Are you OK?

Though sometimes it get cool (or cold) , mostly it is warm or hot. So another morning job is added. It is to water the garden. This morning I started watering the garden without any care. Suddnely under the SANSYO tree (Japanese pepper tree) something black came out. It was a black butter fly. It seemed to be too soaked to fly. It flaped its wings hardly to dry them. After a while it started to walk and held on the grass. It opend the wings widely and staned still. Are you OK?

Roses are blomming

This season here and there we see roses. Some people are Rose-Lovers. I'm not, and what's more I'm not good at gardening. Never the less this spring my roses are blomming. my neighborhoods prased me? no the roses.

I thought the reason why this season the roses bloomed more beautiful than usual year.
At first last year a gardener pruned the roases with accuracy. The second, a friend of mine came in eary spring and sprayed repelent? on it, and gave the left to me. So I sometems sprayed. it means I took it care often.

Now roses are blooming. Even my hushand who is not interesed in garden is surprised.

belated Mother's Day

Do you remember that? Last weekt it was Mother's Day, but my daughter forgot buying my favorite chocolate though she show her thanks, and my husband bought for us? more beer for dinner.

But yesterday I was really surprised. Yesterday I was out all the day. And when I got home my daughter was "cooking" for dinner. And there were some carnations on the table.

During the last week she was taking midterm exam at school, so according to her she couldn't afford to think about Mother's day. And she also said " you big sigh put a lot of pressure on me."

So she decided to cook for yesterday's dinner.

And what made her surprised was that bunchs of carnation were sold at half price. So she also bouht this carnation.

It was realy nice dinner time.

Well, she also said "I'll celbrate Father's day a week later of the day, because then bunches of yellow roses will be sold at half price too."

Well the dish is "her" favorite curry and rice.

charcole

As everybody knows charcole used to use as a main fuel for a long time. Now in Japan it is also used in various way but in quite different way.

Of course when we barbecue outside, some people use it. And at a Japanese green tea ceremony "charcole" plays a realy inportant part. This charcole is really expencive and the quaillty is really good . It needs many process for only charcole to be able to play as the charcole used at a Japanese green tea ceremony.

Well, I also use charcole in various way at home.

Charcole is said to absorb odors, so I put a piece of charcole in the frige.

Or Charcoleis said to absorb chlorine, so I put some pieces of charcole in the bath tub when I put water in the tub.

Charcole is said to make somthing soft. So when I cook rice I put a piece of charcole in the cooker, and when I boil water for speacial tea I put one in the kettle. In this case I use bamboo charcole.

It is said that we can use charcoal permanetly.BUT We need to rinse it sometimes to take off dust or something. BUT be careful not to use soap. After washingwe need to dry it in the sun. Charcoal is made from wood, so while we use it, it tends to easy to crack because of dryness and weathering.Fresh charcoal has good smell, if you enjoy the smell you should change it often. I change it once every two or three months. Becayse it is troublesome to rinse and dry it in the sun.

Have you experienced such a thing?

Have you experienced that though it looked bad, it turned out to be delicious when you actually tried? Figs. I thought it looked yuck, but I tried a ripe fig and I knew it was tasty. And I’ll tell another experience. Until I came here I haven’t had fish in river like AYU, YAMAME, IYANA, etc, which is called freshwater fish. This area there are many clean rivers near by, though we can’t to walk there it’s too far. We went to a river about 15 years ago. I saw “YANA”; a kind of trap. It was really huge. And I ate AYU grilled by charcoal. It was really delicious. Since then it is one of my seasonable fun to go there and eat fresh AYU, though I never buy the fish at store.
And this time I got this powder of rose hip. Probably I’ve had a tea of rose hip by teabag. I’ve thought it was a kind of herb “leaves”. But this I time I knew they were “hips”. (I knew the mean of “hips” this time.) It looks like Shichimi; a kind of Japanese Chile pepper, or powder of Japanese Umeboshi. Looks not so delicious. I tried. Ice smell, and tastes not so bad. It suits to a table spoon of honey. And according to the direction I ate the rest of powder of hips. The taste was --- so-so. But it is said to be good weaken eyes. I hope it works to get slow to proceed my presbyopia (my eyes are getting weak because of aging).

Last YUZU KOSYOU

Today's OBENTU is "NORIBEN". "NORIBEN" is rice covered with NORI (sea weed, you can see somthing black.)
Between NORI and rice I put dried bonito and YUZU KOSYOU. Do you remember YUZU KOSYOU? Since last fall we keep a jar of YUZU KOSYOU all the time. But it is the last jar of YUZU KOSYOU. Though I buy them from my friend who made them by her self, her stock has all gone. And rain season is coming so she doesn't make them no longer. We use YUZU KOSYOU for many things, NABE (pot food), noodle, spaghetti, rice ball, griled somthing. Thank you YUZU KOSYOU. We are looking forward to see them next fall. The firend said the trees of YUZU have lots of fresh gree leaves.

