Tonight, I don’t think of what to write for posting. My (ex)students can tell where the photos were taken.
It’s a little sad to say, but it seems to me they are things happened long time ago.
Three Photos in mid-October, Two Years ago
カテゴリー: Photographs
I found Two Roses blooming in my Garden. What a Peaceful Autumn Day
I worked in my garden in the morning hours, went to a supermarket for shopping in the afternoon, practiced piano at 4p.m., and cooked supper. Now today is going to end.
Oh, by the way, I wrapped one persimmon three days ago in order to get rid of bitterness. I didn’t expect, but it had turned to be soft. If I had waited some days more, it would have melted. So, I have already eaten it just before. It was not good. Soft but not sweet. I guess that is because the persimmon was not ripened well. I will try again to remove bitterness of persimmons with fully yellow one.
Cooking from Scratch
I cook for me and my old mother every day. What I always try in my cooking is to avoid a processed food and to cook from the scratch. I go to a supermarket frequently and always buy food that is natural ingredients. I need to buy vegetables, fruits, fishes, egg, meat, and so on. luckily enough, I don’t need to buy green vegetables recently, because I can get them from my garden.
Daikon leaves eventually become too hard to chew. So, it is important to use young leaves by thinning in early stage of their growing
I cook, because my mother can no longer cook, though it is still okay for her to boil water with a kettle, and to wash the dishes. Old people gradually lose their functions in daily life. It is more obvious in the case of dementia. The important thing is to let them do what they can do by using their remaining functions. My mother still has one important function, that is shopping. She can go to a supermarket and a convenience store nearby (, though she uses cash).
Going shopping by herself is basically good, however, here’s another problem. She buys what she wants to eat like oily food and/or processed food which her son is trying to avoid. When she comes back home, she shows me what she bought. And I always see those unhealthy foods. I wonder what is inside salad which says its expiry is the morning of the day after tomorrow. I feel the taste of chemical preservatives whenever eating a such salad.
It seems that most people like the taste of processed food of convenience stores. But I don’t like them. For me, taste of those foods is just of chemical seasonings. Therefore, I cook by myself from the scratch with natural ingredients.
Summer-only Menu “Chilled Noodle – Hiyashi Chuuka” is still available in October
I went to a town next to my village today. I had to go to the branch office of the city hall to get the national ID card of mine. The card is called “Mai Nambaa Caado (my number card)”, which is often shortened as “Maina Caado”. This “Maina” sounds like “Minor”, but nothing has to do with minority kind of things.
I got on a local train to go the next town.
On the way, I found a facility to serve drinking water. But is there anyone who drinks water here?
After I got the card, I walked to back to the JR station. I know there is a shrine near the railway, but today was the first time for me to visit this shrine.
Today was a windy day. These wind chimes were making sounds with wind blow. I didn’t know why there were so many wind chimes in this shrine.
I wanted to eat a hot Rahmen for my lunch. But I found that the chilled noodle was still available. The Hiyashi Chuuka is summer-only menu, but now it’s month of October. I guessed they were still serving it because the summer of this year has been too hot and lasted long.
A single fruit of Persimmon, if it falls into the Earth
I found that a persimmon fell onto the ground in my garden this morning. Since its color was not orange but pale yellow, the fruit had not ripened enough yet. Although I was going to throw it at first, but changed my mind and decided to remove bitterness. I am expecting that I will be able to get some 20-30 fruits of persimmon within a month. Even though it’s just one persimmon, I thought it could be a practice of removing bitterness from persimmons.
Let me wait for ten days. I will post about if it has become sweet or not.
Shiso seeds pickled in soy sauce
Shiso is a plant that is often used in Japanese food. We like its color and flavor. There are two types with purple and green leaves. I don’t grow them, but purple and green Shiso are in my garden as weeds. Today, I picked up some seeds and pickled them with soy sauce.
