Our family adventure-organic farming in Japan

Happy Birthday to me!

2007-08-03T00:47:00.000+09:00

Okay, first things first, I'm grovelling on my knees to all of you who have faithfully checked this blog during months and months of inactivity! Not that I didn't want to be blogging, and many times composed posts that were never written, but one day leads to another in this resetting up our life process, and blogging just never gets to the top of the list. Not to mention that this includes also doing some rearranging emotionally and mentally, and sometimes that gives me writer's block. Yes, we are all fine, and good actually. Tio is 10 crawling, standing, teethy-grinning baby months old already! Sage, Kai and Lucas are three brown,(the line between dirt and sun is questionable:), happy, very busy boys, and the other boy, Kenji is a very busy man actually-remodelling the house we bought at all hours of the day, while trying to fit in work at my mom's bowling alley where he's learning maintenance on the bowling machines and enjoying working in such an environment, and of course being a daddy, not to mention helping a contractor friend for extra money on some weekends, back in our old hometown of Columbia. Occasionally casting a line in my parents' lake, oh, and tonight "cooking me a years' worth of a meal, so he'll be caught up". His back tightens up a few times a week and he'll need to take something to relax it, but it's so much improved, for which we are so thankful. I'm being mommy, what else would I be! And working at my old hospital Boone, in Columbia, a few shifts a month, while getting to stay with my sister and her family who live there, and occasionally visit friends. It sort of feels like a treat to me, while my family and Kenji keep all the boys:). We did swimming lessons this summer, Sage and Kai did wonderful and had a blast at the local pool, while Lucas and Tio enjoyed the baby pool. And the numerous family gatherings, I love being able to be close enough to do these, as well as be involved in the church my dad pastors. The boys love going to Sunday school, and Sage and Kai enjoy having Grandma Velma teach them there.

We are living with my parents, along with my youngest sister, at my childhood home, what fun! And I'm not being sarcastic, my little sis has been gone from the area since she got out of high school, out in Rhode Island. I didn't expect to ever live close to her again, and I'm so excited. She's the owner of the diner in the bowling alley, and she's working very hard to make a go of it, which isn't a piece of cake in a small town. She does a book club there once a month, which she convinced me to join, it's rare that either one of us get the book finished, but it's fun anyway. Last night she helped the boys to clean out our old, spidery, dusty playhouse. It's great to have aunts!

My parents and the rest of the family have been overwhelmingly helpful, we couldn't be doing what we're attempting without them, that's for sure. We bought 30 acres of land and a house the end of May, finding what we wanted sooner than we expected. The house, although sturdy and really fitting our needs, does need to be completely remodeled on the inside, and that's what has mainly consumed us since then, although we have many sidetracks of course! Mostly good ones at least. I go whenever I can to help, sometimes more than others, usually I can at least make it after the kids go to bed, when the two of us go and work for a few hours. The house is about 15 min. from my parents. We love the location, it's almost a mile off the main road on a semi-private drive(we share with one neighbor further on down-and an awesome one at that). A big yard surrounded by trees, and so many things we were looking for that i won't go into right now. God has been good. We're trying to do everything we can ourselves, with putting in a wood floor maybe being the only thing we get someone else to do. We get help from friends frequently, which is so nice! Our initial goal was to get in by Sept. so we could have the chaos behind us and jump into homeschooling the boys when public school starts, we may not make it, but goals are meant to be broken right? Mom's house has had years of homeschooling, so I'm trying not to get too worried. Anyway, there's always learning going on here, just not official, ha!

So, in case you've been out of the loop, yes, we came back from our adventure in Japan April 10th, and it's been a whirlwind since. It's been great to see family and friends again. I had no idea how the move back would affect any of us, and I still haven't processed it all as of yet. The kids have seemed to seamlessly integrate back into life here. It helps of course, that they were coming back to something they knew. Living with my family has kept them busy in relationships and doing things so much that they haven't really had time to miss things too much in Japan, although we hear comments here and there(which I'm glad for), nothing to keep them down. I have found it somewhat difficult to reconcile the completely different life, this makes me appreciate what missionaries go through, who experience this to a much greater extent than we have of course! Not that I can't just slip right back into life here, after all it's what I've lived for years, it's more the fact that I CAN, that somehow bothers me, I do like to have some problem to chew on after all! Japan and our life there feels light years away already somehow, and I don't really like that. I am so involved in life here trying to get settled in that I can't reconnect much and of course, my main link, email, I can't use to communicate to my Japanese friends and family unless I use Kenji's services, and he's far too busy, which means I don't communicate much.

Anyway, I'm not trying to whine, we are very, very blessed, although sometimes, in the interest of honesty, I lose my focus and choose to do so...until something reminds me how blessed we have been and are, and I'm ashamed of complaining, which I should be!

This is why I don't do this very often....I just blab on and on; I was actually not posting to toot my own horn and get some birthday greetings!:) This is my present to me, to sit and make myself do what I really want to do, but keep putting off. Thanks to my mom I can pull it off. This post is more of a "get into it again", sort of thing, one of these days when I hook up our hard drive I'll get you some pictures. Kids, of course, house, cute, white, fluffy kitties and the dog who found us(more stories:),family....

Our birthday season has officially been kicked off, my birthday is the "first",as the kids like to say, then it's Kai, Lucas, Tio, Kenji, and then Sage who finishes up the season the end of November, just in time to think of Christmas:).
The kids are always very excited and my first gift is a "ruby" ring from the redemption counter in the game center at Jester's(the bowling alley/family entertainment center my parent's own with another couple and my mom manages)-it's from Kai, who looks very forward to birthdays, and according to my mom, saved up his tickets from earned tokens and knew just what he wanted to get me! He was so sweet, couldn't wait to give it to me this morning. He counts down for days to birthdays. They are with my mom and little niece at Jester's now, so I could have a few hours while Tio sleeps on my birthday-my mom is tireless and amazing, have I said that yet? Sage is picking out my present now I'm sure, he was upset that he didn't have time to do it the other day, because he went with me to pick out Kai's present! There have been lots of whisperings and "don't come in here mom!" lately, so I bet I have some special pictures coming too. I found a vase of wildflowers waiting outside for me, that came from Kenji, from our land,(he came home to take a shower and get rid of the seed ticks he got picking them-I'm putting two and two together now...) that's the best! And he didn't fail to get me my yearly splurge of dark chocolate and sour patch kids(remember those?, we used to go through a big box when we went to the movies together, aaah, those were the days:)that I hide and only rarely share with the kids-adult candy right? He presented them to me at the stroke of midnight as we were driving home from working on the house last night.

I'm 33 this year, which doesn't feel young or old....I remember my own mom turning 30 when I was 10, and thinking that she was getting old, so that does somewhat color my perception! (Funny, isn't it, how young she seems now!) In 33 years what have I been blessed with? A loving family, with all its' quirks... hmm,when I typed family, I remembered a recent conversation with a friend. We were talking about how we thought our families were so normal growing up, (and other people's were wierd!),but as we've gotten older, we see that there is no such thing. Every family has its own brand of pathologies/idiosyncrasies and although accepting that is tough sometimes, it's surely better to get it done and move on! Especially since seeing things how they are, in all their reality, is much healthier than a false picture...where am I going with this? I'm really getting off on a rabbit trail, I was talking about blessings...but this is kind of more interesting anyhow. I think I'm saying this because I have been forced to face my own weakness of building up an ideal image of what something is, instead of facing what's actually there and dealing with it, that would be too hard, wouldn't it? Ironically, controlling the facade is really much more difficult work and problematic. And not too fun....or interesting either. Doesn't leave much time or energy for more rewarding pursuits or relationships. Maybe, as I get older, I am/ will do more/ pray, that I can just take things as they are presented to me, not get in a hurry to see where they will take me, or how they will turn out. God needs to stay in business after all!

see you soon I hope, Heather

Ps. you know the blessings anyhow, right? But just in case...my four lively boys, my husband, who puts up with my exhausting cycle of ups and downs and freak outs, and still gives me flowers and chocolate:), my friends who put up with me not keeping in touch, being late, etc...,Many awesome people who love us, even though we give next to nothing back to them, Our trip to Japan, the friends and family we got to spend time with there, the experiences we had, and I hesitate here...both good and bad, just like the rest of life, and mostly that God is relentless in His pursuit of me, no matter how hard I run to get away, and try to somehow senselessly control what is out of my control(wow, is that a two-year old's sentiment or what! Don't let me complain when my kids do that...)and mess stuff up in the process. He is good and faithful, even when I am far from it. To Him be the glory forever and ever, Amen!

Sage's 8th birthday party

2006-12-03T22:07:00.000+09:00

Sage's 8th Birthday Party-well, unbeknownst to me, Sage and his classmates had made plans for his birthday party again this year:), his party was the talk of the class last year,(they don't have so many big bday parties in this rural area, although since last year, one of his classmates did as well), so they began talking early this year I guess. I was telling him several months ago that maybe this year we'd do family only, with a new baby and all, and he says, mom, we've already been talking about my party, everyone is coming. The people who missed last year really want to come! He, like his father in this way, loves to party! So...we compromised and decided not to have a meal, just snacks in the afternoon. It ended up being a little bit of a fiasco with the date, after Sage made announcements and handed them out, there was a blizzard in the forecast for that day, so Kenji thought we should change it and he printed out little notes for the parents. Well, Sage came home teary-eyed saying we had to have it the original day, or not even one kid could come(it was in the middle of a four day weekend), so we decided to follow the mailman's creed and go full speed ahead on the planned day, whether it be through rain, snow or sleet....:)The weather ended up being just fine in the end. I'm really glad we had it, the kids had so much fun. He invited the other 9 kids in his class and the 3 from here. They all get along so well and after being in class together so much, fit together well. We cleared some furniture out of their bedroom and they played games and ate lots of snacks and he blew out his candle over a plate of cookies instead of cake-I'm happy he likes cookies better. My choco chip cookies did not receive a "but Grandma's are still better" comment this year, so I am satisified, ha! I enjoyed the conversation I had with a little group of girls who clustered around the table and ate the quesadillas I was making. Man, could they eat, especially one little girl who never stopped. They were laughing about how the boys weren't going to get any. I guess it will be a few years before the tables are turned! Kai and Lucas had as much fun as Sage, playing with the kids, and Tio was perfect-slept through the first half of the party while I was at the other house baking cookies(Kenji was playing with the kids-he says they kept him in line), and was awake and happy watching the general hubbub aand getting held by all the little girls, after he woke up. We had a pizza party with some cousins and Jiji and Baba on his actual birthday-that kid and his parties, just kidding, we had lots of fun! We are all just coming out of birthday party hangover mode.....

Catch up time:)

2006-11-13T23:06:00.000+09:00

Well, it's a crazy whirlwind here, but I am just determined to catch you up on all this craziness-so here goes...take a deep breath and hang on!

Fall has come and gone....

That was just a sample of the views around here...That was Nai-Nai and Kenji bringing in a load of daikon(huge japanese radishes). And a bunch of Hokkaido winter squash.

Here's Tio at 5 weeks, sleeping with Daddy

Kenji finally found some good fishing streams---three hours away! But the boys did not let it deter them from convincing dad that they needed to catch their own trout(they raved over the ones Kenji caught, they were really yummy!) and so flattered:)he took them on the long trip the next Sunday along with uncle Shunsuke, and guess what--after great success the weekend before, only Sage and Kai caught one fish each! A mom couldn't make that more fair:). They had good naps on the trip in and out, and had a great time it seems.

Here are some pics about 10 days ago, the last really warm, nice day, it was spent harvesting and storing the last of the daikon. It was Saturday and the kids helped out. Kenji was the only one who could work on it in the morning and he was truly grateful as the kids were pulling the daikon and he was packing them into the crate on the tractor(the earlier pic). He was amazed at how hard they worked...and how much fun they had! They all munched on the raw daikon through the day too. Lucas is being daikon-man at Sage's request-as soon as he saw me with the camera he looked around and found something as a stage and posed and danced around. One of the girls here told me he's going to be a TV personality or something:). Sage helped cut the tops of the daikon, which really thrilled him! These vegetables are really huge and they all lugged them around, even Lucas, pretty funny to see!

Some pics of the kids that same day, playing with the keyboard and having a blast...

Here's Ray accepting an award for Menno Village, we were nominated to be part of a contest that judged many farms, the award was for connecting farmers and consumers through our CSA(community sponsored agriculture). Ray and Aki, Toshi, Kenji and Orie-san all attended the award banquet and fancy meal where they were served food that was made from the products of the top 14 farms and top 4 fish farms!

Naptime!

Well, I had a few more pics to post, but the photo posting process is not working at the moment, so I'll hit the sack, this is enough for now anyhow, isn't it?? We had our first snow today, we woke up to a few inches on the ground. The kids were so excited and played all morning out in it, it's all gone now, but fun...and muddy while it lasted!

Welcome home Tio Shiro-my baby album

2006-10-10T18:05:00.000+09:00

my last pregnant night:) reading bedtime stories to the boys

The morning dawned a beautiful day, regular contractions had woken me up at 2 or 2:30, Kenji went back to sleep, I emailed people and tried to rest but just couldn't, then we called the midwife at 4:30 who lives an hour away and wanted to be sure not to miss the birth but..it would be a long day, my labor wasn't extremely painful, but it was long and I got tired, a few times I wasn't sure Tio was going to come this day at all! I was glad that I was at home and could do what I wanted and eat and drink to my heart's content. My contractions slowed and spread out in the afternoon when we thought he might be born soon...but my midwife had a few tricks up her sleeve and almost 16 hours from the start of my labor Tio Shiro was born at home, healthy and without complication. Thanks to all who prayed for a healthy, uncomplicated delivery...Thanks to God! We are very happy we had this chance to have Tio at home and for our wonderful midwife, who I have managed to communicate quite well with, despite our language and culture differences, thanks to Kenji of course! She has been like a doctor, nurse and mother who knows all about birthing and babies, wrapped up in one-the after birth care-she has been here on home visits 6 or 7 times since Tio was born- has been so helpful and reassuring. We've so appreciated the chance to work with someone who not only has the same goal in mind as we do, a natural birth and life, with as few artificial interventions and medicines as possible-but also is a very experienced professional-a first for sure. Here are many pictures from Tio's birth day and the days since....

our midwife, with the boys, she was there for the long haul!

morning walk...a good long walk, we met neighbors we hadn't met before and got grapes and onions from their cute little homestead, wish I would have taken pictures of their cute little cabin and organic gardens and orchard...

Waiting! A long labor, lots of people....

4:59 pm, The baby is here!!...ahhhh..mommy said,who thought the moment would never come.. daddy caught him and pulled him right up to my chest, and big brother Sage asked, is it a boy or a girl?? the long wondered question... and daddy felt...and said...it's another boy! We laughed then...

cutting the cord after I'd been holding him and delivered the placenta..he weighed 3226 gms(7lbs, 1 oz-not 11 like we first reported, our conversion was wrong:)) and was 50.6 cm long(19 in.)

Kenji's little sister Sayoko, who was there for the boys and her two little girls holding Tio.

Murakami-san, our midwife and Tio

The big brothers, very happy to see their new little brother and I'm sure glad that mommy quit screaming-you are getting more done when you are loud my midwife said...ahh! (by the way, they seemed to work through that fairly quickly and don't seem to be scarred for life, ha:)!)

Kenji's older sister, Makiko and family who came later that evening to say welcome to Tio...me on my futon on the floor in the living room, where I'd kneeled earlier to deliver Tio. I stayed there for one day then moved to our bedroom..this seemed to please Kai who likes things to be routine!

taking a nap together, one day old

2-3 days old

5 days old

one week

two weeks

Baba is here to help! playing with kids, doing loads and loads of laundry and cooking, thank you!

Oct. 9-when Kenji told one of the women here Tio's name she said did you take that from the novel, Southern Island Tio? No, we'd never heard of it, but Kenji lost no time going out to buy it, it's a children's novel, and has won some awards...fun, so here Kenji is reading it to Tio:).SO that brings me to Tio's name, I know people are wondering where we got it, as I've had questions...Kenji and I have to think of being able to say a name in both languages, with Sage and Kai we chose names that would be easy to say in Japanese-Sage has a Japanese equivelant-Seiji(different meaning, but close to the same sound, sounds like Sagey) and Kai is a Japanese word meaning ocean, used as a name in Hawaii where there are lots of Japanese, with Lucas we compromised and used a Japanese middle name-Yuta, and with Tio, we were thinking of Teo, from Theodore, I like short names and we liked the meaning, which is gift from God, however, Kenji thought it was pronounced like Tio(tee oh), and thought this was better for Japanese people, and also is the same pronounciation as some very good friends of ours last name, the Teoh's. They have been great and godly mentors and role models for us and they have three lovely boys that we would love our boys to grow up like as well. So it was decided! Shiro means literally fourth son in Japanese:) and with the Chinese characters Kenji chose to spell it, it means ambitious boy. Middle names are confusing to Japanese people as they don't use them, and their name order is the reverse of ours, last name, first name-so people don't know what to call our kids if they hear their middle names! But they figure it out eventually, and it's all their name so whatever! And that's the rest of the story!

Oct.10

Oct. 11

Oct 12

Oct.13
At two weeks Tio had gained a pound, and I know he's gained more since, I think we've been through several growth spurts since(you know, sleepless nights and endless hunger! oh, and fatter cheeks!)

Sept. 23, fall!

2006-09-23T20:19:00.000+09:00

It was a beautiful day....

Lucas' 3rd bday!

2006-09-22T22:53:00.000+09:00

It's been awhile and I know some of my family are waiting for some bday pics, the baby is coming anytime:) so I'm going to try to post right now before heading off for some sleep.

