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New “headshot”
I’ll be leading a couple of workshops at FEW Japan’s FEWture Conference on June 7th. It’s a one-day extravaganza for women executives in Japan and this year’s theme is diversity and inclusivity among women. Today they needed a bio from me and a headshot. The bio was easy; I love writing bios for myself and…
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Figuring out the gardening
Yesterday Tod and I planted potatoes in the hatake. It’s a bit late, but I hope they will still be okay. Once they were in the ground, I started to think about the rest of the field and what I might try planting. The monkeys and boars would enjoy most of what I would prefer…
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Roundup of Little Bits
None of these things is worth a full blog post, but they paint a picture of life here in this winter-into-spring season. Little bits that I want to remember later. Yesterday I hauled out my sewing machines for some play time. The serger is acting up (the lower looper won’t stay threaded, so clearly I…
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Long walk between rains
Kali came to visit this long weekend and though it rained on Friday and poured on Sunday, Saturday was a lovely day. We decided to head up to Futatsuyama from home. It’s about an hour’s walk one way if you aren’t rushing, and we weren’t. Most of the journey is a paved country road, narrow…
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Flea Season
Forget spring, what we really have is flea and tick season. After yesterday’s tick bite on my leg, I went on alert and sure enough, I caught a little tiny tickling wandering on Maura’s fur in the evening. I combed him carefully and found two fleas as well. Great… Flea combing the cats is a…
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Two Mice & a Tick
Here in Japan, spring has several heralds: Here at 555, I have additional metrics based in nature. MOUSE #1I was doing a crossword puzzle after dinner when I heard the cadence of a cat with a mission. There’s a certain pattern to Maura’s movement when he has caught a snack. Fast and steady steps, low…
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Ideas in Dreams
A while back, I had a dream that I was attending an event held by an author. I woke up with the recognition that everything in the dream was my actual creation. I mean, it seems obvious, right? But this dream pushed a lot of my buttons. The main character was a pastiche of successful…
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21 Huron Circle
I learned this week that my childhood home burned down in April 2022. It was a sad moment to take in and I am still feeling moody. Even though my parents moved away in 1989 while I was in college – over 35 years ago – 21 Huron Circle was an anchor of memories and…
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Knowing Foreigners
I read an interesting article last week in the Japan Times reporting on a survey of Japanese people in rural areas regarding their (lack of) interactions with foreigners. I am pasting the whole thing here to be able to reference is again in a decade: A recent survey has shown Japanese people who reside outside…
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Fixing the holes
I am not a farmer, but today I did some pleasurable field work; I helped to fill in the holes formed by erosion in the irrigation system at Oyama Senmaida. There were six of us working today. My goal was to watch and learn and be as useful as possible. I was on “B Team”…
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