Mother's Day

It was Mother's Day today. During the last week I let my students make this chop sitck bag with a paper carnation for their mothers. Every student seemed to enjoy the craft. I hope they use it for today's dinner.
Actually I used it for myself for today's dinner, though my family was laughing.
This year unfortunately I got no present. When my daughter left home this morning, she said "I'll buy chocolate for you!". But as my exepctation she forgot. Anyway they expressed their thanks to me. That's enough. Oops, I almost forgot to say. My husanband bougnt beer more than usual to celebrate this day, though it means he was able to drink beer more than usual.

How many times did the weather change, yesterday?

According to the weather report, yesterday it was said to be rainy. And actually it rained from the evening. Anyway it was a terrible weather yesterday.
In the morning it was calm. I watered the plans in the morning. Before the lesson, my student who is a woman and older than I , enjoyed the Clmeatis. When she was about to come home the sky began to get black. And Just as next students came it rained and blew the wind heavily and thundered. So some students were wet, I got them dry by towel.
When the last student's lesson was finished, thunder was stopped, but it drizzled.
My daughter came home by bike, of course she was soaked.
So she soaked her in the hot tab for a while. (so my bathtime was so late.)
But when my husband came, it was calm night again.
He went to TOKYO on a business trip, he did't meet rain , like me. (because I was staying home all day.)

Thunder, it was one of famous things in this area.

Clematis are blomming

Last May I planted this seedlingng of Clematis in my garden recommending it from my friend who is a gardening-addict. And this may it opend big flowers contrary to our expectations. Today the friend is going to come to see them.

Under the Clematis JYUNIHOTOE (I don't know the English name) is also bloming as beautiful undergrowth.

Now our garden is the best beautiful in the year, not so mamy weeds, not so bugs.

After a while a rain season is coming, and the job I dislike is waiting for me -- weeding.

KUROMAI

I got this bag of KUROMAI. It looks like a little bigger black sesame, but it is a kind of rice (we can say glutinous rice. MOCHIGOME). We haven't eaten it. So I cooked it.

According to the instruction, We put two table spoons of KUROMAI into two cups of rice, and cooked.

Surprised! It got purple and sticky rice. Of course it's delicious.

I put it into today's daughter's lunchbox, and we ate for breakfast. And I made one riceball of it. Two cups of rice was gone.

I think we are into this KUROMAI for a while.

The second harvest

Yesterday I reaped MIZUNA again, and made salad with MIZUNA, tomatoes and grapefruit.

Only 15 days has passed since I reaped MIZUNA for the first time. It is growing rapdily. It is really useful plant, isn't it.

BUT compared with MIZUNA which is sold at store, our MIZUNA is a little bit bitter and leafish ; I don't know whether such word is resistered in the dictionary, anyway it is leaf rather than vegetable.

We went to TOKYO

Though Tokyo is my hometown, I've lived in Utsunomiya longer than in Tokyo. And the town of Tokyo has always changed. So the visit of Tokyo was like a sightseeing tour.

I met my elder daughter, and she said that she's seen Tokyo Tower from a window of bus, but she's never entered it.

So we went to Tokyo tower. But this week is "golden week"; consecutive holidays. It was really crowded. We had to wait for more than 2 hourse to enter it. So we gave up, just looked it up from the foot.

Then we went to Roppongi to see a new building which is called Tokyo Midtown, it opend recently. It was also very crowded.

So we dropped by a cafe and talked , talked, talked.

Now she seemed to enjoy the college life. She is dealing with metal this term.
Though I sometimes talked her with phone, I was really glad to talk her directly.

Well, while we were visiting Roppogi, my husband was weeding at his mother's house. He was really dutiful son, wasn't he? (He's never weeded in our garden.)

The former part of the one-week-holiday is finished

I'm fine, enjoying this big holiday, but exhausted. During the former part of this holiday, my mother was staying with us. I took her to lots of places; seeing wisterias in a flower park, appreciateing Ennin exhibition at an art museum, and diging bamboo shots at a bamboo shot farm. We walked walked and walked. So every night we went to a hot spring nearby.

And today my husband was at home, so he cleaned lights and changed the bulbs, repaired window screens, and gardened with me. He did housework with me. I was really happy.

Tomorrow, he is going to golf. I'm going to relax at home with my daughter. And the latter part of this holiday we are going to go to TOKYO to meet my elder daughter and my mother-in-law.

The first photo is a mauve wisterria, and the second photo is bamboo shot rice.