Lucas was really looking forward to his birthday this year so I really prayed the baby would wait to come until after it was over...thank you baby! He especially was looking forward to a cake of his own, had talked about it nonstop since Kai's bday and would pretend it was his birthday all the time. So here's the cake,(the face of a Japanese cartoon character he likes, whose head is a sweet bean paste filled cake-he rescues hungry people:)),which he ate no more than a few bites of, if that! But he loved that it was his, and sang right along with all of us putting his own name in when we sang happy birthday and did a great job blowing out his three candles!

We let him open a present here and there through the day, he was very happy for anything he got, but my favorite thing was when his aunt brought a little container of japanese style pickles for supper(which he loves!) and showed it to him, knowing he liked them. He thought they were his present from her, and very excitedly proceeded to show everyone! He hoarded the leftovers even the next night, keeping them by his plate and shutting the lid after he took some, normally being very sharing, but noone could have any when it got low. We never had the heart to tell him that they weren't really his present...little did she know how little she could have gotten by on:)!
He loves to color, cut,write, etc, he's always been good with fine motor skills, so we got him several workbooks, a maze book, a book to practice cutting and a japanese beginning character writing book. It was the first thing he opened and he worked on them all morning, his attention span amazed me! He did so much of the mazes and cutting exercises I thought he would finish the books. He did them by himself for the most part, just showing or asking me occasionally, which was nice for me to get things ready for the evening..

He received a package from the US actually on his birthday morning, thanks to the Lakes, whose timing is impeccable! What a fun thing to get a package with your own name on it! Here he is opening it with Kai looking on.
Kenji's parents and little sister and kids came to celebrate and ate supper with us. They were a great help as I decorated the cake and prepared supper, thank goodness for family! The shoulder rub Kenji's mom gave me as I sat down before we ate was wonderful...

Lucas got a big boy bike with training wheels from his grandparents..it's a little on the big side, but he was pretty excited to have a bike like his brothers.

Lucas is a very affectionate and sweet kid, he loves to share the treats he gets with everyone and often sidles up to me and lays his head on me and says "my mommy" with a sweet grin on his face. He's taken to wanting his blanket more than usual lately, not just for sleep as it has been for ages. I imagine that he's wondering about the changes his new baby brother or sister will bring as his most often expressed wish for when it comes is to play with it. He's loved my pregnancy, talking to the baby and touching my belly alot. He's in that bragging about being big many times a day, and the next second fussing about not being able to do something and needing us to do it for him stage, just not sure whether to move on or fall back:). He has a habit of saying to Kenji and I, "I want to do---with you because I like you", again with a sweet little voice and smile. He's also ornery as can be if I didn't mention it.....:)For example he likes to practice his Anpanman punch and Ultraman kicks(good old fashioned Japanese cartoon character and the bane of boys mothers.."you're playing right?? not fighting?") on new people to break them in--yeesh, what a brat! I'm sure they think,(that's what mom is thinking for sure!), but it isn't long before he's won them over with his sparkling smile and endless affections.

He loves music and is dancing to the "singing book" his dad got him...which they all love. He's a crazy kid and makes us laugh alot, he's quick with sincere thank yew's(he sometimes has a funny little accent:)) and sorry's. We love him much!

Summer Collection

2006-08-28T15:41:00.000+09:00

sunflower road,now gone, but beautiful while here

shaved ice tongue:)

kuwagata/stag beetles galore Kenji and the boys went hunting with their uncle, we let them all go after a few weeks...

we've had lots of visitors this summer, here are Ray and Elizabeth, the boys enjoyed their company for a few days

Menno Village overnight camping trip to the beach-Orie-san and Toshi preparing our veggies to grill for supper

getting wet, ecstatic kids!

grilling burgers

lucas and Sayumi(summer help)

Sayumi and Lucas playing cards with Koko and Orie-san

Lucas loves the "moving ocean" as he calls it in Japanese

Kai collecting shells

Sage and Kazu trying to show me fish in the bag

inside the bag, there is some kind of magical reflecting effect here I can't figure out no matter how much I look at the picture! oops it was a hermit crab not a fish!

the meager catch:)

Toshi and Lucas drawing "wash-off" pictures in the sand, they were at it for a long time

Sage dancing in his second festival this summer

that's him-front right

getting tomatoes ready to can over summer break with Akiko and Kazu, Yohei and Ken-everyone had a job, Ken and Kai are washing the tomatoes, Sage is tending the fire-very proudly to be sure!

this is about a month ago, corn, and a type of flowering pole bean behind

there was a day when all the kids carried sunflowers around for some reason!

Kai and Rita too

another view, the flowers are thanks to Orie-san who has a dream to have a flower farm/shop someday

transplanting greens with daddy and Toshi

all of us from the village attended an event Toshi performed in, she does an okinawan traditional dance called eisa. that's her on the left with the big drum

playing in the fountain at the same event, waiting for Toshi's group

riding the subway in Sapporo

lunchtime at the Plum House, the community gathering house

this time kabuto/rhinoceros beetles the boys hatched from the grub stage(they were given to them on children's day in May and took several months to hatch). We have two males and a female so we may have babies eventually!

Kai's Bday

2006-08-24T22:20:00.000+09:00

I wanted this!

Birthday Brownies(can you see my attempt at rocket racers in the sugar on top-only my kids could tell!), playing at the park

with Ken and Sage on the old train at the park-there were 9 kids for the picnic

Aunt Sayoko and cousins Nanami and Hikari

Uncle Shunsuke with a captive audience!

Kai is 5!

2006-08-17T21:56:00.000+09:00

Can you believe it, Kai is 5 years old! It's hard to imagine that time has gone by so fast. He's quite the energetic kid, loves to play with his friends. Loves to hear books read, loves us to be close, loves superheroes:, loves rockets, spaceships, jets, all that kind of stuff, and loves to look at all of our pics and videos on the computer, as well as anything else he likes that he's figured out how to find on there(ever heard of rocket racers?), as long as we'll let him! He likes to build things with just about anything, especially legoes and K'nex, and usually talks about how something he made is the "strongest", the "coolest" etc. He's had a tough year health-wise with asthma and pneumonia and colds, allergies etc. This intensified his need to have all of us close I think, he is the one that makes sure noone lags behind when we are out. He doesn't express things he feels with words as much as his older brother, choosing to be more physical in acting them out probably! He still has a very ornery grin! He has a good deductive head on his shoulders, surprising us with the conclusions he comes to, or the things he's learned from observing without asking any questions, he takes after his dad in that sense! He's a really good helper when he gets into it, he works hard and sticks with it. He's very interested in the new baby, although seemed to work through some fears about it being safe and being okay. He is a champion at getting dirty in seconds-from head to toe, did I mention that before?:)He's good at climbing trees, catching frogs and holding scary looking bugs too...did you know these were skills?? Sage asks him to pick their bugs up sometimes, he knows his limits!

Somehow his birthday seemed like a really long day, not in a bad sense this time, but in a one-party-after-another sense. Even Sage said, this day was so long, and so fun! Very exciting for Kai, the "best birthday I've had in my whole life" he said. We first had a picnic lunch at a local park with all the kids that either live or come to the farm often, and a few cousins who live close. They were all really good and had a great time together. We ate ice cream after lunch, Kai's favorite food-vanilla that would be! Then after returning home and playing all afternoon outside, all who were at the farm that evening ate together and we had brownies and candles to blow out. Then the boys did a few fireworks and then, getting ready for bed were surprised by aunt Sayoko and Uncle Shunsuke and cousins Nanami and Hikari. They drove up with their lights off and set off a bunch of pretty big, but silent, fireworks outside the bedroom window, and then came in with a half a melon with candles on it! Then Uncle Shunsuke had to stay and help Kai put together one of his presents, he's a really fun uncle and Aunt Sayoko had to drag him away when his kids got sleepy:)...Kai went to sleep satisfied and with a smile on his face, he has alot of people who love him!

Summer

2006-08-16T21:26:00.000+09:00

Had you given up hope of any new postings on here?? I almost had,but today I decided to jump in and post, although I've almost forgotten how. No time like the present. So a few pictures of summer to get me back in?? This is Sage's last week of summer vacation, he gets a month. He's not ready to go back yet....all of the kids around here have had so much fun together!

This collage is of a local summer festival. Kenji got the idea of painting Akiko and I's bellies to look like watermelon and his head to match. The purple tape around his head is what we wrap our veggies in:). He shaved his head right before. Lucas and Kai got in on the act too and Kenji and Kai borrowed their watermelon "jinbei"(traditional summer festival wear) from Ray and Akiko's family. We were one of 9 costume entries and we got 5th place, the last place that got a cash prize! We had a good time. Sage danced a traditional "rice-planting" dance with school kids, a group of older Japanese men and women teach and dress them up. He looks so cute and little in the costume. The girl in glasses behind him in one picture is a grade or two ahead of him but adores him and always takes him under her wing, that night she bought him some things at the festival even...:). He enjoyed the dance alot, he enjoys anything done with friends pretty much! Lucas is holding the bush he won in the drawing at the end of the night, the only one of us who won something. They give wooden number tags to everyone who participates in the dance of the festival and then they do drawings of bunches of donated stuff. Lucas was proud! Kai wanted to take pictures all night, I think the one of Toshi he took:).

So what are we busy with right now? Well, I'm in my 34th week of pregnancy now, how time flies! We've had quite a bit of hot and humid weather here lately and I'm feeling it...my second pregnancy without air conditioning...but at least in Hokkaido the nights almost always get cooler and there's a breeze most of the time, if I could just get outside into it! I've felt very good this last half of the pregnancy. My midwife is always telling me to get out in the dirt and work..I try! But I usually end up packing veggies for delivery, other odds and ends, or helping in the kitchen-we are feeding lots of people these days. All the kids are home on vacation plus we are having lots of visitors this year. Our lunch crowd has been running in the high teens every day. The farm work is centered on harvesting, harvesting, harvesting!,packing things for delivery to our CSA members and daily packing and delivering to the three farmer's markets we are selling things through right now-we don't have to be there, but we have to deliver and pick up leftovers. Oh and lots and lots of weeding and right now as it's dry, lots of watering.
We are very busy eating lots of yummy veggies, tomatoes every meal almost, cucumbers, eggplant, okra, peppers, snap peas, japanese turnips, and soon to come-corn.Sage especially is in heaven, he's our biggest veggie lover of the three, but they all eat them well. Sage discovered that he likes roasted eggplant the other day and so I've made that the last two nights for him. Today for afternoon snack we went out and picked handfuls of blueberries and raspberries, very sweet! The neighbor fruit farmer sold us a bunch of plums very cheap so we've all been snacking on them from the cooler during the day. It's not uncommon to see the boys with a cucumber or a tomato or handful of mini-tomatoes in hand outside while they play. They've all enjoyed the steady stream of visitors we've had this summer, someone new to show around, play with, etc. Today we had a camera crew come and spend the day, we have a journalist that will be spending extended time over a year as she writes a book about organic farming. Aki and Ray's boys went to their grandma and grandpa's for several days and our boys were sad, so they hung out with the crew all afternoon, very nice guys. Kai was very fascinated with the cameraman's cameras and convinced him to show him how to use one and he told me he got to take lots of pictures, he was thrilled! I think he was in alot too, with his signature dirty face, well, that would be dirt from head to toe, look! I can't let them even come in the house in the evening, they go straight to the door to our shower/tub room which opens out to our greenhouse, handy, huh! At least the three of them can get themselves clean usually! Well, I'll post more pics afterwards, there are plenty to choose from....:) Hope you're all doing well and you'll find this post eventually:)!

May flowers

2006-05-07T17:40:00.000+09:00

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Today was Sunday and our turn to take care of the farm. The kids all spent most of the day at Orie-san's for Coco's 7th birthday party. Kenji and I were able to go eat Ramen together for lunch and then take a walk in the woods, among watering and other farm chores. It was a beautiful and very warm day.

Happy Children's Day!

2006-05-06T00:28:00.000+09:00

Today (well, it's tomorrow now, eeek, it's late!)was Children's Day in Japan, usually this means Koinobori, or the flying fish windsocks everywhere. This year we didn't have them up at the farm, but I thought I'd post some kid pics to celebrate! Sage is at his Grandma and Grandpa's with some of his cousins during his school vacation for a half week, but we played "Mousetrap", the boys' favorite family game with Lucas and Kai tonight and had a special dessert and treat after supper.

Happy 3rd Birthday to cousin Nanami. Nanami and Hikari(5 yrs old)cousins just moved less than 10 min. away. We celebrated Nanami's birthday with Jiji and Baba and Nanami's family a few weeks ago. Too much cousin fun to be sure!

Random pictures

2006-05-06T00:06:00.000+09:00

These are just some pics that I never posted I thought you might enjoy....sorry they are from over the last month or so and really rather...random!

These are Easter eggs, duck eggs from the farm that we blew out and made omelets with.(please note the drill, no messing with pins and chopsticks this year!) The boys had lots of fun decorating them, although we had many with the tie-dyed effect!

This is the boys cutting spinach from the greenhouse attached to our house, it was yummy and sweet and even they liked it!

We went to the local sake(japanese rice wine) company's festival last month, beautiful old brick buildings and some great traditional drumming, which the boys were transfixed by...there were many sake samples and many vendors selling festival food and games to play. Lucas had his first sample of cotton candy here and didn't know what to think of it! That's a big sake drum the guys are standing in.

Baby plants

2006-04-29T21:19:00.000+09:00

I thought I should post these pictures of baby plants because they are all growing up so quickly! We have a greenhouse full of plants in all their stages, and a cold frame outside filling up with flower seedlings and then the very first cold frame inside our greenhouse where the seeds that really need to be warm to sprout start out. We are always planting or transplanting something! Not to mention watering.....It's good to see green!

This week finally felt like spring had arrived. I heard more birds, the fields are greening up...and the weeds are sprouting up everywhere! Today we had sunny weather in the 60's, yeah! The boys wore sweatshirts instead of coats and spent all day playing outside with Rita and Coco. They were very exhausted by the end of the day. But what is better than a day spent riding bikes, crawling barefoot on the straw bales, trying:) to fly a kite, visiting the neighbors' as they put together their new garage/house, climbing trees and any combination of being with someone working on the farm putting up a greenhouse, transplanting greens into a greenhouse or planting seeds, etc, etc. Oh and then walking the dog of course, wow, no wonder they were exhausted!

Spring walk in the woods

2006-04-24T23:55:00.000+09:00

Images from my day

2006-04-18T22:12:00.000+09:00

Hey, mom I finally found a "normal length" broom!

My link with the rest of the world!

buying diapers at the home and garden store, with a bit of a Walmart to it

Nai-Nai making lunch

naptime after Lyle, Lyle the crocodile

Sage planting the morning glory seeds he harvested from the plant he grew in his first grade class, more than 50 seeds:)

Kai helping

Lucas helping get some soil for Orie-san

Orie-san planting

Sage helping Kai practice Japanese letters so he is more competitive in this card game:)

Sage's homework, kantan, kantan he said(easy, easy), he loves telling time

Kenji eating a late supper after a long delivery day"what are you doing??

First day of second grade and first lost tooth

2006-04-16T02:10:00.000+09:00

It had been a long time in coming, wiggly and then tight, for months! He takes after his mom, losing his teeth late, but for all the waiting, when it decided to come out it was ready! It started bleeding at breakfast and when I thought he would never quit playing with it to eat his breakfast, he leaned over to drink some tea and plink! it fell in his cup! And on the first day of second grade to boot!

That was April 6th by the way and second grade is starting off well. We were all sad to learn that his beloved 1st grade teacher would be transferred to a new school instead of being his teacher again. But, God knows best, right? We were truly blessed to have such a wonderful teacher, and Sage truly loved him, he spent much time writing a thank you note in Japanese and English "homework":) for him when he left, and the teacher told Kenji later he cried over them. And much to our surprise, he was transferred to the next town's school to teach Orie-san's little girl who started first grade and is Sage's best buddy! It was a year of learning for all, we all, the school, mom and dad and Sage were worried at the outset, but God is good and He created children to learn, learn, learn, and adapt, and it was a wonderful experience, with its bumps and worries of course. Sage had only one teacher he didn't want to be his teacher in the school, the only one he struggled with last year, and as God would have it, that's his teacher! We all just had to laugh when he came home and told us the first day of school, even Sage. Not what WE would have planned, but she is a good teacher, and Sage being adjusted well to school life, he will do fine I believe. Not to go into details about his differences with her, but she is very nitpicky with details lets just say! So I've pointed out the great chance this will be for him to LEARN to be disciplined, oh kids just love a parent's perspective! So..I also added that maybe he could think of it like a board game, forgot that detail, hmmmmm, go back 5 spaces, and sit out this turn in the toilet and Don't let it happen again! He had a good laugh at that, he likes board games, hopefully he can keep a good perspective this year! He has really grown up since last year, I realized, when I attended his class for parent's visiting day. His whole class sat quietly and attentively during the 45 min. and I didn't see much squirming and no silliness or peeking at parents like last year the same time. Of course, it could be that this teacher just doesn't tolerate such things and the kids are quite aware of it! Not a bad thing.

