don't like Naugahyde.)

But I never said "This one is too big." In fact when it came to big I decided that since Tetsu is the only one who really uses the sofa (well, the cats claim it during the day) and he mainly SLEEPS on the sofa, then he needed BIG.

Yours truly chose the BIG sofa as a present to Tetsu.

True, it is a bit TOO big for our small living room. Tetsu is calling the new sofa "the Pacific Ocean"! It is long enough to spread out and sleep. It is comfy enough to get lost in the cushions. It is wide enough for four cats and two humans to relax on it at the same time.

And Tetsu LOVES it!

The cats are pretty happy too.