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Pettiness of cats
Maura and Beryl are frenemies. Each wants to be top cat and they try to dominate one another in various ways, usually involving food or my attention. Beryl blocks Maura from his food bowl; Maura skippity-paps her as she passes by him. Fur rarely flies, but they behave in the most petty ways. This morning
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Torch Night 2025
For several years running, Minorigaoka High School in Tokyo has sent 200+ students to Oyama Senmaida as part of an epic field trip. They are with us for two half-days – first lighting fire torches in the rice paddies and then making straw turtles together the next morning. It’s an all-hands-on-deck week as we get
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Perfect 36?
Happy anniversary to us, again. With a typhoon blowing in, we didn’t make elaborate plans but we had a three-day weekend to fill. We chose quiet, mundane adventures near home. Saturday The day’s cold rain made me want an onsen bath. We headed down to Tateyama for a soak at Satomi no Yu with a
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Camera Roll
Time for another photo dump of my Instagram Stories. Here are some scenes of daily life from the past month, in reverse chronological order. It’s been a good month of early autumn weather, making color, teaching art, and noticing the small joys of each day. Also, cats. The praying mantis ran up my arm like
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SOLD: International Marriage
Not the way you think. It’s an artwork. I rarely put my work up for sale. A combination of imposter syndrome, unfair comparisons to other artists, and fear of rejection/judgement put the brakes on my reaching my potential as a capital A artist. Because I didn’t go to art school. I am not cool. I’m
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Harvesting cotton
Yesterday was the latest installment of the Wata-Ai Trust at Oyama Senmaida. As usual, we did field work in the morning and craft in the afternoon. Our morning activity was harvesting cotton. It was hot work. I figured out some efficient techniques for plucking the bolls and got as much picked as quickly possible while
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The Cool Change
It has been a brutally hot, record-breaking summer again. Our home weather station recorded a high of 38.2°C (101°F) on August 30th and a “feels like” high of 53.9°C (129°F) on August 18th. But yesterday the heat broke and we saw our first sub-20°C (68°F) overnight temperature since mid-June. Now we’ll be in a slowly
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Camera Roll
Summer has flown by in a haze of herniated disc pain and heat exhaustion, both of which are finally subsiding. Despite being housebound for most of two months, I captured some of the beauty in my world. Let me share it with you via all the Instagram Stories I’ve posted.
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Two new books
I have a thorough introductory post over on the Ending Note website, and I also wanted to note today’s triumph here, too. Last December I wrote about “ending notes” – how I wanted to completed one but the Japanese versions weren’t adequate. Then I spent 9 months (on and off) creating one that is adequate:
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“Have a Good Rest of Your Day”
This phrase has been niggling at me a little. Why not use the old standby of “Have a good day! 😀”? Trite and polite. What’s up with “rest of your”? Why? This seems tortuous. Over-thought. There is nothing wrong with the simpler version. (Allow me to rattle my cane as I say that.) But maybe
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