Well, it was hard to say goodbye to his 1st grade teacher and the wonderful mothering school nurse who touched my belly when she was saying goodbye and said, keep having beautiful babies...(what???are you serious, did I just hear what I thought I heard?? I just might cry a bit here, I mean do you know this will be our fourth! but yes, you must, they're all right here with me! from a Japanese woman no less-and just when I needed confirmation that being a multipara plus three does not solely cause shock and wonderment ie: were they "really planning this one" or "still trying for that girl, huh!", or other less appropriate comments, well wait, that was in the States with the others,hee, hee! Yep, folks, being parents is tough, absolutely nothing in my life has been tougher, I'm right there with ya, and we have never been called sane, but just when I was thinking that very thought the other day I remembered, "children are a gift from God" and if what God says is true, we are soon to be some very gifted parents! by the way, that was a slight exaggeration and oversensitivity on my part, truly thank you to all of my lovely family and friends on both sides of the world who welcomed our announcement with sincere congrats and love....), whew, long slightly, well way off topic, aside to the side, where was I?? oh, yeah, despite the sadness, including Sage's sadness and regret to see the 6th graders go on to middle school(it's such a small school and everyone knows and interacts with each other)-it was a good time to remember the blessings we received and the answers to many prayers. I cried just thinking of our concerns last year and how our prayers have been answered. Thanks to all of you who prayed for Sage and all of us in the adjustments. You can keep praying by the way....:)

Bug Store

2006-04-07T23:09:00.000+09:00

Do you remember days spent thinking of ways to earn money as a kid? I remember thinking, if only we lived in town so we could have a lemonade stand like in the books! (We picked up and sold walnuts to the traveling buyers instead, a less romantic, but nonetheless profitable venture, in a relative sense of course,earning our own money to pay for some very exciting sibling Christmas presents. Remember those lisa frank folders and fake jewelry girls? just to name a few?)Well, the boys and their Saturday playmates(Orie-san's-our fellow farm worker's-two children)decided one of the first warm-enough-to-play-in-the- greenhouse spring mornings, that selling bugs would earn them some spending money. Of course their mothers quickly deflated their demands for "real money", but they had lots of fun all morning setting up store anyway and sold a few bugs to boot, and here're pictures to prove it! Check out the custom "bug bags", matched to the bug(my kids are paying attention to that immaculate Japanese packaging:) and Sage's handwriting, labeling the store and bugs for sale, with-exorbitant-prices listed!

from one creative process to the next

2006-04-07T14:41:00.000+09:00

And this is what I've been doing in the last few months...one of my friends told me that the energy and motivation for doing creative things is temporarily diverted in pregnancy-to the work of creating another work of art. We are expecting our fourth child, due Sept. 25th. So if you were wondering if I'd ever be back,I'm dusting off the keyboard now! Into my 15th week, the "big stuff" is done, and now that "the details" are being meticulously sculpted and less of my energy is needed, I can focus more on details instead of just the big stuff too! This is our first baby picture(for those of you unfamiliar with ultrasounds, the baby is looking down, head to the left, backbone, etc:)...after my Dr's visit last week. It confirmed my due date and gave us a dose of reality, not just my symptoms to prove it anymore, there's really a little life in there, kicking and swimming, we love you already little one. Life is amazing isn't it?!

Snow, snow, snow!

2006-01-20T22:13:00.000+09:00

So you've all been hearing that Japan is getting lots of snow this year, right? Well, although the stories you've probably heard are mainly from the northwestern main island where it's warmer and the snow is wetter and very heavy which means the increased snowfall is causing more accidents...people around here are now saying that this is the most snow they've seen at once here too. So I'll send you a few photos, although nothing spectacular photo-wise, maybe you can see how much snow we have!

The snowblower is running everyday and the rest of the time is spent getting snow off the top of greenhouses, off the roofs,etc. Snow removal is a full time job right now! It's hard to show you how deep the snow is because of the snowblower and drifting, but even in the field behind our house it's up to the bend in the greenhouse frame which means it's chest high. The snow is dry and powdery here, fluffy, until it melts some and gets crunchy.

Quite a shock for a Missouri snow-blink and it's gone-girl! Although Kenji grew up in Hokkaido it's more snow than he ever saw where he grew up too. And the boys, especially Sage, are loving it of course! Sage is doing what I always dreamed of doing as a kid(I'm not just saying that, I really did dream of it!), digging tunnels and caves in the snow drifts. Kai and Lucas had fun going out with me this morning, as it was sunny and not bitterly cold. Toshi threw them into the snow banks much to their ear-to-ear grinning delight. It's been very cold lately, so it was nice to be out in the sunshine today and for the boys to get out. The younger two are still in the rolling around stage, so when their faces get wet they get cold soon. Sage will be taking a few ski lessons in school this winter, today they practiced putting everything on and walking in their boots and skis.

Well, someday Kenji will probably take some really pretty pictures of all the snow, he already has some nice ones on there, so check out his blog...get there by looking under profile on this blog.

That Day

2006-01-05T21:48:00.000+09:00

Natalie Imbruglia
» That Day (Moment Of Clarity)

That day, that day
What a mess what a marvel
I walked into that cloud again
And I lost myself
And I'm sad, sad, sad
Small, alone, scared
Craving purity
A fragile mind and
A gentle spirit
That day, that day
What a marvellous mess
This is all that I can do
I'm done to be me
Sad, scared, small, alone, beautiful
It's supposed to be like this
I accept everything
It's supposed to be like this

That day, that day
I lay down beside myself
In this feeling of pain, sadness
Scared, small, climbing, crawling
Towards the light
And it's all I see and
I'm tired and I'm right
And I'm wrong
And it's beautiful

That day that day
What a mess
What a marvel
We're all the same
And no one thinks so
And it's okay
And I'm small
And I'm divine
And it's beautiful
And it's coming
But it's already here
And it's absolutely perfect

That day, that day
When everything was a mess
And everything was in place
And there's too much hurt
Sad, small, scared, alone
And everyone's a cynic
And it's hard and it's sweet
But it's supposed
To be like this

That day, that day
When I sat in the sun
And I thought and I cried
'Cause I'm sad, scared, small
Alone, strong
And I'm nothing
And I'm true
Only a brave man
Can break through
And it's all okay
Yeah, it's okay

I heard this song the other day on the way to the grocery store and thought that I've had "That Day" before. No, I'm not divine, to say the least...but the way these words and thoughts tumble on top of each other is much the way those days are experienced in my mind-the clarity of beauty seen through the eyes of pain.

To be able to say with all certainty that I can know what reality is would be bold..but to say that I can be honest with what I see within my limited vision of the moment is where I am. Where I am is not a statement of where I will be in the next moment or in 30 years, it is not a label for who I am, it is simply admitting the reality that stated or not, is the truth. Hard, wrong, right, whatever..(ever thought that if you don't say it, it isn't true) That I am here now, inviting a holy engaged God to move me on or use me there...in His time, in HIS time. And within the times- seemingly windless,Spiritless, moments that sometimes ensue..The Waiting...the grace of God experienced within, and without, through the patience of others comfortable with the flawed me..I can see the supernatural changes that come in my vision quite without my involvement...Eyes on your Creator, eyes on your Creator, prone to wandering one.

"There are times when you can't understand why you cannot do what you want to do. When God brings a time of waiting, and appears to be unresponsive, don't fill it with busyness, just wait. The time of waiting may come to teach you the meaning of sanctification-to be set apart from sin and made holy-or it may come after the process of sanctification has begun to teach you what service means. Never run before God gives you His direction. If you have the slightest doubt than He is not guiding. Whenever there is doubt, wait." My Utmost for His Highest, special updated edition, Oswald Chambers, Jan. 4

"No matter what changes God has performed in you never rely on them. Build only on a Person, the Lord Jesus Christ, and on the Spirit He gives...When we come to the end of ourselves, not just mentally, but completely, we are able to "Receive the Holy Spirit" the idea is that of invasion. There is now only One who directs the course of your life, the Lord Jesus Christ." My Utmost for His Highest, Jan. 5

With you, crawling towards the Light amongst the messy beauty of the life He created.

2006-01-01T22:18:00.000+09:00

Our New Year's Day 2006.

Playing in the snow-all of us together-for the first time this year. It was a beautiful day,sunny and no wind, great for being out.

Sage and Kenji making an icy slide down the back of the sledding hill

which one do you want this time?

It was a good run1

a break to see how big the chicks have gotten and feed them some bread crumbs

Kenji had good luck petting the chicks

Here Lucas I caught one for you to pet

That was fun!

Pictures from walking the dog partway down our driveway

Our driveway to the road

The ski mountain behind our farm and some Menno Village buildings front left, sorry not a great zoom

the farm dog, Neru, I miss you Ray!

Eating "Nabe", a Japanese winter dish that's great for warming your bones after sledding. It consists of various veggies and thinly sliced meats boiled in a broth of some type and cooked at the table. You add more as it's cooked and eaten. Today we had a salt flavored broth with Menno Village carrots, chinese cabbage and baby greens(growing in a greenhouse in a tunnel, doing great, tasty and no bugs! just slow). long, big Japanese green onions a neighbor farmer gave us and we added blocks of tofu, some meat, and various mushrooms and Sage's new veggie for the day-Japanese leeks(very yummy!). We all loved it, I was thrilled to see Kai chowing down on the cabbage and Sage eating the various greens and leeks, it's a yummy way to eat alot of veggies.

Lucas melting down after staying up late New Year's Eve and playing hard until our "lupper" at 3 pm.

it took about two minutes for him to fall asleep after the last picture, hugging his sleeping necessities-blanket, turtle and ducky-man, boy, my lap is full!

Here it is, Kai wanted to be sure I took a picture of it

Playing Mousetrap, our boys all time favorite game(great garage sale find!)-a good one that all of us can play, including Lucas. We also played lots of kiddie Uno and Sage and I tried out Farkel, (thanks mom and dad!).

It was a vegging day-yeah! we really needed one. The kids ate lots of snacks and watched lots of Japanese New Year's TV in between playing games and attacking daddy:)

2006-01-01T19:35:00.000+09:00

Our Sage...

I have to wear Christmas colors when we open presents mom!

Mac and Cheese!

More swing fun

Nothing can beat this kids' excitement, no matter what the gift!

2006-01-01T19:18:00.000+09:00

Our Kai...

Holding new friend dolphin, friend to Lucas' little ducky and turtle, who play together often in high squeaky voices

Mom, can you take a picture of me?

I caught one!

enjoying the swing Jiji put out on the porch in our greenhouse, great for sunny days when the greenhouse gets toasty warm

Sage:"Kai loves to twist, mom, but it makes me feel yucky..."

fun in the snow together on New Year's Day

2006-01-01T19:01:00.000+09:00

Our Lucas...thanks to uncle Masaru!

we love him!

Birthdays 2005

2005-12-15T22:37:00.000+09:00

I thought I'd post birthday pics for the year now that ours are all over, since they come in a clump I just waited. Of course I remember Sage's most since it just happened, but oh well..
31....The first b-day, mine! I was surprised in our new bedroom thanks to Kenji and friends! Totally surprised! They came in the door in our room and Kenji called me back there and wala! our kids, Toshi to the left, Orie-san and then Hiro-kun who was here for a month or so in the summer(an intern from Asian Rural Institute, an agriculture school where people from the Asian world come and live together in community, everything is in english and not many Japanese attend, Hiro-kun is Japanese however.)

admiring the globe Kenji and the boys got me, I missed having one so bad

4...Kai told me he wanted a space shuttle cake, this is as complicated as it got, but he was so cute when he saw it(I kept it a secret). I also printed out a picture of the space shuttle for his card. He has been so into space and the space shuttle this year. We've read a book he got from his birthday about space over and over, I've learned alot! Maybe I'll finally remember how many planets there are and their names, well, maybe after a few more times! We've also looked up the space shuttle and space station online and seen many launches etc.Kai has maintained that he will be going to space someday and so we also looked up those civilian space flights...pretty cool, vacation to space anyone?

Kazu and Ken-ken watching Kai

Sage, Lucas, Yohe, and Kai admiring a gift

2....Lucas' shared his cake with Rita(3)(Orie-san's-another worker on the farm- little boy), Toshi(23) who both share a birthday close to Lucas', it was a fun Saturday! Lucas thoroughly enjoyed the presents Rita gave from his toys. He was so cute and excited.

The happy birthday peoples

Look closely, it gets naked fast!

yum! we love marshmallow frosting

The good stuff is disappearing fast! of course there was plenty of the cake itself left! Why don't I just use cardboard???

A rhythm set from Jiji and Baba, Lucas likes music..

playing a tune...too bad a didn't get a picture of Baba dancing, it was funny! We had quite a parade going that night. Kai was in the hospital on Lucas' actual birthday, but he is young enough it doesn't matter much, I was so thankful we'd already had his cake.

Scaring Baba with his new growling flashlight, thanks Adam and Nadia, I love it!

35....I baked apple cobbler for Kenji.

7....Sage invited his whole first grade class(ten kids) to his party, all but two came, we had a blast! Here we are playing duck, duck, goose, a first for them

Lucas and Kai were a little shy and just wanted to watch, but enjoyed it just the same

Making pizzas, also a first. I had no idea that it would be, it's such a common thing in the States. They had fun and ate it all up!

Here are our pizzas!

Ours too..

The PINK barn cake...for some reason I haven't figured out yet Sage picked a barn cake when I asked what cake he wanted, maybe because we live on a farm, he likes connections like that. I gave up on getting the frosting red as I didn't have paste coloring. I warned him that it was going to be pink before he saw it, when he groaned, I said, hey at least you have lots of girls at your party they should appreciate it! He agreed and laughed. Whew...that could have been a major disaster, thank goodness it wasn't Kai who is very picky about girly things!

Playing a little game the kids made up based on a story they acted out in class. There are only three boys in Sage's class and one couldn't come. Of course Sage doesn't care, girl or boy, friends are all that matter!

We went out to see the new baby chicks, Toshi I'm leaving out the pictures of alll the kids, it might worry you too much!:)(Toshi took good care of the chicks when they were really little). It was even making me nervous so we didn't stay long.One little girl was freaked out by the chickens and poop and all that and could never relax while we were there. Kai, who is normally afraid of the chickens went with me to escort her out, kicking the chickens away...this kid is all boy folks!

Sage opening his gifts

The kids were so excited about Sage's party, they talked about it for weeks beforehand and Sage gave them a countdown of days left to RSVP...that's my boy! (This is also my boy...he asked me if it was okay to ask for his handdrawn invites back so he could use them next year because they were so much work...)I felt a little nervous after realizing having a big b-day party is not common in rural Japan, but my fears were quelled when I saw how excited the kids were and how much fun they had giving and playing together. They get along really well and are really good kids. It was fun to see their different personalities and how they interplay. There was one funny time during the gift opening that Kenji was reading one card to Sage and the little girl said, oh, no , don't let Izumi hear that...she had said one of the other little girls wasn't good at snowball fights....so funny! I was also amazed at how grown up the kids seemed. I guess school has trained them. I just couldn't believe I had 10 kids who lined up to wash hands, sat down at the table thru making pizzas, waiting for them to bake, eating them and eating dessert. I don't remember anyone walking around, except for Kai and Lucas. That floored me...ahhh, Sage is growing up.. 7...I can hardly believe it. Tonight he read half of a book in Japanese..a landmark, he really hasn't read in either language yet, hasn't been really motivated. I gave up the pushing and decided to wait for his own initiative as that seems to work better with him...guess what, after me casually mentioning, hey there aren't too many words on these pages, you could read it..(I thoroughly expected him to say, no I can't and not even attempt), he sat and sounded out that book(Kenji or I chimed in when he got stuck.)while I was reading to Kai so I wouldn't be hanging over him, reading at the top of his voice in that new reader stilt.....proud mama!

Winter pics, the snow is here to stay!

2005-12-15T21:45:00.000+09:00

Kai and Lucas in our greenhouse, ready to go out in the snow, Kai is showing off how much he's grown since last year! Yep, this suit goes to Lucas, but we have more.

Daddy's making a sledding hill for us! It's nice that it's right in front of our house.

The winter view from the back of our house

Sage and Kai spent a long time out playing in the snow today, walking to the road and back with Nai-Nai and Neru, the dog and then sledding and sledding. They stayed warm at least.

This old barn looks best in the snow:)

The sun is setting, it must be around 4 or before

More snowy pictures will follow I'm sure!

Is it a full moon today by chance?

2005-12-13T23:44:00.000+09:00

...because if it isn't, there is no excuse for the happenings of today. Well, okay, life itself may just have it's say.

Today, today, one of those days you want to strike off the record. But you've had a few, ...you know, the scream at your kids and make them feel really awful kind of days, when you feel as if your nerves are every one tingling? Today, my lovely Lucas had a frightful day, I am suspicious of the cold medicine prescribed last night and quit giving it as soon as I thought of it. Or of course there's also the lack of sleep, irritability from being sick, stress from having normal family life disrupted for several weeks to consider as well, oh and simply being two.. Endless screaming fits of anger, no answers to what or why, do what you think he wants and he screams more, stop doing it and another fit erupts. Sigh, I didn't handle it the best most of the time. Especially when he awoke from his nap with the same attitude. I just wasn't expecting that, and sometimes, especially at vulnerable times, crushed expectations turn me into monster momma! And then my fear of why he was acting out of character, what's wrong??? So we threw our fits together, sorry to say, my empathetic spirit nowhere to be found for the most part.

For all of God's grace and goodness I thank Him, and days are short here, it gets dark soon after 4 pm, so Kenji was home by 5. I began fixing supper with many dark feelings, the beginning of depression is never far away for me in such circumstances.

However, feeling sorry-for-myself stops right here. As I stood there, cooking chicken, my wise husband came up behind me and asked how I was doing. The screaming child, or perhaps screaming mother, had well been heard from all over the Village I am sure. as I muttered a feeble, uh...I'm okay, he hugged me and said, hmmm?? like, what is that you're trying to make me believe? So I took a deep breath, swallowed my spirit of martyrdom and said, It was a tough day, blinking back the tears. At that moment the healing began, as he said- you deserve a long bath tonight, without kids. and then offered to take over supper, to which I refused, preferring to cry a few tears in my carrot peelings while the kids entertained themselves nicely in the next room. (and they did too, not one fight and Lucas had become himself again right before Kenji came home...of course, right?!)

