2026 Somei Yoshino Sakura blooms

Our Somei Yoshino Sakura tree in full bloom. 
 うちのソメイヨシノの満開です。

Walking the hills in early May 2012...

Lovely weather these few days with early morning temperatures in the low teens and afternoon temperatures in the low twenties... 

And spring is such a lovely time to walk the hills to enjoy wonderful views such as those provided by this field of mustard flowers...

Our attention turned to the several Japanese black kites hovering over an open field...

And woah, they were zeroing on this tanuki （狸） or badger that they had probably killed...

Life is tough, even for these wild life...

The intestines looked fresh so I imagined the kites just made the kill some moments before we came by...

My suweeto haato said 'don't put this picture up... or all your readers will abandon you'...

Our walk always bring us pass this O-Jizoa (地蔵) which is like a guardian deity for children...

The folks in the neighborhood always decorate this deity with flowers...

And repetitive as it may seem, we never fail to pause and gaze at how our house looks like from the lookout point up at the hills...

Sakuras in full glory...

The weekend of 14th and 15th April was pure bliss...

Our Somei-yoshino sakura tree, in full bloom... and cloudless blue skies in the backdrop...

This angle probably captivates me the most...   

But this angle too, is equally nice...

Move a few steps, and we see onions and rape flowers in the field...

Still, the water body beckons...

Now, my missus says the top picture is the best...

and I wouldn't argue with that either...

The Somei-yoshino sakura is purportedly the most popular sakura in all Japan...

It is a hybrid between two (wild) species, the Oshima sakura (found around Izu area) and the Ezo-higan sakura (found in Hokkaido)... 

A 'gift' for our 26th wedding anniversary...

Got back from Calgary a week ago...

Calgary was time well spent... the meetings went very well, and our counterparts were such excellent hosts... 

On the drive back home from Takamatsu Airport, the 'Grasshopper' swayed at a corner... 

And woah, discovered the following day that the left rear tire was punctured by a nail...

Which gave me the first opportunity ever, to change a flat tire that afternoon...

But I digress...

The main story of this post revolves around our 26th wedding anniversary on 3rd April...
Years ago, I had totally forgotten to wish 'happy wedding anniversary' to my suweeto haato... wooh, that experience was frightening...
It led me to engage electronic calendars to send me reminders...
And shortly thereafter, I started to draw illustrative cards for my suweeto haato...
What do you folks think of the above illustration? :-)

And yes, the 'gift' from the heavens on our 26th anniversary...
Strong, strong, strong winds came by and swooshed across the Japanese archipelago...
Winds, stronger than that of typhoons... 
The last time this weather phenomenon happened was 58 years ago...

Our poor 'symbol' tree, (Mominoki or Japanese cypress) could not withstand the winds any longer... 
I was at the university, and my missus could only helplessly watch as the tall tree fell over, taking with it our bamboo fence...

Now, just a day before, she was commenting to me on how the tree was slanting...
I could only managed a 'hmmm'...

And for months years, she had reminded me more than once to chop the tree...
It might fall over and hit our house... she said...
(Luckily when it did, it missed our house and our car too.)

But husbands being husbands, the only logical answer from yours truly was: 'hmmm, perhaps later'...
(Lesson learned, again... listen to the wife!)

That tree was ten meters tall...
It took me two hours just to chop off the branches and free the plants (roses, rosemary, jasmine, etc...) that were trapped below...

Well, on a bright side, my missus was telling me that she wanted a Daidai 橙 sour orange (Citrus aurantium) plant in our garden...

I had said ok, and I was looking for a suitable place to plant it... a place with full sun, and a place that is nearby so that we can enjoy smelling the flagrance of the flowers...

Looks like we have found the perfect spot in the space vacated by the fallen tree... 

Thankfully, the 'unfortunate' event is not totally that 'unfortunate' after all...

Clearing granite stones from our garden Part 1

The big granite stones in our garden have been on my for a long time...

How to get rid of them, that is...

They are taking a lot of precious space and I need the space to work on...

Had been asking an acquaintance of mine to take them away...

He finally came, after about one and half years later...

Was fascinated with this one machine he brought...

It was very compact, and when he got it to spread out, woah... a spider-looking workhorse it turned out to be...

The stones were mainly from the leftovers of material used to construct the stone walls in our garden...

Most of them were of the 200 to 300 kilogram range, according to my friend...

His specialty is actually in chiseling grave stones...

All in all, he came on three occasions, each time working for about half a day...

(Part two here)

Rained out on the weekend...

The raining season has just started...
Coincidentally, a typhoon was approaching and the combined effect was continuous rain for the last few days...
Went out to my potager and was surprised to find that water was vigorously running underneath the surface of one of the vegetable beds...
I hope that portion of the potager will not collapse... 

So, with the rain not stopping, what to do but to take pictures...
This is the scene from our hall, looking outwards to the garden...
It is just wet, wet, and wet... 

Being indoors also allowed me to do something that I had wanted to do for a while...
That is, to learn how to make muffins from my sweeto haato...
Under her supervision, this is my 'masterpiece' rum raisin muffin...
Made 10 of them and they taste really good... 

Also learned from my missus how to make cookies...
We use fresh rose geranium leaves from our potager..
They give out a fragrance just like the rose...
I shall be bringing these to my office to gnaw during the tea breaks...

As in almost all weekends, my request for lunch is noodles...
I am feeling hungry again as I hit the PC keys...
Definitely can't get this combination from anywhere in the world... 

Bought some more equipment for chopping wood for our wood stove...
A 3.6 kilogram hammer, two splitting wedges (1.5 kilogram and 1.0 kilogram)...
These come in handy for wood that are too 'stubborn' for the splitting maul to handle...
Was pleased to see DQ Farms buying the same axe as I did...

On track for wood stove

Considering that we are in the middle of winter, I must say that the sky today was 'bluer' than blue...
The temperature was a chilly 3 degrees, yet I could not resist myself from going outside...
The picture above shows our house on the left, and the Japan Inland Sea on the right...
The foreground is our potager...

Sakuras a-blooming

Sakura blooms normally last about a week.
This year, due to the rather unusual cold and rainy weather, it was reported that blooms stayed on for up to 15 days.
The sakura tree in our compound normally begins to bloom a few days 'late'.
So we get the pleasure of seeing the flowers even after the other sakura trees shed their petals.
This last weekend, we took a walk in the woods on the east side of our house.
It was actually the first time for me to walk over there.
And the view of the sakura tree and our house from there was quite magnificent, I must say...

We paused for a while to enjoy a view of the hamlet...

Kites (top right) are very common here.

Was 'lucky' to see two of them copulating just meters away from my vegetable garden the other day.

It was over in perhaps 30 seconds. 

Meanwhile, planted black soy bean seeds, sweet corn seeds, and sponge gourd seeds. 

Some of the seeds I planted last week are already sprouting... wooh...

HOUSE FROM THE EAST SIDE

Here is a shot taken from the east side of the house...

Notice the three levels of roofs?

The lowest roof is where the Japanese Tea Room is...

We are planning to rip off the roof and put a terrace there...

That's the spot where the early morning sun shines and we want to be there... gazing out at the hills and the sea...

Hopefully, we can have breakfast there soon...

See that chimney?

Don't know why, but it is just a decor...

AJI HOUSE, FROM THE SOUTH-SIDE LOWS

Shot from a low viewpoint, from the south-side just as in this shot...

Weather condition, cloudy with intermittent blue skies...

Time of the year, mid-April...

Somei-yoshino in full bloom... wooh...

Frontview is Lrong, I mean, Sasao Pond...