Watering

Our vegetable stand man watered something with a water can. It was the first time I've seen him water anything. (We're usually gone during the summer.)

The hose got away from him here in a different field! Maybe he should stick with the water can.

In the Middle of a Pond

Can you tell what this is for? Click on the photo to enlarge it. This photo was taken at Fuchunomori Park.

Skipper on Meadow Sage

Naomi Kojima SCBWI Workshop

Writer and illustrator Naomi Kojima held a workshop for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, SCBWI Tokyo. Here are the books she has published.

At the workshop, she had us make a picture book dummy, a practice book. An illustrator divides a story into 32 pages for a picture book and decides what to draw. It was hard work dividing a story into 32 pages! But it was fun!

Here are posts about two of Naomi Kojima's books:

Singing Shijimi Clams

Christmas Song Book

Taking Care of the Broccoli

Everything has its place

I've never seen this before--a separate garbage can for

bottle tops.

Stands for the Rain

A couple of umbrella stands were out in front of shops today. It only sprinkled for a little while.

Shell

You can see through its eye! The cicada shed this outer shell. See the split on top of the back? Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Look! There was a "shell" over its eyes. It sure left a lot of details behind. Look how fuzzy it was!

Our Vegetable Stand on WoWoW

Looking out our kitchen window around lunch time, I discovered a circle of people in front of our neighborhood vegetable stand. As it turns out, they were filming for the Japanese cable TV channel WoWoW. I'll try to find out more about it. Our neighborhood vegetable stand will be famous!

The vegetable stand man left to work in the fields.

Here is the director and one of his assistants. They are watching the tape of the scenes they filmed.

Here's the camera crew.

The actors are right in front of the vegetable stand. In one scene the older man went up and pointed to something on the wooden sign. That sign was one of their props.

Equipment.

Click on the label below to see more about our neighborhood vegetable stands or here for the most recent post about our vegetable stand.

Baskets of Stones

These were stacked along the train tracks. Not sure why. There are stones scattered along the train tracks. Click on the photo to enlarge it.

P.S. I was further down the line and there were no stones along the track because they were working on it. So these were probably the stones they moved.

Delicious Summer Homework

Part of Little Brother's 8th grade summer homework was to make dinner. He made spaghetti with zucchini, green pepper, eggplant, onions and basil tomato sauce. He also made a salad with cucumber and cherry tomatoes. He had to take a picture, paste it on a paper and write up the recipe. It was due on on September 1 when he went back to school. I'm late posting this.

Wakame Rice--Earthquake Supplies

Today was the anniversary of the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923. There are disaster drills across the city every year. It is the first day of school after the summer break and students participate in drills.

There are displays of earthquake supplies and equipment in stores. I bought some new packaged food to store in our shed. This is wakame rice. The expiration date is June 2014!

Just pour hot water in . Wait and eat from the package. Check out the labels below for more information about earthquakes and wakame.

Check this post about The Wakame Gatherers a picture book by Holly Thompson and Kazumi Wilds.

Kids Web Japan--September 1 Disaster Prevention Day

End of Summer Sale--Shiso Pepsi

I posted about shiso and shiso Pepsi here. Today, I found some on a sale table at the grocery store. We had it with lunch. Though it's not one of our favorites, it is refreshing. Like the cucumber Pepsi in the summer of 2007.

Today is cold and rainy. A typhoon is supposed to hit Tokyo this afternoon. It is a day for drinking hot green tea.

Re-using

I never noticed these hanging on the side of our neighborhood vegetable stand.

They are silk braids used as borders on tatami mats.

Our vegetable stand man used them to build and reinforce his vegetable stand.

He tied this pole to a tree.

His stand is closed for lunch.

Check out this post to see the braids on tatami.

Birds? Planes?

Look closely or scroll down to the next picture.

Actually, they are butterflies at the end of a butterfly dance. These florescent turquoise butterflies started here in this field. They fluttered around each other before one started flying up into the air. The other one flew circles around it before flying away in the opposite direction.

Train Crossing

The sign warns that there is a train crossing ahead. That is an overpass for cars in the background. Click on the labels below for more about trains.