As I peeled those carrots and potatoes and cried a few tears, and later Kenji chopped a pineapple beside me, and we chatted about adult things...rather than kicking myself over and again for my nasty behavior, or trying to justify actions for which there is no justification, I marveled at the grace of God, who has brought me to this place, a place far from where I've been in the past. When a day like today, which follows many days of cares, could have sent me off into weeks or months of despair. How simple and yet how marvelously intricate and mysterious are the ways in which God has designed our relationships to intertwine. And to think the years I've put into finding the right formulas. I am more and more convinced that in no small way, we can and do bring healing to others by even a few simple gestures and words,( and never forgetting the power of healing touch). And not often focused on as the important part of the equation, and not well acted upon by me, accept healing from others who ache to give it, by being honest, rather than being martyrs and superpeople(I'm sure they had a hard day too, I should be able to handle just being at home with the kids, right), storing our hurts and disappointments for mega dump sessions(been there, done that),when everyone gets hurt and healing seems out of the question.

The evening of grace did not stop there, as my firm and gentle husband several times swept a once again freaking out Lucas out of my rankled territory and worked his magic to flip the switch back to our charming Lucas again, as I watched in frank jealousy and admiration, remembering my futile attempts earlier in the day. When we laid beside each other and he expressed sorrow for my rotten day, I could honestly say without a hint of martyrdom, oh, it's okay now, thank you. What? he says, surprised,(you must understand I'm not normally so easily consoled, I'm learning however:)),did I do?

you are my hero,Kenj.

Some of us have thought perhaps, ahem, that many words are necessary for healing hurts, and well, maybe we were wrong, Kenji- sensei, I rest my case.

A Kai moment

2005-12-13T23:39:00.000+09:00

So Sage says to Kai, hey Kai feel this metal weight, (for holding paper down while doing calligraphy),it's heavy! Kai takes it and says, no, it's not heavy. Sage says, yeah it is, it's metal! Kai returns with, but I'm strong, really strong. Sage says,Kai! there're stronger people than you. To which Kai says deadpan, yeah, God.

Exactly, my Herculean son, exactly!

An early New Year's Day resolution-to our health!

2005-12-13T22:42:00.000+09:00

Yeah, yeah they're made to be broken I know. Maybe getting a head start will help? So here's mine, join in if you dare! As a bunch of you already know, my family has had a tough time with health the last few months. Kai just got out of the hospital after a week's stay for pneumonia last week, and Lucas is recovering from tonsillitis at the moment. Then there is Kenji's back and well, anyway...so because I'm the worst at implementing common sense preventative strategies for anything..although I speak passionately about not wanting my kids to be on antibiotics all the time etc, I decided I needed to pull out the oh, so simple good habits that I/we never get around to doing. I'll share with you, maybe you have the same problem, or at least you can keep me accountable.

I REALLY want to help my family be healthier, and some of us have more trouble with catching things than others. So today in speaking with Nai-Nai, resident grandma and wise woman, about my aversion to getting the flu vaccine and my qualms about not!(my typical flip-flop can't decide what's best, drive you crazy kind of stuff!)she told me she has never gotten it herself and doesn't plan on it, and shared what she does to keep herself healthy during the cold/flu season. They are incredibly common sense things and she maintains that for the last two winters of doing them she has not had a bad cold or flu episode. I'll add a few things I've gathered along the way and don't do well enough, all very random and incomplete and all that...so without further ado(hmm, I'm good at ado I think...)here's my list!

1. avoid large crowds.........
HA! okay, threw that in because it's the one that makes you sigh and quit reading, as the same season that brings the cold and flu brings all kinds of gathering and shopping and going out, so outside of possibly me, we probably won't all become hermits for the winter..

2. Wash your hands and gargle when you return from being out.
I'd never heard of gargling to rinse germs from your throat on a routine basis(unless you already had a sore throat and used salt water) until I lived in Japan the first time. This is a routine drilled into kids from kindergarten, they do it several times during the day, Sage is no exception.Although I thought it odd and anal retentive admittedly at first, I'm all about it at the moment! I have read about it since then, for allergy sufferers after being out. Nai-Nai says after doing this for some time she can almost feel the moment she gets something foreign in her throat, she feels something sticking there or something and if she gargles right away she is fine, but if she is, for instance, at the hairdresser's under the dryer, (real story here:)and can't rinse right away, than she inevitably gets a cold.

3. Rinse your nose out twice a day and after being in large crowds...I was familiar with this one in the form of nose spray, but Nai-Nai says that what she heard and does is as simple as when you wash your face in the am/pm, suck a little water into your nose. Not only does it rinse the germs out, it moistens your mucous membranes, which is one of your bodies first defenses against attack by viruses and bacteria. Not only do viruses thrive in the drier weather, your nose and mouth tend to be drier which keeps them from being as effective at getting rid of them. According to a man she saw on TV or somewhere(great sources here huh!), after 40 years of chronic colds etc he started doing this and his colds were reduced to a few a year. It's good to do after you come home too, when you gargle and wash your hands.Despite the intial ewww response to this, which she said you do have at first, you get used to it. I tried it today and although it reminds you of those awful episodes when you sucked water while swimming, afterwards your nose feels fresh! And what better than a fresh nose I ask....
(remember the accountability thing, I'm waiting for "so, have you sucked any water up your nose today???")

4. And speaking of moist mucous membranes and dry weather...my mom's favorite...DRINK LOTS OF WATER. and no, caffeinated drinks do NOT count! My kids are getting called to the kitchen for enforced watering these days...ha! they're getting good at it too. Although Sage and I don't get sick as often, we get thickened mucous and postnasal drip/cough, yeah, aren't you glad you know that about us! from an MSN article today I read that although postnasal drip is a normal part of our body function, the mucous is normally so thin we don't notice it. However in dry conditions the mucous gets thicker and drier and then you get that cough and all that other nasty stuff, can I just say yuck!

5.Another interesting one from Nai-Nai, when you come home from being out and about, take off your coat outside and shake it off, then hang it ideally outside of your living area, in an entrance, or somewhere you won't have it around you, as it can harbor many germs.

6.Get plenty of sleep, ha, as I'm typing this one late at night.

7.Eat plenty of fresh fruits and veggies and hang back on the sugar and prepared foods---can I just say Thanksgiving and Christmas anyone---here's another one we're all going to compromise on- am I right??

8.Don't touch your mouth and face while out and about, nose too, kids! ha, I have yet to see my kids be able to not do this, but it makes you feel better to say it, right? We like to use those little bottles of alcohol handwash stuff when we are out, when we are on top of it enough to remember it. For those who care, it isn't like antibacterial soap, it's okay to use frequently.

9. This stuff won't work unless you make them true habits and do them everytime, which is honestly, for some of us, not a big probability. So I'm praying that God will help me in the task to be responsible and to remember and go the distance with being consistent in helping the kids develop the same habits. I am truly not good at consistency, so looking at forming new habits like these often just send me into despondancy as I look at my previous track record, so today, like Paul, I choose to look forward and not back, one babystep at a time(for those Flylady fans of you out there.

10. Oh, I almost forgot, last but not least, for my mother and those who know her best-DON'T SHARE DRINKS! hee, hee. And she's right, of course....

2005-12-11T21:48:00.000+09:00

The pics I never sent! Sage's school concert, pics courtesy of uncle Masaru, Kenji's older sister's husband. He's an awesome photographer with an awesome camera! Here's Sage singing with his class and the second grader's I think.

He belted out those songs!

His class doing an instrumental song

Sage did great!

Singing with the whole school, the girl standing beside him is several grades above him, her mom told Kenji that she was thrilled to stand by Sage, he seems to be the school pet! He is front and center always as he is a head shorter than anyone else!

He stayed up a little late the night before because he was so excited and got up bright and early clothes and all that morning, so when he sang with his mouth open wide he inevitably yawned!

Doing the dance he refused to do at first because it was "too girly", and it was pretty much,,but it ended up being fun apparently

Being the leader for part of the dance, they decorated their own clothes..Sage and one other boy were neck and neck for how much tape they used!

Calligraphy Sage did with his Jiji of his name

more calligraphy

Japanese hiragana character practice book with some chinese characters, kanji on the left side

math homework, looks the same everywhere, huh!

More hiragana and kanji practice, Sage is beginning to read hiragana and the kanji they write in first grade now. He is not so confident with his reading but it is definitely coming. We don't practice at home, too much other stuff to do here, so I was glad when he started to get it.

Family and fall!

2005-11-16T21:17:00.000+09:00

It's turned to winter here today, Kai said, it's winter now, right! He's been asking most every day, both for the snow and the fact that Ken will come back during the winter! It snowed last week for the first time, big beautiful soft flakes, it was fun to see Kai and Lucas' faces as they stepped outside,they both began licking it off their hands and sleeves. Lucas says "tastes good!" His first face was one of wonder as he said, "snow!" with an expression like, yeah, that's what this is! He may not have too much of memory of it at his age. Since then it has snowed off and on, this morning quite a bit, beautiful, but most melted by the afternoon.

We have gotten all the daikon from the field and in their special little house and the chinese cabbage too. Probably as many carrots as we will do as well-the rest can wait until spring. The soybeans have been cut and gathered and are now in a greenhouse to dry as the shelling machine didn't work well on the damp plants. Next tasks are cleaning up everything off the ground so the snowblower doesn't destroy them, and rolling up the plastic on a couple of greenhouses, so the snow doesn't weigh them down. The ones that will stay up will get extra supports placed.

The most recent saga has been trying to catch the very contented and beautiful ducks who are living in and at the pond now! Although I haven't had a chance to be present, it sounds like a fiasco, with nets and bait, etc! We have some orders from people who will eat them, so so far they've caught 4 maybe? there are maybe twenty in there! We had planned to put them back in the chicken house for the winter, but we may settle with enough to lay us some eggs next spring and the rest will enjoy their spot until they cry uncle when the snow gets deep or the pond freezes over...or the foxes get to them. Another interesting how do we do this kind of experience, met mostly daily!

This weekend will be a fun one for us...as a farm we will all go to eat dinner together in Sapporo at a nice restaurant whose chef has bought some veggies from us in the past and who seeing our reservations called and asked to get all the ingredients for our meal from here. He is known for knowing where all the ingredients come from and using all local suppliers. He does French style cooking I guess and cooks very simply, preferring to buy good ingredients and let them shine. Nai-Nai says the homemade ice cream is to die for, can't wait! after that our family will stay at her house and the next day she offered to babysit for us so Kenji and I can spend the morning together doing something for us...wow! what an offer! we haven't had anything closely resembling a date for, oh, maybe a year or more!(We debated for less than a minute over whether to use the time to go practice at the local driving course for converting our licenses to Japanese licenses, but only for a minute!)That evening we'll eat dinner at her house with an American missionary couple and their three kids, that will be fun too.Then we spend another night there and attend their church and we will be sharing there. It feels like a vacation! Yeah!

As far as the license thing goes, our international driver's licenses run out in March. Japan has gotten very strict about licenses in the last five or less years, so we heard some horror rumors about how much money it would cost to get a Japanese license and how difficult it was to pass the test, which I understood was in Japanese(that was probably a misunderstanding though). However, our only option being to return to the States for three months, which is the only way you can use an intntl lic. again, we started researching. It turns out, it is not really expensive and the written test is 10 questions in English, and you have to get 7 right to pass. YOu do have to take a driving test on a driving course and there you have to speak Japanese i'm sure, that I might be able to bumble through! That's the part you have to prepare for as it sounds as if they are really picky focusing on manners and miniscule things like how many seconds before you turned you put your blinkers on. SO I'm hoping to find a book in English to help me out. THe driving course thing takes me quickly back to age 16....failing my first driving test, and bawling all the way home in humiliation and almost having an accident with dad! Then failing the parallel parking part again, but at least passing the second time...by the way, you still won't see me parallel parking if I can get without doing it, especially if I have adult passengers watching! I hope I don't have to do that...I've heard you can get an instructor to practice with you at the course for not too much, which beats the thousands it costs to take a professional course to get you through it. I have to tell you it gives me the Pant, breath, breath kind of terror to think of it, but I'm sure it will be an experience to remember! and laugh at, no doubt, with me in the driver's seat! Kenji may have to do the same thing as his Japanese lic. expired and he failed to bring it along, although he's trying some other things first.

Sage had a school concert last Saturday, see Kenji's blog for a few pics.I'll post some others later, have to get them off a CD first. He did so well, we were very proud of him, being this was his first big public performance:). (yes, yes, we are proud parents and proud of it!) He sang with the school, played the triangle and another instrument, someone tell me the name when you see the pictures later, please! It's called Tekkin in Japanese. All the kids did so well, they practiced long and hard and it showed. They knew their stuff well and I didn't see any embarrassed or shy kids, they all just did their stuff. Being a small school everyone gets a chance to be in the limelight, I love that from first grade they are introducing the show and playing instruments, accompanying etc, and all without many mistakes. Sage had a little bit of a struggle at the beginning as he came home after the first dance practice saying that he wouldn't perform and hated the dance----because it was too girly! There are 7 girls and three boys in his class, so there you go. I have a feeling it was more that he felt overwhelmed at all the moves, and didn't think he could do it..I didn't say much letting him rant for awhile and then, the next practice I casually asked how dance went and he said, good, all normal like, so I said, oh, you're getting it a little bit now, and he started showing me the moves and from then on out, it was fun, fun, fun! He also does not love the teacher who does music. (I think she is a perfectionist, takes one to know one!) The kids each got to choose the instrument they would play for the two songs(cool, huh!) He was having a hard time getting his part and making lots of mistakes so she would say, if you don't get it right you will have to choose a different instrument. Eventually he began to get it, and she gave up on him. I understood his feeling, but tried to get him to see that her wanting them to try hard and do a good job would have good results, and though he may have a hard time communicating with her, show her respect and do his best and she'll probably return the respect. If not, at least you did what was right. He was saying, mom, I don't get what you're saying! But he was alright. the last week he was still saying he wasn't getting one part and we had got a CD from his teacher and the music, but without the instrument we never quite got any actual practicing done. Just doing this seemed to qualm his fears somewhat, and then his dad stepped in with the best solution..I had kept saying why don't you just tell her that you need help, and he would say, she leaves right away.. etc. We prayed about it alot. Finally when he still was fretting about the one part the day before, Kenji says, you know what, at this point, don't worry about it, just do your best and have fun. He relaxed and that day, I didn't even know what part it was. Kenji says there was one part he didn't play when others did, I didn't catch it.I counted this a victory, as he played every other part perfect and didn't let it bother him! Way to go Sage! He was so excited the night before that he couldn't go to sleep and then woke up early the next morning and came out of his room with all his clothes on, oh my child who loves big to-do's! Whenever he would open his mouth wide during the songs it would turn to a big yawn, so funny! His only disappointment that day was "what am I going to do? no more practice, school is going to be back to normal!" The show was three hours long! Kai and Lucas sat thru it enjoying it all, It was a combination of plays and songs with and without instruments with different mixes of the 6 grades. The kids had had basically a dress rehearsal a few days earlier where they performed it all for local kindergarten kids and they all watched each other then, so on the big day, when there really wasn't space in the gym for the kids and visitors, they would do their part and then go to a classroom and play, or they could watch it on the tv. I thought this was a great idea as the kids didn't have to fidget through everyone else's part and at the dress rehearsal it didn't matter who couldn't hear because they were being too noisy. Sage loved it too, as he got to play! On Kenji's website he vented about the noisy and rude adult men who were sitting close to us, not paying a bit of attention and talking loudly. Irritating, as the kids worked hard and deserve the same respect we ask of them when adults are on the stage. He almost said something to them, but held his tongue and sufficed with a pointed glance at the former PTA head who was part of the group, thank goodness, we're strange enough without that kind of attention, ha!

Okay, I'll quit blabbing about my life at you now...you can all blab about yours to me anytime by the way...I'd love to hear what's going on...I like to listen as much as I like to talk.

Here are Sage and Koko-best friends, or closer to siblings!- eating Daikon fresh from the field after spending much time pulling them up and helping to chop off the leaves, a day well spent with tummies full of the fruit of their labor!

fall...

Kai playing Pajama Sam one of our few computer games(thanks Teoh's one of the wonderful things you passed on to us!) it's a great game!

Happy wake-up Lucas, just up from his nap with ever-present blankie, which has held up wonderfully by the way-beloved corners and all!

Sage practicing calligraphy with Jiji, Jiji likes to do it, and Sage loves doing it with him.

in mommy and daddy's bed, we play musical beds some nights here....

more fall..wish I could show you the beautiful snow-capped mountains now, but my zoom is insufficient...yesterday the moon was rising at soon after 4pm and it was a gorgeous sky, pink tinged clouds, an almost full moon and the snowcapped mountains behind...ahh. Kenji, Toshi and I were out in the field pulling carrots, what a majestic backdrop.

These are pics from cousing Nozomi's hundred day party, celebrated in Japan. Here is cousin Manami about to get a kiss?? actually, probably a squirt of jello!

Uncle Masaru, who is quiet and bookish is a fav of Kai and Lucas, I don't think he minds as he has three girls.. and Kenji does girl duty, hogging Nozomi every time he's near, I've hardly had a chance !

Nozomi, third girl of Makiko(Kenji's older sister) and Masaru

Megumi-girl in the middle

Baba holding newest grandbaby, number 10.