By the way, the following is an episode when my grandma on father’s side died. She was a mother of five sons. After the funeral, people shared her relics. To do that, sons’ wives took what they wanted in the order from the first son, second, third, fourth, and fifth. My father was the third son. When my mother’s turn came, the first son’s wife and the second son’s wife had already taken valuable relics. Only “Shiso seeds pickled in soy sauce” remained there. So, my mother took it. I don’t know what the fourth and fifth wives got, but anyway, shiso seeds are not valuable stuff at all.
I confirmed this episode at the supper tonight. My mother said that she has a different personality from the first and second sons’ wives, so she didn’t care at all.
Today I made it. I will wait two or three days to make the taste better. Surely I will eat it putting on a white and hot rice.
40-Minute Walk under Cloudy Sky in Sunday Afternoon
I made Three Bottles of Apple Jam using “Kougyoku” that I got in my Garden
An apple “Kougyoku” is a little sour. The apples are suitable to be processed with heat, rather than eating fresh. Since I had put three of them in refrigerator, I made jam in the early evening today.
There are many ways to make apple jam. Today I made it by grating the apples. Apple peels are rich in pectin, so, I wanted to use those peels in the jam.
Many cooking recipes on the web say that sugar must be 50 percent of weight. But I am not sure about this 50%; Is it 50% of weight of fruits, or 50% of the entire weight of jam? Anyway, I don’t have a cooking scale, so, I just put a lot of sugar in the pan by intuition. I think the sugar must be 50% of the weight of the jam in order to keep the jam longer.
Though I forgot to take a picture, I did “boiling disinfection”. I closed the lids of bottle loosely, put the bottles in a big pan, boiled water in the pan with gas fire, and then closed the lids tightly by my hands with gloves.
I got three bottles. I will use them for toast of my breakfast from tomorrow morning. It will save some cost of living.
Some have been harvested, some haven’t in the Rice Fields of Niigata, Northern part of JAPAN.
Today’s highest temperature was 31 Celsius degrees. It was still hot. But since tomorrow, the highest temperature will be below 30 Celsius, according to the weather forecast. Will it be the end of summer? I hope so. This summer was an extraordinary hot one. I have been feeling very bad through this summer because of the heat. I hope I will be able to be more active in this fall.
Nothing has to do with rice fields in Niigata, but I found a photo that I took just one year ago, on September 17, 2024. It’s “MOONCAKE”. I bought it in the supermarket in the campus.
Learning how to teach after quitting the job as a teacher
Today, in the morning, I worked in my field. When it comes to growing vegetables in this autumn season, there is not much thing remaining. But I still have one thing to do. That is to plant onion’s seedlings and garlic’s bulbs. In order to plant them, I need to make one more ridge in the field. It will be five meter long; three meters for onions and two meters for garlic. What is tough is to get rid of roots of weeds from the place for the ridge and furrow. Since the place had been untouched for two years, now weeds’ roots in the ground are like spaghetti.
I worked in the field from 8 to 9:30 am. and then I got shower. From 10, I was watching a DVD that is about teaching Japanese as a second language. Actually, I had brought those DVD with me to the campus during the years I was teaching in a university. Watching the DVD today, I regret that I should have watched while I was teaching in the university. There are a lot of tips for teachers to teach a foreign language. For example, there is a concept of MMC for beginner’s level; the first M is mechanical training, the second M stands for meaningful training, and C for communicative activities. Did I do that? Usually, I didn’t extend my teaching to communicative activities. And there was no clear distinction between mechanical and meaningful trainings in my teaching. I would like to improve my teaching skill, but I don’t see any chance to apply improvements to my teaching in the future. I have already retired from the job as a Japanese teacher.
I had planned to go shopping in the afternoon. But it was hot like 34 Celsius degrees. So, I didn’t go to a supermarket, but continued to watch the DVD about teaching Japanese in the afternoon. I practiced my piano from 4 to 5 pm, cooked a supper from 5, had the supper at 6:30, and then I went shopping. I got back home at 8 pm, and started writing this.
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 