Makiko and Masaru, they just moved to a beautiful brand new condo about 40 min or less away from us, should be fun!

these kids had a great time, although the legs were freaking Baba out-for good reason!

watching Jiji tell a story with story-cards, which Sage checks out from the library bus that comes to school every other week..

this is what they are watching!

dancing with Sayoko(Kenji's younger sister) and Shunsuke's two girls to Japanese kids songs, it was late and they were absolutely crazy, it was very fun

Hikari the oldest and the last picture was Nanami

An autumn walk

2005-11-11T22:04:00.000+09:00

some pictures of the fall wildflowers and leaves-

Climbing on the straw bales we got for the chicken's bedding

inspecting a flower petal

I love this weed grass!

it was almost dark when we got back from our walk, it was beautiful...

Sunrise

2005-11-06T00:18:00.000+09:00

It was fear...
suddenly, I knew
as I swept his soft brown hair into that sweet curve behind his ear, murmuring, "it's alright, go back to sleep, mommy's here".

In the dim light, with the sound of the goldfish filter bubbling in my ear, there it was, out of the blue, the culprit, but this too?
How could I be so blind? All too aware of it's hold on me in other ways, but my heart, too? held captive in it's wicked clutches

Frustration- years of it
why can I not be here, right now, in this moment? Why am I always elsewhere, in the past, in the future....what about now? why do I avoid it, why do I hesitate and then ignore my heart's cry, the whole while aching as if I will explode. why do so few know the way I really feel, as I go about crafting acceptable platitudes and striving to do the right thing, well, on the outside..

So, it's you, as if I shouldn't have known, my old enemy,
Fear
of what?
you name it
of missing a moment, that passes before I can be in it
of them being gone, before i realize they were here
of not loving enough,
of not being there,
of not knowing them, really knowing them,
of not living in the moment,
of them not loving me,
not knowing me, really knowing me...

of my feelings being too much for me and everyone else.

of Pain,

what! you say? some of the very things you haven't been able to do because of it
are the very things you have it of
it's a funny thing...

it's really not funny at all

but you see, now, I know
I know who you are.....
the truth will set you free it's been said
and now I know

the bonds are loosing, as they have been, but now
I've seen your face
I know who you are.. they fall off faster and faster
and I can face you, well not me alone, but me and my Maker

you can't keep me from it anymore,
those fleeting moments in the quiet night hours,
when their faces are so sweet,
when his arm is like a poem around me
It doesn't have to just be then, that my heart is raw and real
not just when the sun sets and the flowers are in my viewfinder
those moments come in the daylight now
when others can see, much to my bashful dismay

those memories few and far between when I was really there, they are happening more often
each one creaking the padlocked door open a crack more

so when the clock ticks, I will hear it
when their hearts beat I will listen, even for those heartstopping skips,
I will be in the pain, and I will let it make me
who I will be
and I will be in the joy, all of me, all too much of me

no more skipping out so it won't hurt so bad someday
no more frantic wall-building to keep my raw feelings
protected
no more hiding behind what I should be or should have been

just me,
okay,
no promises,
I'm still finding out who me is

you might know better than I do,
the walls I've built, the skins I've worn,
they get confusing,
kind of like those little white lies I got in the habit of telling
(don't want to show my darkness-
good Christian girl like you shouldn't be telling lies, white or otherwise)

the numbness, the aching numbness, is subsiding,
the tears come easier with every step
so
it will be okay
I'm a real live person
I don't have to be afraid anymore
I will live it,
this life, my life
how it comes

rocking horse in the nightlight
my moonlight mile

Because of the tender mercy of our God, with
which the Sunrise from on high will visit us,to shine
upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.
Luke 1:79

Fall, here for a moment!

2005-10-31T22:53:00.000+09:00

Right now we are harvesting Daikon,huge japanese radish, really different than our radish though, and Hakusai, chinese cabbage, and carrots too. So here's some pictures....

Putting up the Daikon storage building for the winter- a truck full of daikon

the Daikon Processing Center:) Cutting leaves, washing, drying daikon and leaves for japanese pickles, and bagging for orders

the daikon field, with oat cover crop behind

oats

the drying daikon leaves, really pretty aren't they!

an autumn view

and yet another

Kenji harvesting hakusai-chinese cabbage

absolutely beautiful!

Daikon has a really great design from the top, and the sides..

pushing it's way up

harvesting daikon and hakusai with Kenji, Toshi and Kai, Kai loves harvesting, and he is a really hard worker, it's fun to work with your kids, I mean really working, you get to know them and who they are in a really intimate way

Kai learned how to tell when a hakusai is ready to harvest from watching Kenji- the head feels firm, he learns well from working together, and trusts his instincts, like his daddy!

Down in the potato storage, packing potatoes for delivery, when I want the kids to hang out there with me, I call it "the cave" and tell them to bring their flashlights and swords and fight some dragons for me!

Who let the chickens out.....okay some of you will get it.....they had alot of fun, and the kids did too, Sage caught a few and held them, thinking that they escaped, he was trying very hard to get them back inside, but really they were just out for a walk

The trees along the edge of the woods are at their peak this week....I love fall, I can't really even explain all the reasons why, but it's my very favorite season, and I always feel as if it's over before I can enjoy it...

and now, who let the ducks out??? Orie-san and Kenji finally persuaded them that it would be okay to leave their stinky pen and venture outside, they weren't too sure and kept trying to go back home...until they saw the pond and then did they ever go crazy!! They washed and washed and made lots of racket, and they are just gorgeous now, clean and shiny, and no more stinky:) they are enjoying their new home, and they don't seem inclined to go back to their old one, so at least for now, until it gets too cold, they are in the pond to stay.

Mom, "amai!", these are so sweet, fresh pulled carrots are a favorite around here, they are deliciously sweet and the color is out of this world

Lunch on Mondays includes lots of wonderful volunteers! Left to right-Gondon, our volunteer accountant, and unfortunately you can't see her, but Akiko-san(known as Ah-tan to all of us, her nickname, she is great with our kiddoes and does just about anything, Ma, who has a delivery route on Tuesdays, and Noriko-san who has recently began coming, a member at our church, and then Nai-Nai of course!

Toshi, Orie-san, Kenji and Makino-san,(another volunteer, a former student of Nai-Nai's, who has been a wonderful help this year when we've been so busy! Thanks everyone...

Another load of Daikon

Maki-no-san, Ma Obasan and Nai-nai, cutting the tops off carrots and cleaning them

Ahhh, these little carrots could make me become a poet, I had to stop and take their picture tonight while I was making supper they were so striking in the bowl waiting to be cooked.

Books-a window to the soul

2005-10-24T22:14:00.000+09:00

"You are a woman, are you not? An ezer kenegdo to your core. Your lingering disbelief(may it be fading away) that anything important hangs on your life is only evidence of the long assault on your heart by the one who knows who you could be and fears you.
There is much life saving that needs to be done yet, and someone needs to do it. Not in a pressure-filled, You'd better get to it kind of a way. Rather, an invitation. Your feminine heart is an invitation by your Creator. To what? To play an irreplaceable role in his Story. Isn't that what your Lover wrote there? Some dream, some desire, something so core to who you are it almost hurts to think of it. The very longing is such a part of your being it's scary to even give it a voice. You may not know the dream itself yet. But you know the longing to play an irreplaceable part. That is a good beginning.
Ezer is woven into the fabric of your feminine heart. You must live this out. What lives, what destinies are hanging on your "Yes" to God?"
from "Captivating" by John and Staci Eldredge- pg 205
(ezer, it is explained in the book, is the word in Hebrew used to describe Eve when she is created. Translated helper, companion, etc, it is only used elsewhere in the OT to describe God, when you need Him to come through for you desperately, usually in life or death circumstances, a lifesaver, in other words. Kenegdo means alongside or opposite to, a counterpart. Beautiful, don't you think?)

"Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own."
from"The Horse and His Boy" (The Chronicles of Narnia, book 3) by C.S. Lewis
(the quote that will come back to me often, to remind me that it is not for me to think I know,or to write, another's story)

"It has been said that there are two important ways to promote the growth of plants. One is through photosynthesis taking place in the leaves, which, as you know, utilizes energy from the sun. The other is through the absorption of inorganic materials such as nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potassium, by way of their roots. But this does not give us a complete picture. Over the last twenty years, the field of soil microbiology has developed greatly. It has been discovered that amino acids, nucleic acids, vitamins, and hormones play significant roles in the growth of plants, and that these substances are secreted by the microrganisms in the soil. When plants can get these materials they become robust and grow well. In addition, the color and flavor improve, they keep longer, and they contain more vitamins. That is why, among other things, one has to give food and space to microorganisms in order to make good soil, and therefore good plants. With the additions of microorganisms and their various secretions, the soil will become soft and porous, like a cushion. Soil like this holds much moisture, and so is able to supply water to crops even in dry weather. It also retains warmth, even during a cold summer. Furthermore, oxygen can penetrate deeper into bacteria-laden soil, which helps to make crops strong and disease resistant. "
from "A Farm with a Future-Living with the Blessings of Soil and Sun" by Yoshinori Kaneko(and no, no relation:)
I found this book in the Menno Village library, and I, being a lover of how things work together and the whole picture, loved this description, it made me think of the role of healthy microorganisms in our own bodies digestive system, without them we are not strong or healthy either....the book goes on to describe how the addition of chemical fertilizers, although indeed causing growth and what looks like healthy green leaves, are unbalanced and can even cause imbalances in our own bodies when we ingest them, as well as very interesting, join with proteins from meat and fish to become carcinogenic....the addition of chemical fertilizers makes the soil too acidic for the healthy microorganisms to survive and this acidic enviroment is a breeding ground for molds, the major cause of plant diseases, bringing on the need for more chemicals and further imbalances.(by the way, the healthy microorganisms in our bodies are also destroyed when we take antibiotics and other chemicals into our bodies, so take probiotics if you have to take them:) just a free tip!

"Communism, like nudism and anarchism, dimly sees something heavenly, but by insisting on enacting it now, by human force, it turns the heavenly into the hellish, as when adult powers are given to infants."
from "What Will Heaven Be Like?" Christianity Today article, click on the post title to link to the article.

"You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law;you have fallen from grace. For we through the Spirit, by faith, are WAITING for the hope of righteousness."
from Galatians 5:4- emphasis added by me

"For if I rebuild what I have once destroyed, I prove myself to be a transgressor."
from Galatians 2:18-speaking of the law again

well, all of Galatians.... how many laws have I tried to write for myself and others?? how many times have I tried to assure myself of my okayness, not even my goodness, by trying to find "The Way" to do just about everything?? Ahhh, the freedom ...and struggle in yielding myself daily, hourly, minutely(yeah, yeah, that's not a word!), to the Spirit, and resting in God's work and wisdom, and being able to say, it wasn't me, Thank God, it wasn't me!

In that moment, that second,
when panic seizes my chest, when
it sucks my breath away, in that moment,
my God, I cry out to You,

It is all Yours, take it from me...
make from this battle a monument to
Your name, in my weakness,
be glorified.

Like beauty from ashes,
like silver refined in the fire,
from the yawning depths of my fears,
from the blinding heaviness of my selfishness,
from my very real tears, mingled with Yours...

(is it possible? my faith is small and hesitant-I
am not worthy to have my tears mingled with Yours, but yes, You say, what liar are you listening to? Was my blood for nothing? You are my child, I made you, I knew you before you were formed in your mother's womb, you are my heir to righteousness)

...come springing forth rivers of
Life, overflowing,
reaching out beyond my
infinite smallness to only You know where

and then in these everlasting moments---failure,
the word that seems the end, and You say,
"only the end to you, and the beginning of Me."

To some you must be harsh, is it true? but to me, You are my Savior, gently scooping me up, scraping me off the floor of my depravity, and lifting me into your freedom, Your life, Your hope.

for with these tears my search for perfection is sanctified, no longer a shameful thing to hate and hide and rage against- No, No, a passionate call from You to Your heart, where the only Beautiful Perfection is found, forever, and ever Amen.

"Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives." Hebrews 2:14-15

Halloween festival, well just a plain old good time!

2005-10-17T22:08:00.000+09:00

Sage's last minute costume which Sage and I came up with between the two of us

The "hayride" truck, ready to go

Carving pumpkins, I don't have my cute little girl's straw hat on in this picture, but I was dressed up as a country girl, and everyone thought I looked like Anne of Green Gables!

cute dressed up visitors

Kai is a "common rider"(this is really the name, said with Japanese pronunciation, I'd love to know how the name came about!) one of the popular comic heroes, he loves wearing costume outfits like this and swears it makes him go faster than any of us:)

loading up the truck for a ride to the pumpkin patch, although we had picked alot of pumpkins, we left some so people could pick out their own if they liked, the truck hayride was a popular attraction and we gave several rides.

This is the one! Everyone enjoyed the trip to the pumpkin patch, especially the kids of course

Orie, Koko, and Rita

Doing the power pose:)

Kenji was a fisherman, an easy last minute do, Ha!

Carving, all by myself

Toshi with pumpkin...

Cute huh!

After carving pumpkins and eating chicken broth/veggie soup made by Nai-Nai and Kabochan we had a contest, to see who could throw a bag of momi-gara, rice hulls, the farthest, both a kids contest and an adult contest, lots of laughs!

way to go skeleton!

The winners of the adult contest with their veggie prizes

after the contest we invited everyone to the spaghetti squash/kabocha/pumpkin field to help us harvest the rest of our crop. Makino-san(a Monday volunteer!) very helpfully earlier in the day cut them off the vine, so everyone spread out over the field and carried them to the truck. Considering we had between 50 and 60 visitors(at least half were kids), we had plenty of help.The kids were fighting over them, looking all over, it was like an easter egg hunt! Everyone had a great time they said, and it was so fast for us! The kids only lamented they couldn't ride back in the truck since it was packed full of squash..

Here they are in the dusk, bringing 'em in

the harvest!

by this time it was dark and time to hand out homemade cookie favors(thanks to Nai-Nai and Kabochan of course!) to the kiddoes and light the jack-o-lanterns, this is just a fun collage, but they looked really cool in the dark, the kind of thing that turns you back into a delighted kid!

some more jack-o-lanterns...a fun day, and the rain started just as everyone was packing into cars and headed home, hallelujah! they'd been calling for rain all day, whew!

ahhh, the keyboard!

2005-10-09T00:21:00.000+09:00

once again it's been a long time since I've posted. Once it's been awhile then it seems to get even longer, that whole procrastinating thing I guess. I'm so sleepy I'll be doing a lot of back spacing, well I am.. so just a few words to get back in the swing. The pics are the easiest, but the writing is the most therapeutic...and I've found reality just doesn't get real for me until it's on paper, or more accurately for now, on screen. It's been very busy here this last month, lots of new things for everyone to learn, and unfortunately lots of sick days for our family. Kenji and Kai are fighting with change of season induced infections/asthma(Kai's officially diagnosed with his 3 day hospital stay) and all of us have colds, along with the rest of the farm...Sicky times like this are tough on all of us, and my perfectionistic downfalls hit hardest when my family isn't well. You know, the fear that comes when you can't control something?? It's at times like these that I find it hardest to relent to God's hand, feeling somehow that I can't trust Him to take care of those I love most. I know what I'm doing when I'm doing it, but it certainly doesn't make it easier to let go. Grouchy mommy and controlling wife tendencies tend to emerge when I'm feeling lack of control. And it does bear saying that my need for control is not something I'm particularly proud of, it's just something I know I struggle with and I don't doubt pretty much always will. When I recognize it then sometimes I can let go and I'm no longer a compulsive worrier like I used to be, but other times it's alot harder to let go and be patient for God's timing and purpose. Well, anyway, I'm learning new things thru this experience as always- about myself and subsequently humanity,(like I'm still quite thoroughly capable of throwing a temper tantrum when I don't get what I want, along with the best my children can serve up, maybe a little more subtly however) God's faithfulness, as well as purely practical things as well.....
We are harvesting Kabocha little by little(Japanese winter squash, I think marketed as Hokkaido squash maybe in the States), and we still have one more field of rice that has to be handcut also as it is way muddy, weather cooperating, we'll be doing that the beginning of next week. They have been drying the rice in the huge drier and taking the hulls off, bagging and storing it. Next will come spaghetti squash,soybeans, Chinese Cabbage, and Daikon eventually. We're packing potatoes nearly daily to ship, orders are coming in by fax and piling up on the desk....Nai-Nai we await your return:) And the other day we harvested alot of pumpkins in preparation for our Halloween festival in a week. The kids just love those big orange things, and who can blame them!
Sage just sang in a music contest with his school. He was front and center(he's always put there I think because he's the shortest in the school). He sang wonderfully but could hardly keep his arms still and legs still, my child for sure! Kenji thought he should be doing the directing that one of the fifth graders did. He just kind of stood out against the other very still children, the best was when the girl next to him elbowed him in the ribs to be still, he got the message anyhow, it's always nice to get a good laugh! Sage knows all the words to the songs and says he had alot of fun that day as most of the day they were at the contest singing or listening to others sing so it didn't feel like work. He was puzzled when one of the little girls talked about not wanting to go because she was embarrassed, he wanted to know why? But he did admit that if he was by himself he wouldn't want to do it, but with others he had no problem. They have been practicing lots of music lately, for that contest and for something else, maybe the school festival or a concert, not sure. The music we haven't heard yet he plays the triangle and the xylophone, (well that's not really what it is, but I don't know the name for real:), something like that. I was impressed at their singing, with a sixth grader playing piano(and not just a simple song, but accompanying), and a fifth grader keeping time, with simple directing. His Japanese has blossomed in the last few months, and he uses both languages at home. Kai and Lucas are picking up from this too, it is fun to see. One of the songs Sage is singing at school is It's a Small World after All and we were talking about how our living here and becoming comfortable in this culture makes it easy to understand what they are talking about in the song.
Kai is getting used to the fact that his daily playmate Ken-Ken is gone for awhile and he and Lucas are getting along famously, for the most part. The last several days our house has been scattered with K'nex, rediscovered during chilly days he couldn't go outside with his cough. He is excellent at putting the models together that the pictures show, he's always been really good at puzzles. And of course the complimentary self-designed guns, swords and arrows that always result! My love of gadzillions of small painful pieces is quite driven by the thrill of creativity I observe! The other day we were driving at night and he saw a star and suddenly said I'm going to draw a star tomorrow...the next day he tried and was frustrated, and tonight his attempt turned into a monster:). He is very into space, and we've read the awesome books he got for his birthday alot, we hear alot about space shuttles and rockets in our house and he frequently sees space shuttles(in the form of airplanes I try to convince him!) in the sky. His most recent interest is volcanoes- boys are very fascinated with power and mystery, anybody noticed this?? While he was in the hospital we had some deep conversations about Jesus and God, it's that awareness age Michelle:) He typically acts like he doesn't want to pray,or me to pray, he's kind of a shy kid in some ways though. He is working himself out of his overdependence on me after his episode in the hospital...today I was thrilled to hear him say that he wanted daddy to push him in the shopping cart instead of me because he liked daddy just a little bit more than me!
Lucas is quite the talker, he can get across pretty much anything you need to know, and plenty more....his favorite word right now is the Japanese word Dame, which means no...he says it very strongly to anyone within his hearing when they are doing pretty much anything that he doesn't feel like them doing at the moment, whether it matters in his life or not! Hmmm, wonder if he's heard it a few times himself.....? He loves to play with any kind of vehicles, loves to line them up in a row and "park" them as he says and make roads anywhere, in anything. He also loves to play with stuffed animals, making them talk and pretending they walk and eat and things. He got a cute stuffed turtle for his birthday from Jiji and Baba, just in time as he lost his favorite stuffed duck sometime around then. Some of his other favorite words...Dessert, please!, ( accent on "sert", very clearly, and many times repeated, preferably while running around the table after not eating more than a few bites of real food!) He is just beginning to be afraid of things, likes the light off when he's laying down so there aren't shadows and doesn't want to go in the dark alone. When we were walking outside at sunset the other night, "I see Jesus!" he said pointing into the sunset...when I said, really, you see Jesus, he says Yeah!, in this just so cute way he has of saying it like amazed or something, and then today when we walked outside for the first time he looked up and pointed at the blue sky with interesting wave-like clouds, and said, "mommy, ocean is coming!" with one of his loud dramatic whispers and facial expressions he is famous for...He is horrified if one of us carries him in the house with his shoes on and sometimes ends up in tears before we can get them off of him and get him laughing...He gives us all many laughs and at two, many an exasperating control struggle just to balance everything out!
well, as usual it's been more than a few words and more backspacing than actual words typed! but it's good to be typing again, hope you are all doing well, and thanks to all here who've been a big help and bore extra burdens while we've been working on healing and thanks to everyone who has been praying for our health....and sanity:).

Minna no inekari-rice harvesting by hand with Menno people

2005-10-09T00:18:00.000+09:00

the day we tried to have the rice harvest and just as the explanation was beginning it started pouring...so we served the hot soup and postponed until the next day!

so the next day, nicely sunny and warm

the cutting has begun, you just grab a bundle and whack it off! the kids especially like this, getting to handle a sharp, wicked looking tool not being a daily occurrence!

Sage was a rice cutting machine, his goal was to cut one row end to end and he did this plus much more, he kept with it for most of the time that we were cutting all day long

more kids enjoying themselves!

Kenji's cool pics, here and the next..did you know rice was so pretty??

Orie-san and Rita-kun

Kai demonstrating, he also cut for much longer than we expected, sticking with it, using real tools is such a motivator!

showing Lucas how to do it

when you plant the rice you plant little plugs of rice, you can look back at some of my first pics to see, so it grows in clumps, easy handfuls to grab and cut

the fields have been drained for some time now so are only somewhat muddy instead of sucking you up muddy in most places at least

piles of cut rice

taking a break, sitting on a pile of rice

Sage and Koko, almost to the end of our rows, Koko told Sage she wasn't going to go to the rice field or cut, but since we all went she said, well,I'll just go and look, but then she decided to try it and ended up cutting lots of rice along with Sage

my picture doesn't do them justice, but there were so many kinds of pretty fall wildflowers in the ditch next to the rice field, beautiful!

mmmm, what better artist than God

2005-10-09T00:10:00.000+09:00

eating lunch, menno village chicken curry soup

picnic lunchtime

playing with daddy

trying to hide from the camera

rose on the way to the rice field

feeding rice bunches into the combine, in the old days it seems they dry the bunches by hanging them up on poles and then used some kind of rake looking thing that you shoved the tops of the rice down over and then yanked on the straw while the rice fell off on the other side, hmm, that was an interesting description, do you get it?? I saw that on tv, so I assume it's accurate:) and then I think they used a foot operated treadle machine to remove the hulls.

very fascinating, machines...

Kenji's little sister Sayoko's family who happened to stop by while out on a drive

cousins Hikari and Nanami

eating snack at the field

Toshi driving the combine

A little tour of Menno Village or a morning walk

2005-09-17T23:42:00.000+09:00

Sage on the way to the schoolbus stop..a really nice morning walk. His Jiji(grandpa here) usually goes with him when he is here, but when he is not, Kenji and I take turns, it's a nice time to talk and look at nature.

The sign at the entrance to our driveway, new this year, nice huh! Akiko's dad made it.

walking back home after the bus came

stopping to look in the nice little brook

I love these little tree frogs, they are everywhere!

chestnut

tonbo, dragonfly in English, there are many many in the summer/fall. The best are the bright blue or red ones, but they are rarer than the brown ones, they will often land on your hat or arm or wherever. The kids like to catch them

the edge of Menno Village' land

turning the curve to head in to the village

the straight shot home, soybeans on the left

Chinese cabbage coming up on the right side of the road

Almost there!

the chozoko, root cellar that snow is shoveled into in the winter to keep the root veggies for longer

Our house, with packing room/walk in refrigerator attached

The main house where we eat together and Toshi lives, the office is, the part timers live, etc!

Ray and Akiko's families' house

The chicken house.

There is more, but that's all for now!

2005-09-17T23:26:00.000+09:00

Rain from the hurricane a couple of weeks ago, that pretty much missed us all but quite a bit of rain and just a little wind

Rain, rain....

And the beautiful rainbow..s, can you see the second one to the right? just barely there? it was a beautiful evening

and the sunset to follow that made Sage ask if this is what heaven will look like mom? the picture doesn't do it justice to be sure.

Saying goodbye for awhile..

2005-09-17T23:14:00.000+09:00

Saying goodbye to Ray, Akiko, Kazu, Yohe and Ken...who are now settling down to life in the States. We are glad they made it safely and by the sound of it are enjoying the change and having some good family time. we talked to them the other day and it seems that people are much more accepting of his ideas this time, maybe because of all the unrest in the world and disasters people are looking to different avenues for answers. It sounds as if he will be busy speaking to different groups and writing along with school and Akiko hopes to help with those responsibilities while the boys are in school. They love to do this, so we wish them the best there! Although we'll be glad to have them back of course!

Potato digging

2005-09-14T21:46:00.000+09:00

Kenji pulling the potato digger

Kai riding along while driving thru the field picking up potatoes

picking them up!the really small ones we separate in the field and most of them are sold to make potato starch

eating mid-morning snack at the field

helping Toshi dig potatoes

a big furecon(I think this word was made from the English words freight and container?) filling up, they hold maybe a little less than a half -ton, we pick the potatoes up and put them into plastic feed bags and then someone drives the tractor thru the field dumping the bags into these big bags hung from the tractor bucket.They then go into the equivalent of a root cellar, pics later!

Our little camping trip to the beach

2005-09-06T15:49:00.000+09:00

Kenji's early morning shots

do you see the faces here??

ahh, if only mom could have slept that well, but do you see a space for her anywhere??

Kai the earliest riser as usual

welcoming the day at the ocean is unparalelled!

Kai

all of us

Lucas' first experience in the ocean and with the tide, it was fun for us all to see his face and his delight, we got to the beach late, after dark, Kenji had already set up the tent, so his first look was waking up and walking down to the water

cousin Megumi and Kai

cousin Manami and Sage

getting ready to do a Japanese kid thing, suika wari, watermelon breaking translated directly. Like a pinata, quite fun, then you can break the watermelon apart with your hands and eat it.

Here he goes!

suffering

2005-09-03T07:04:00.000+09:00

today as i watched news videos and read of the people and destruction from Hurricane Katrina i struggled with the feelings that come with observing human suffering that isn't personal to me. it is the easiest for me to watch horrified and yet untouched as the numbers and pictures scroll by. i know in my heart this can't be right...it can't be right to observe others suffering in this way and be so disconnected. As i try to imagine what it would be like to not only be struggling to survive at the moment, but then to look forward to the future that seems so bleak at present, especially for those people who have no savings or insurance settlements coming, i feel the hint of hopelessness that must be engulfing. When i encounter the tales of others sufferings, i immediately feel relief that I have been spared such suffering, then guilt that i am thinking of myself at such a moment..then i am thankful and grateful for each daily chore i do, this morning it was sweeping my sticky kitchen floor, something of which i am not often thankful for, but if you try to imagine getting your mind around not having a house, much less a floor at all...and i am not even speaking of the much, much greater losses in human life and health.

As I watched people stranded and angrily shouting that they were not getting food or water and noone seemed to care that there were full-term pregnant women and elderly people who needed medications, i identified with the desperation that comes when loved ones are in danger and when fear of the unknown is pressing. i feel the fear in the pit of my stomach although that is all i can feel of their suffering.

it isn't humanly possible to feel others suffering i suppose, and in the long-term not necessarily productive or helpful to attempt to stay in this frame of mind for long, yet somehow i want others suffering to mean something to me, to affect how i live in the end, to become more sensitive to what others are experiencing.

to see this suffering reminds me that there are many, many,places that have continuing suffering; the middle east, the war zones, somehow the stories quickly buzz by and they don't affect me in my comfortable life much on a daily basis. how quickly i distance myself emotionally from such stories of suffering so that i can navigate my own life. what can i do? it is easy for me to just feel sad and then take a deep breath and move on, never looking back, meanwhile the stories may slow down, but the suffering still continues.

Not just for the moment, but for my existence, Lord please let the suffering of others not be lost to me, soften my heart, show me where i am hard to the feelings and losses of others, let me be there for those who are suffering in my place, right beside me? let me live my own life as if it is a gift, and one which is to be used for Your glory and not my pleasure. Let me not be hard to any suffering, but instead may prayers to You flow readily and sincerely that Your power and mercy may be displayed among the sufferers. let me help in what way i can. let my life be a picture of your peace instead of fear and despair.

for those who are suffering all over, and in specific in New Orleans and the other southern areas affected, Lord please bring your peace to your people among those suffering and let them be a beacon of Your peace and love and hope to those around them. let those in leadership make wise decisions and please give strength and safety to those who are both waiting for relief and bringing it.

may the weight of the suffering that is not only obvious, but also hidden, and just as devastating, around us, be apparent to us and cause us to search our own hearts for compassion and love, the kind that causes us to reach out beyond ourselves. let me look outside my own small world and be sensitive and caring and let me teach this to my children. Above all let me portray to others the hope that Christ brings amongst suffering, and the redemption of brokenness that only His love can offer.

Some pics from a recent delivery day

2005-09-02T07:31:00.000+09:00

Morning looking out our back door, by our bathroom sink(which happens to be at the end of our living room, and not in the bathroom!

Crates of corn and eggplant ready to pack for delivery

Newspaper wrapped greens

Taking the outer husk off the corn

Putting the veggies into bags for each CSA member that is being delivered to that day

Me in front of the big fridge and packing room which is attached to the side of our house

Ma Obasan harvested red chiso, a Japanese herb, maybe kind of like a basil?

Oriesan and Aatan(weekly Mon/Tues. volunteer) harvesting greens

eggs and the tablet hanging in the chicken house to record how many eggs/day and how much feed given to each room of chickens so egg production vs feed can be monitored and adjusted

Eggs!

The egg storage room, newly equipped with a evaporative cooler

Akiko just finishing sifting bran from whole wheat flour and packing for an order

Nai-Nai(Akiko's mom) starting to prepare lunch for the crew

Ken-Ken, Kai and Lucas entertaining themselves while we are packing in the community house called the Plum House, where the kitchen/dining room etc are

Volunteer weeding in the rice field, see the ripe rice kernels! Before they are mature if you squeeze the husk a sweet milky liquid is inside, somehow I was surprised by this, Sage thought that's how they make rice milk!

Two of the 6 rice fields

A view back towards the village and ski mountain behind it from the the rice fields you just saw. Japanese winter squash, kabocha in the foreground and then corn

2005-08-25T07:38:00.000+09:00

Summer pics, varied and sundry! Raspberries are beautiful fruit

Sage's morning glory that he brought home from school with him for summer break, unfortunately it hasn't flowered yet and doesn't look as good as it does here

The Snake! there is a story here I have not time to tell...Kenji found this snake around the chicken house and brought it over to the boys, they were very fascinated with it and it seemed rather friendly actually.Kai said it's so soft mom, we HAVE to send this to grandma so she can feel how soft it is???

It turned into Sage's pet in his mind and it was a heartwrenching drama for him to let it go that night..

See what I mean?

It was about the same length as Sage

A living "boa" hee hee

bee's nest, maybe a killer bee nest

Harvesting tomatoes

Helping buttering toast

Stag beetle-found!

Everyone loves it

Festival in Naganuma, kind of a memorial festival for dead relatives? That weekend, everyone goes home to their hometown and cleans and decorates the graves. Each area has it's own dance for a traditional song. THis town has a costume contest and whoever dances gets a free raffle ticket for all kinds of gifts they draw for at the end, so all of Menno Village was in the dance, it is very simple. We had a good time and we won some boxes of canned tea and juice etc

Our kids loved the funny costumes and the older men in this group really teased the kids alot, Lucas didn't know what to think!

Koko did not like the costumes however! (Orie-san's daughter)

They are not real okay!

A very old man who entered the costume dance and won a participation prize. Toshi holding Kai

Orie-san and kids Koko and Rita-kun(boy)

Akiko and Kazu listening for their numbers to see if they won anything, they gave away hundreds of prizes

Kai is holding the cup with his number on it

2005-08-25T07:16:00.000+09:00

This has been almost a month ago now, the beginning of summer break. Sage was very fascinated with the whole wheat harvesting process and the combine. Here are he and KenKen following, which Sage did for a very long time, a safe distance of course, he is my cautious child!

The fruits of harvest

working on the combine, this combine has tractors instead of wheels so it can be used to harvest rice as well

the field after harvest

Riding in the truck to take straw to the greenhouses

Helping to load straw into the back of the truck

Ridin'

nothing like a hayride to bring out the kid in ya!

Orie-san and Lucas, the everready cuke in hand

2005-08-25T07:06:00.000+09:00

Hanabi! or fireworks, done as often as possible in a Japanese summer

Swordfighting or writing in the sky, who knows with this child!

Do not try this at home! Actually mom it just looks really scary in the picture!

Steve and Lucas enjoying the fun

Senko hanabi-the sweetest little firework there ever was-if you are patient and steady a little drop of what I call lava forms and then little lightning comes off of it.

Again, it's just the photo effect mom:)

Summer Vacation

2005-08-20T15:22:00.000+09:00

Summer vacation is almost over, and we felt a fall wind through our windows the other night. Mmm, I love fall winds, well I love fall..

It's time to take a deep breath after a whirlwind month of Sage's summer vacation. It's been lots of fun, so much fun that I haven't had time to write or post hardly. We've been and done and stayed up late many a night. No time to waste, eh! I'm waiting for Hello to post some pics, so I'll try to write a little anyway. Sage is at his Jiji and Baba's for tonight and tomorrow night. He was so excited to go, his girl cousins are all there too. Even his newest -Nozomi-born August 5th to Kenji's older sister Makiko and her husband Masaru and their little girls Manami and Megumi too-congrats!

You'll see what we've done from the pictures I'll be posting. No time to get bored of summer vacation in one month though! Sage isn't ready to go back. When I asked him what was best, he said playing with all the kids and people. I'm glad that, rather than a destination.

Besides the fun stuff, the work is always here! The eggplants and peppers survived the aphids and are thriving once again, the cukes may or may not, many succumbed, although I'm not sure if it was just the aphids, maybe they had a virus of some type. Besides laying the straw under them, they were sprayed with a vitamin spray, the aphids sprayed off with water often and Ray says the ladybugs may have finally arrived in force to eat the aphids. Sage has now taught me the difference between the good and bad ladybugs:). There is one bad type here and many different types of good ones. The winter wheat and rye have been harvested and the potatoes have died off and we'll start harvesting them next week. The first batch of corn is almost ready too. The beets we started harvesting yesterday. Kenji spends many hours weedeating. They don't have a brush hog here, many places are pretty tight for one. The weedeater he uses, uses a blade rather than a string, it works great and is long enough not to be dangerous.It is best to keep all the weeds along the fields and everywhere cut down before they go to seed, an endless job. The rice had a run with little inchworms, so Ray sprayed with a bacteria used by organic farmers, very specific to this stage of butterfly(I think), upsets their delicate intestinal balance and takes away their appetite! Worked great, so he was very pleased. Yesterday he said he saw quite a few stinkbugs. They suck out part of the baby rice kernel which is like sweet milk right now and leave a black mark on the kernal when it's harvested, doesn't look nice!

Lucas is the number one raw veggie eater around here. Found him chawing on a overlarge zucchini left out on the ground, nice little chomp marks all around it in spirals! The other boys were all using them to make pretend food with, but they said he was saying it was yummy. He also likes to break the tips off the green onions while we are in the gardens and eat them, can't believe it, but he doesn't spit them out either! Of course he's loving the tomatoes too, he ate a whole large one the other day outside! He eats them best off the plants, as do the other boys.

Ray and Akiko are leaving the 5th of September with their boys to go to the States for 5 months. Ray is trying to finish up course work at AMBS(Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary-maybe?)
and give their boys a chance to practice their English. They have a good start, so it should really be a big boost for them. We'll miss them here, it will be interesting! We'll be harvesting the rice and some of the potatoes and the winter squash after they leave. Many detailed instructions are being given-think equipment operation and storage! Delivery for the CSA continues through the first part of November and then eggs every other week through the winter. And we get orders for potatoes and beets etc to send out through the winter too.

Kenji and I are starting to think about plans for when we return to the States. Not because we are thinking about leaving here, but because we realize any plans we make will take quite a bit of planning, and not having anything set up to go back to...We are dreaming, thinking ,along the lines of some type of organic farming. Not sure we want to go the CSA route, but anyway. Lots of fun ideas, but no real business plans yet, speaking of practical issues like how much money can you make doing it and how much do you need to live on! Looking for good ideas, any out there?? If you are interested in such things, and have some thoughts, please email us with them or send us websites/links etc. OH, also good land...We are in the gathering ideas, info stage!

Kenji's dad has continued to spend quite a bit of time here, although he's taken more time off since Kenji's sister gave birth as they first hosted the other two little girls, and now Makiko and the baby too. Kenji's parents are very involved and helpful in their kids and grandkids lives, thanks! He was here this week and made us a bed and worked on other things around the house. The boys were glad to have him back. They were beginning to wonder why he was leaving for so long, I mean this is home, right??)

Well, this is seeming rather boring, so I'll sign off, pics will come soon I hope. If you're reading this let me know!Love to hear from you, I get alot of your scoops from faithful mom.

A chatty hello

2005-07-30T14:57:00.000+09:00

We're in the swing of summer now. Harvesting veggies every day-zucchini especially of course:), tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, as well as the always available assortment of greens and lettuces, although some of the lettuce got a little bitter in this last bit without rain. (Of course, bit without rain means a week or two, not TWO MONTHS like mom says it's almost been at home.) The winter wheat got harvested the other day and we raked the straw and threw it in the back of the farm truck to mulch the peppers, eggplants and cucumber houses that are struggling with an onslaught of aphids. Maybe the straw mulch will keep more aphids from finding their way onboard Ray thinks. That was a beautiful day, blue skies and hot. Sage is on summer vacation and all the kids were in bliss riding in the truck on top of the straw back and forth to the houses. And the adults were just as jubilant, jumping and laying on top of the hugely piled up straw bed. Those greenhouses were HOT in the blaring sun and the plants scratchy, but it was rather simple and satisfying work, especially with the excited kids running around and handing us bundles of straw.

The boys love the cucumbers, often going to harvest one for a snack. These are long skinny Asian cucumbers, pretty green all the way thru, and not too many seeds. Lucas will wander around munching on one until he finishes it off and the other boys have been known to eat more than one in a day.

....and then there are the raspberries and mulberries too. Neither of which I've eaten much of in my life, maybe never for mulberries. Mmm, too small to spend time picking enough for doing anything more than just eating right there, but sweet and yummy nevertheless.
The kids won't eat much of the raspberries I pick, but if they are out playing and pick them, somehow they are sweeter Sage says:). Oh the joy of food from plant to mouth!

Our bedroom and big closet is finished! Oh, heaven to put away the clutter that had no home, do some of you understand this???:) Much thanks to Hiroshi, Kenji's dad, who has been coming almost every week for about half of the week, and working hard every time on this project. He succeeded in finishing before our first overseas guests arrived....

Crystal and Steve Rogers who we knew well from church and care group in Columbia had been planning a trip to Japan this summer for a few years, starting when they hosted a Japanese student in the summer and found that the World Fair would be held in her city this year. When we talked of coming here they said they would arrange their trip to see us too...a bigger task than it seems, it's expensive to travel in Japan and Hokkaido is far from Nagoya, but they did it, and fit in a trip to some of their S.S. students from Korea too! We had an awesome time visiting with them and doing fun stuff together, it was great timing with them coming the day of our festival and then Sage getting out of school for the last few days of their visit. The boys were as excited as we were to have them here. thanks guys, we love you!

Sage has a month of summer vacation, he says there are so many thing he wants to do he can't remember them all! I have the same feeling. He did great in school and we celebrated by going out for icecream his last day with Crystal and Steve. He needs to do a project or craft and a short report before he returns as well as a little take home work. He wants to build a simple fan, so he's working on the plan right now. We are hoping to work on his Japanese reading skills too. Kai is thrilled to have him home to play with every day. They both went with Kenji to deliver veggies today. I had a quiet day with Lucas, weeding flower beds and spending the rainy early afternoon writing a few letters and emails. Then the boys and I read and looked up the space shuttle launch on the internet. Pretty cool pics, the boys are amazed at all the smoke at launch, and want to see it live someday.

We started reading the Chronicles of Narnia tonight, we're all excited about them, the first chapter had plenty of suspense to get us hooked. We just finished Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass. We laughed and laughed at the White Knight and his inventions, and to the point of tears at his falling off his horse in all directions continually,to repeated cries of "plenty of practice!, plenty of practice!" I loved the letter from Lewis Carroll at the end-to children at Easter. I didn't know, or at least remember, that he was a Christian and was touched by his tender words. The first book had a letter also, at Christmas. I read them to the boys too. Lovely is the word that comes to mind. The editions of the books our library has are beautiful, an anniversary edition with colored pictures, so Kai enjoyed them too.

Our days hold many bugs and creatures, bright green tree frogs hopping among the veggies, butterflies, many dragonflies, moths, many spiders, too many flies(groan!), and the neverending search for the big beatles with pincers that are popular pets here. Kenji searched for the biggest ones as a child and our boys are happy to continue the tradition. The day of the festival a HUGE, and I do not exaggerate when I use that term, like maybe two inch long killer bee came around us all, probably attracted to the snacks that were out. There were a few tense moments as people froze as it buzzed around them, finally heading into the woods. These are the only poisonous creatures here that I'm aware of, but that's enough!

Kenji borrowed the book "The New Organic Grower" by Eliot Coleman from Ray. This is the book he read 4 or 5 times before he began organic farming he said. Akiko says the first years he said many times..."Eliot Coleman suggests...."

Well, I'll quit with the chatter, you must have work to do and I've got a book to read. Kenji's still at the Plum House where we had a guest who is talking to everyone about some aspect of organic farming. I stayed at home to put the boys to bed.

2005-07-30T14:09:00.000+09:00

Pictures of Menno village Music Festival

Kai hiking thru the fields

One of our musical entertainers, all Toshi's friends and mainly singing/performing Okinawan traditional dance/music. This band also did some cover songs, some in English. They were apologizing for their English, but they did a good job and were lots of fun.

Here they are singing to the crowd, they came to us, since we were too far away they said, and serenaded us.

Sage in wonderment at something??

Sage and Kai in the corn

Some of the dancers in costume, beautiful!

The huge pot of chicken/veggie soup we made that morning, they butchered two chickens and we cut up lots and lots of fresh veggies. You never know if it will be cool or hot, that day turned out really hot, but it was still good soup!

Akiko dishing out the soup

YOu can see carrots, japanese turnip and greens here

Someone who uses Menno Village flour brought bread to sell

a view from the field where we held the festival, which was along the border of the woods, so provided some shade, back to the houses

3 little girls enjoying the time outside and the music, couldn't get them to dance for the camera like they were before

Another dancer, encouraging everyone to join in!

Crystal and Steve Rogers, our friends from back in Columbia(now relocated to Minnesota) who came to visit for a few days, we had a blast! YOu'll see more pics of them...

Kenji fanning the grill for the barbecue we had that night when most people had left

Standing around the grill, you can see Toshi's yummy smoked chicken warming up on the grill

2005-07-16T00:13:00.000+09:00

Lucas caring for his babies, nok-nok)the sound the duck makes, right?!) , he carried them in the basket, true boy style, if they don't fit, shove 'em in! and then put them to bed.

Lucas and Kai, playing sleepover

the boys wearing the Japanese clothes Jiji brought, Jiji in the background

Kai and his castle, for Grandma, (have you sent it to her yet, mom?)

Sage and his teacher, Oorui-sensei

Picking cherries for a school outing with Sage

Cherry-pit spitting contest

climbing the ladders, cool, Sage has adopted the Japanese penchant for the peace sign in pictures, grrr...:)

THe picnic after picking cherries, Sage's friend Atomu ate with us

Lucas eating chocolate chip cookies for dessert

Sage and Kai delivering veggies with Daddy for Menno Village

Kai handing the veggies, it's heavy!

Back to the country

2005-07-07T15:05:00.000+09:00

Ugh, it's been so long since I blogged that I don't know what to write. There are so many things I could write...so what DO I choose?? Lately I've realized that one of the reasons I'm so content here is perhaps that I am rediscovering my roots! I grew up in the country and never thought too much about it. I loved playing during my childhood, much of it spent outside, but like most people I thought others lifestyles were more romantic-living in the city- with neighborhood kids all around, wow, that must be soooo cool, concrete to ride my bike on, a street corner to sell lemonade at, etc. And I still have to admit, those things can be cool.

When I left home I didn't really have a second thought about moving to a city somewhere, I wanted to try it out. And I did, and I have, and I liked many things about living in a really big city and a really big town. Lots of good cultural things to do, kids activities galore, nice parks and recreational facilities, a few minutes to shopping you know what I mean. But,... I didn't realize until we moved here the element of stress that I was putting on myself trying to give my kids the childhood I had while living in town. It just doesn't work, and in place of all the outdoor exploring I did, I worked hard at replacing it with all kinds of value-added activities provided by the city and others. Don't get me wrong we all liked them alot, and had lots of fun, but they required planning and time on the calendar, competing with many other very good things that we had to do. I just wanted it all,(as usual with me), the good town life and the good country life all at once. Thankfully, mom and dad still live in the wonderful place I grew up in and my kids had many chances to experience life in the country, which they loved then and didn't ever want to leave, and they love here and Sage says he never wants to leave....sorry kiddo, I do eventually! :)

I just didn't know that I was carrying this burden of guilt around about such things! Kenji has wanted to move to the country for a long time and we looked for a house outside town when we moved to Columbia, but it just didn't seem practical then, and in our circumstances it worked out well the way we did it. I don't regret anything, don't get me wrong, God uses everything to teach us something and glorify Himself in that process I believe. It's just so revelatory to see something in hindsight!

It feels so right to see the boys playing, exploring and creating for whole days at a time, without my needing to create an environment for it to happen within. Besides the fact that our relationships have some space....:) to grow...I revel in sharing the growth of the plants-weeds, vegetables, trees, whatever with them, (thankful more than ever for the internet to look things up on!), and the sheer delights of nature in all of it's five splendid senses full. They see it, they understand the teary-eyed wonder of it all, I see it when they yell at me to look at the bootiful sunset and to come quick and see the butterfly or catch their breath at the sight of a ripe strawberry. Mmmm, can't you just taste it! (Well, sorry, actually, Lucas just ate them all...that turkey!) It just clicked somewhere deep inside me and seems to be part of the reason I am chilled out more than usual for me.

I never thought I would ever be one of those back to the earth types, believe you me, that was just too wierd for me, a little over the top if you know what I mean, and anyway, it sounds like way toooo much work! Yes, Sage, your mom can be lazy too.... these days I can see it clearly in my mind's eye- goats, chickens, but, wait,it stops right there, noone better say anything about barefoot and pregnant!

When I am walking back from the schoolbus stop after walking there with Sage in the mornings, I often pick wildflowers, and just gaze at the wheat and the sky and the mountains. It is a source of much pleasure for me to be able to be part of such a landscape. One of the things I said to Kenji before I left was, I wonder if it will affect me much to be in an environment with lots of natural beauty on a day to day basis. I had been longing for such, but wondered if even then I would be content, would I really even notice that it was there? It is not the source of my contentment, (that's the source of another blog....)and yet, it is very soul warming and inspiring.

I have seen many beautiful landscapes, however, this time I am taking part in working in the nature around me. That also, big surprise to me, is very satisfying. Honestly I never could see myself as a farmer's wife, wasn't too interested in weeding and getting dirty too often etc! Although I was very interested in the end product. Ask Kenji, he'll tell you I'm telling the truth about that, ie, watering etc:) SO I was a little nervous about this life,could I really do this farming thing? Come to find out, once I got started I'm growing to love it, the part I can do in the time I have. Learning new things is always exciting to me, when I have a safe place to learn.....hmmm, is that true for all of us I wonder, I'll have to meditate on that for homeschooling....Here is a safe place with gracious people all around to teach many things, not just about plants, but about life, and lots of chance to get experience.

So for those of you who've been living the country life all along, take a new look around you, it's pretty cool, huh:).

2005-07-04T22:32:00.000+09:00

One of Kenji's fishing trip destinations-actually church at the river, as he and his fishing buddy called it

2005-07-04T22:26:00.000+09:00

SUMMER! Big snail, yummy baby veggies, Kai's new sandals, he slept with them and put them on first thing in the morning putting off wearing them outside for several days, wheat, Lucas eating strawberries off plants while we were planting them-he LOVES them, Sage in his "house"

2005-07-04T22:15:00.000+09:00

summer bouquet

Second Father's Day Tribute

2005-06-20T16:29:00.000+09:00

For Kenji: I'm not very good at saying this to you for some reason, and you will not be too pleased to see me say it on my blog if I know you, but you are a really good Dad and folks should know this! Despite my constant information sharing about parenting, I have alot to learn from you, especially because you put what I read into practice long before I do, so I then learn it back from you! I remember knowing that you would be a great Dad from the moment I met you, mainly because you were such a kid at heart yourself:) You made me laugh and have fun and feel good about myself more than anyone I'd ever met. The joy I see on our boys' faces when you act silly and make them laugh or trick me somehow, reminds me of the immense joy I felt when my dad made us laugh , there's just something super special about sharing a good laugh with your dad and family,( at mom's expense especially!) It connects somewhere deep inside and gives you this sense of wellbeing and security way out of proportion to the importance of the moment itself. Don't let my seriousness about life drown out your love of fun and laughter, it's probably more important than all the heavy stuff I read or worry about and we all need it-laughter is the best medicine, right! We love you and I'm proud of the loving, responsible, caring, hardworking, and unselfish Dad and husband that you are, not to speak of fun-I know that the desire of your heart is to be the best Dad you can be for your kids and you're doing a great job. I couldn't ask for a better partner in parenting these three boys God has given us. I love you.

To the world at large--if you're a dad or will someday be one, you're a very important person!!! Don't underestimate your power and influence, you are shaping the world as you hug.... and discipline your kids, and simply live your life in front of them. Make it a good life, by God's standards that is, your kids are watching....step up to the plate and let God do the rest. Hey and to all of us women out here, most definitely me included, these dads need to know that their job is important, we don't have the corner on parental duties and wisdom, our kids are watching for our approval of their dad and they will take their cues from us. I am praying for us all.......God Bless

More of Kenj

2005-06-20T16:06:00.000+09:00

Walk in the woods around the farm, in front of a tree felled by a typhoon

exploring an old house in the woods, very interesting, the highlight of our walk

Bananas for Dad!Oooooh, that is cheeeesy!

Cooking Sansai

Sage shares his dad and Jiji's passion for Sansai, here poring over the book of them wondering what will be out next. He was so animated looking at them, it was so comical!

Pics of Kenji

2005-06-20T16:04:00.000+09:00

Pics of Kenji

Fishing with Gary for Spoonbill, now that's a big fish!

Happy Father's Day!

2005-06-20T15:14:00.000+09:00

Just talked to Dad and wanted to,in front of my whole reading audience(hee, hee), thank God for blessing us with such a wise and wonderful Dad and Grandpa. Dad is genuine with a capital G, in his love for others and his relationship to God. It is in a big way through he and Mom's willingness to let God transform their lives, that I could see God's power in a real way-something that affects my life's every moment. Some good memories from growing up: Dad-always loving and cheerful no matter how tired he is or how long of a day he's had- he never pushed us away or made us feel that we were annoying to him, so if his sermons were a little sketchy for awhile, maybe you'll understand....just kidding Dad!, more likely he just got very little sleep! He made us laugh, usually at disgusting things that mortified MOther...ELWIN! He tickled us silly...and (it must be in the genes-as my boys seem to have inherited it), had to have his name called into infinity and finally whacked a few times when he was reading to get his attention! And to his exasperation over our lack of discipline with oil etc, kept our cars running......until we mashed them to bits or blew them up or something, and then he just found us another clunker, oops did I just say that...! Oh, and must not forget his detailed explanations(groan, patient sigh, oh, why did I ask? but thanks dad I'm sure I can recall some of how an engine works??....) and stories ...a trait well passed on both to this generation thru me to my oldest son- you are spending lots of time reading this blog, right?! Just wait until Sage can type!! I"ll never forget a long conversation I had with Dad(I can remember where I was pacing:) in our apartment and the events around the conversation)when I was living in Pittsburgh with friends after college, and struggling with my identity, I said I hated the hypocrisy of Christians-but I think it was actually mostly my own self-righteousness. I remember saying I had no desire to go to church because of this hypocrisy, and then his reply that Christians are not perfect people -he never pushed me that I needed to go to church or seemed frantic or disappointed that I was going the wrong direction, instead he directed me to the Bible and said, just read it, don't worry about all the other stuff. He didn't make me feel stupid or awful or so wrong to be questioning what I should have known, his answer made me face up to my real reasons for not going to church, and not wanting to be around other Christians, had he scolded me or ranted at me I would have had just the reason I wanted to hide behind and say I told you so. That gentle and wise response just may be one of the pivotal influences in my desire to know God in a real way.
I have no clue how Dad juggles all the balls in his court so graciously----well,actually I do, an organized wife and a big God would have to get the credit I'd say. And I can't count the number of people who love and appreciate and have had their lives touched by him(although I've hated to share at times, I am more than proud and thankful)-count me in as one of his biggest admirers----I love you Dad and miss you lots, especially as I think of your balanced wisdom and always having an answer to my deep questions, although sometimes it might be I don't know or maybe that the answer isn't so important for us to know-- you've (and mom, and mom, and mom!)listened to my many immature passionate discourses throughout the years with great patience and great restraint I'm sure... and then your willingness to express your love to Kenji, I and our boys who all love you dearly. I can feel your love through the phone,even though I can't feel your great hello and goodbye hug and kiss or see your teary eyes when you say I love you. I could have no greater joy than to have my boys spend time with you and know you, you are a wonderful example of who I would love for them to become one day. We truly love you too and please know that you(and Mom) are a powerful testimony to anyone who knows you, to God's power to use those who present their lives to Him as a whole, not just a segmented "spiritual" Sunday life, but the whole thing- a work in progress and always open to learn from whatever is presented. Thanks Dad for working so hard and loving what you do and for desiring to live out the truth no matter how difficult. I love you.

2005-06-19T23:21:00.000+09:00

Pictures of Dad

with mom and littlest sis Vanessa

Love you Grandpa

Sage and school

2005-06-17T15:04:00.000+09:00

Okay, I know quite a few of you have asked about Sage and school, so here's the scoop! The pictures are pretty randomly placed, didn't feel like taking the time to organize them, and I have some great snaps of he and his friends that I need to get scanned and put on too, but here's plenty to get you started! He is doing really great. Tonight he told me that instead of knowing just a few Japanese words, there are just a few he doesn't know......hee, hee! anyhow, he says he understands most of what people are talking about and in the last few days we are noticing him speaking more Japanese. Mostly kid phrases, like I see you, who's is this?, what's this?, etc...He has made friends, and talks specifically of two boys and two girls the most. He is really anxious to have them over, but we need to meet their parents first I think. I have been very impressed with the school so far. I especially like the communication notebook that he takes to school each morning and brings home each eve, we or the teacher can write any concerns or questions there. Sage thought we should tell about him eating snake there in case his friends didn't understand... or believe him!! We didn't however:). Once we got a note in there that Sage was getting more comfortable in school, maybe too comfortable and was squirming alot, and not paying attention and teasing other kids to distraction(trying to get their attention I'm sure), well basically being Sage....we had a nice talk and we haven't heard anything since, I think he is understanding more now, so the classes aren't as boring, I truly felt for him having sat thru many Japanese sermons.......

My other favorite is that the school doesn't have a janitor, (actually this is the way it is here), the kids clean the school and what they don't do, the principal and teachers do. I asked Sage the other day what they have to do and he said scrub the toilets, and the floors in the bathroom, sweep the floors, dust, etc. He gave me a detailed description of how they have to scrub the toilets. I asked him what he thought about the cleaning, and he said, "it's fun!!" I think he enjoys doing it with all the other kids, he did say he is the only one who actually makes a pile when they sweep though, HA! He has taken over toilet scrubbing at home now after assessing our brush and making sure it was up to par, you can just see him now can't you???

Sage was very impressed at his principal, he says every day he goes around and picks up all the trash in the classrooms, checks the track for weeds and pulls them and makes sure all the students are doing okay. He said, he must really like his job and wants to make sure nothing gets messed up, he's really good.

The events they have had so far are a class picnic when they hiked to a nearby park, played and ate lunch together, the snaps I talked about were taken by teachers that day and are really great. He had a blast. Then the cross country run that you see pics of and the Undoukai or Sports Festival that was last Saturday. The other sports pics are of that day. This is a Japanese school tradition, very big family day, everyone goes and there are games for the whole family to participate in after the students do their competitions and everyone brings a picnic lunch. The students practice for several weeks and Sage was in heaven, he absolutely loved it. They did games like tug of war, different fun relay races, etc. Sage's team came in last, but I don't think he noticed! It rained that day unfortunately so it was a little cold for him after he got wet.

Sage loves the playground and spends every moment he can there, Mon and Fri. the school day is 8:30-1:30, an hour shorter than the rest of the week, but the school bus comes at the same time. On nice days he likes to stay and play with his friends on the playground until the bus comes, on rainy days we try to pick him up. Most of the farm kids around here go to an afterschool program until 5 or so....so their parents can get more work done....wow....

They have hot lunch served to them in their classroom. It is very strictly and scientifically nutrionally balanced and calorie counted and everything. It is usually a traditional type Japanese meal with several different food, always soup and rice and usually a salad and several entrees, sometimes dessert. It's been a great way for Sage to get used to and get to try many types of food here. He usually eats most of everything and gets seconds of soup and rice often. They have to take their own utensils and bring them home to get washed every night. He has a little fork and spoon, that looks like a baby set, this is what they use though, and a little set of chopsticks, luckily he was already used to using them before he went and now is quite a pro. Kai is getting quite good at them too.

Recently Sage's class has been tending the plants they planted, something Sage loves to do. He usually comes back from his walk from the schoolbus with many varieties of plants or something interesting. Today it was a weed flower plant that smells"sweeter than honey, mom" which he pulled up by it's roots("I didn't break even one mom") and planted smack dab in the front of our greenhouse plants and carefully watered. It's like a dandelion he said, but different. His passion here has been Sansai, edible wild plants. Kenji's family has always gone to pick them in their seasons so Kenji and his dad got Sage interested. You can imagine he would love it, things he can find outside that we can actually eat! Jiji brought a book about them and he pores over it, finding what he can, begging for us to go in the woods and look for the ones he can't, and we have to cook and try them. He eats them because it's cool, right, not necessarily because they taste good! Their names were some of the first Japanese words he remembered. If you come to visit he will show them all to you and make you eat them too:)

Okay, back to school, luckily there isn't much homework at this age, just a page of writing numbers or characters now and then, Sage is good about it, and his numbers have greatly improved. I was a little worried at first at his sloppiness, but they are looking much better and he's starting to get the characters too. They are learning the first set of Japanese characters called hiragana right now, there are 50 of them. I know this one to read them anyway, but don't remember how to write them all. I need to practice with him. He finds the math boring, because I tried to get him ahead on it before we left so he wouldn't have to struggle with one thing at least and wouldn't get behind. One day he tried to tell the teacher he didn't need to do the dot to dot number sheet he gave him because he'd been doing them for years...the teacher didn't think much of that and told Sage he had to do it anyway. He's got the rules down now I think. The class periods aren't too long, each hour the kids have 10 or more min. to go to the bathroom and get up and move around and stuff, and the subjects rotate enuf to keep him from getting too bored.

In music class they are learning to play something called a kenban harmonica, it's kind of the same idea as an accordian, but you blow thru a long tube instead and play the keys in front of you. He can't bring it home so I don't know how he's doing, but he says fine. He told me at first that the music teacher was mean, you couldn't even move an inch or I mean a centimeter, he says or you would have to sit out the next song...I said how did you know that's what happened, he said because I had to, that's how I knew! But after that he hasn't, so I laughed and said, wow, wish I had a picture of you sitting that still!! Luckily we had just read a funny book about a teacher who had an unruly class and unbeknownst to her students dressed up like a mean teacher and was the sub with the iron hand for awhile until her students wanted her back even if they had to behave....anyhow we applied the story to this and Sage quickly made the connection and we had a good laugh about the teacher with the black dress. And he understood why sometimes teachers have to be strict it seems.

some days Sage would rather stay home of course, he thinks he could play all day and he barely drops his backpack at the door and changes in a flash to get outside again when he gets home, but I think school is a good experience and we've had alot of chances to talk about character issues and relational, life issues too. He's had some trouble now and then with some older kids picking on him, he is cute and little and different and they don't listen when he says stop.. but he has dealt very well with it, and we are praying and helping him to learn some avenues to deal with it when it happens. Sage is very happy these days, he is doing so many things he loves, spending lots of time with people, playing outside nonstop when he is home and lots at school too, and getting to see and learn about lots of new things. He goes to sleep in a flash, and is hard to get up, but it is so nice to see his happy countenance and his heart seems to be soft as well.

2005-06-16T22:05:00.000+09:00

Sage and one of his friends at his cross country day, Kai, Sage's grandpa here and I went to cheer him on that morning

Repost of Sage's school

You are required to label EVERYTHING that goes to school, and I mean everything, every millionth piece of his math manipulatives set, no joke! So here is Kenji's mom and dad helping us out, and our brother-in-law was an angel and had a program to make stickers otherwise we'd still be doing it!

Here are the stickers that we put on the little bitty math manipulative pieces

Sage dressed up for the first day of school ceremony, big deal here!

All of us outside the school that day

Sage's teacher(he is called Oodori sensei by the kids) and class walking into the gym for the ceremony

Sitting in front of everyone for the long, long, and boring ceremony, Sage did great, the fish out of water feeling kept him very well behaved that day:) He is third from left

ok

2005-06-16T21:57:00.000+09:00

Doing the Dekapantsu(big pants) relay race

the famous "No More Cry" dance

Tug of War of course

Picnic time with Ray, Akiko and kids-Kazu, Yohe(yoyo), and Ken-Ken and their grandma Toshiko(Nai-Nai) and A-Tan(a volunteer at the farm)who is good with all the kids

Sage showing us how he climbs the trees at school

Doing a family team game, Ray won the game for their team!

Kai racing in the little kids race for a big bag of treats, made his bored day!

Sage's Japanese writing, he told his teacher about his newest experience, eating snake, no pics sorry! Toshi and Kenji caught a snake and cleaned and we all ate it, Sage really wanted to tell everyone at school about it. When they had an exercise to tell about something that happened outside of school this is what he told. He can't remember if he told the teacher in Japanese or English, but somehow the teacher got the story right and let Sage copy it. The other side is a picture of us all getting ready to eat the snake, sorry I didn't take a picture of that side..oops.

The stuff in Sage's backpack, they have to keep all their books at home and bring only the ones listed on the schedule for the day. Then a bullet train pencil case, a hard plastic sheet that goes between workbook pages to write on, and some of his text and workbooks. His subjects are, math(sansui), Japanese(kokugo), music(ongaku), writing(shyoshya), crafts(can't remember), seikatsu(everyday life), a morals class, and gym. Plus a "family" class a couple times a week with kids of all ages that are in his immediate living area. They cycle thru the week with the most in math and Japanese.

Japanese textbook

math textbook

Sage walking to the schoolbus

Getting on the schoolbus, and no, the buses are not yellow here! and not all the same. The backpack on the boy getting on the bus is the typical first grader backpack. All the other kids have one, Sage at times wishes he did too, but we had just bought him one for Christmas...

Cross country run, getting ready to take off, sorry, Sage is behind the back teacher's arm

After the hard run(half mile plus some), Sage thought he couldn't do it, and said, mom, my side hurts, I can't, but when we cheered him on as he would go by us, he sped up for a bit at least. He was dreading the day, but by that night, couldn't wait for the next cross country run in the fall. The glory of completion, maybe last but not least!

2005-06-16T21:40:00.000+09:00

Sage getting ready to run for his 50m dash.

Menno village thoughts

2005-06-16T14:15:00.000+09:00

Hey I've been meaning to share a little bit about general Menno Village stuff so here are some thoughts from a conversation we had with Ray and Akiko(the farmer couple who basically run the farm), not long after we arrived.

Menno Village is a CSA(community supported agriculture). An organic veggie farm, but also a community. They are a business, not a nonprofit org.(a surprise to us actually! we are employees, not volunteers).

Having said that- the focus is not on making money, but on
Education
Communication-to share the vision
Hospitality-connecting people with people and the earth
Through relationships, hoping to be a living example of a different way of life, the Kingdom of God.
Menno Village has many volunteers who come and do a variety of things based on their strengths. (I'll introduce people one of these days soon I hope.)

Ray mentioned that Menno Village gives it's members a chance to share in an alternative lifestyle, in my words-food grown for people not money, close relationships between the grower and the consumer, and a greater awareness of the earth itself.... and hopefully some of what our fast paced cultures are missing out on these days, community and connections with nature and the food we eat.

Ray and Akiko have been very active politically, especially about GE issues(genetically engineered seeds). Ray does little seminars and talks with various groups to inform people of the issues and to warn of the inevitable negative impacts on Japanese Agriculture and life in general. Recently a Christian TV journalist did an hour long documentary on Sapporo TV comparing this farm and Ray with a conventional farm and farmer, showing the impact on agriculture and culture in general. It showed pretty clearly the way that the big farm mentality has torn apart community, she did a pretty amazing job.

Some info from a seminar Ray did recently-Dominant thinking: Land is private property, seeds are software or private property, commodity production and food is "sold" . As opposed to Land is a place of belonging, Seeds are a source of security and a means of community building through sharing, Growing food to feed people, Food is a "gift" .

Maybe I could say that the vision for Menno Village is to invite others to participate in a new way of living and thinking, invite questions and discussions- being a living example of an alternative to the predominant system.

Reality is that community living is challenging, organic farming is AS challenging and swimming against the flow is exhausting at times, from what I've observed so far, and yet there have been signs all along the way that people's lives are being touched and their thinking challenged.

There is so much more I could say, but I'm slow, and got to get some sleep.....please ask questions, would love to have discussions with any of you who are wondering what I'm talking about here, maybe I'll figure it out even more for myself to that way!

2005-06-15T22:26:00.000+09:00

Pictures of spring, now finally fading to summer

how to see all the pics!

2005-06-07T07:11:00.000+09:00

Okay, I really am supposed to tell everyone to look at the archives to see all the pics I've posted, the button on our keyboard doesn't work to post them all on one post unfortunately, so for now, just look at the month's archives and they'll all come up. I heard quite a few people haven't seen alot of the pics. I'll post more later I hope this last bunch of pics was from quite awhile ago, but still wanted to post them

2005-06-06T15:07:00.000+09:00

Reading to Kai to wake him up

2005-06-06T15:06:00.002+09:00

Talking to Grandma

2005-06-06T15:06:00.001+09:00

Kabochan, always cooking delicious food, always in the kitchen!

2005-06-06T15:06:00.000+09:00

Orie and Ray watering plants

2005-06-06T15:05:00.002+09:00

Eating dinner with Toshi

2005-06-06T15:05:00.001+09:00

I will not be left out, where did that screw go??

2005-06-06T15:05:00.000+09:00

Jiji working on our house when we first moved here, the boys were huge helpers, well at least they were sure of it!

2005-06-06T15:04:00.001+09:00

Toshi at our house

2005-06-06T15:04:00.000+09:00

playing baseball

2005-06-06T15:03:00.001+09:00

Kenji doing something with the tractor, potato planter attachment

2005-06-06T15:03:00.000+09:00

play, play, play, mud, water, dirt, what can I say!

2005-06-06T15:02:00.001+09:00

early spring

2005-06-06T15:02:00.000+09:00

Orie breaking seed potatoes, they are cut, but enough left connected so they don't dry out until they get planted, then are broken apart, this was quite awhile ago, these pics are ones I took before we got online

2005-06-06T15:01:00.000+09:00

the trays of seeds popping out, see the hoses, hot water from a boiler runs thru them when the weather is cooler, by thermostat., the blue arches hold up plastic for the night, to extra insulate

2005-06-06T15:00:00.000+09:00

eating snack in the greenhouse

2005-06-06T14:59:00.001+09:00

4 inch soil blocks and the two inch blocks that will go into them, the two inch blocks are made by a machine

2005-06-06T14:59:00.000+09:00

Toshi with the soil mixer, she's a pro at making the 4 inch blocks you'll see next, the soil is made from quite a few components from a recipe. The blocks are made by hand with a little tool that you scoop the soil into and press, you must get the right firmness and moisture or it will fall apart or be too hard for the plant to grow into.

2005-06-06T14:56:00.000+09:00

Yoyo and Sage watering plants in the warm greenhouse where the plants first start their life. Akiko's dad built this insulated box with a folding lid that pulls over the top at night and a electric coil under the plants with thermostat

2005-06-06T14:52:00.000+09:00

Toshi gathering eggs

2005-06-06T14:47:00.001+09:00

chopping up rotting veggies for the chickens to eat before we could cut grass to feed them

2005-06-06T14:47:00.000+09:00

the small chickens, which are now big chickens

2005-06-06T14:46:00.002+09:00

Chicken pics

2005-06-06T14:46:00.001+09:00

more snow!

2005-06-06T14:46:00.000+09:00

more snowy views, an old barn and Lucas

2005-06-06T14:45:00.001+09:00

more snowy views

2005-06-06T14:45:00.000+09:00

Sora(means sky in Japanese), the pony that just wasn't meant to be...here at the same time...the kids have forgotten all about it actually, but it was a sweet pony

2005-06-06T14:43:00.000+09:00

winter is over, but you just have to see a few pics!

My random thoughts

2005-05-28T09:30:00.000+09:00

hmmmm, yes, I have time to think here. Lately my thoughts have been all over the place, well, okay, they always are.

after conversations about capitalism and its woes as heard from another viewpoint than my own(always slightly changing!)-there really isn't or ever will be an ideal economic system on this earth when sin is around, in some way greed and personal gain becomes paramount in each, (thought--capitalism brings opportunity for success etc, but along with that comes a continual reaching for more and more and complacency then comes with comfort, people start losing sight of the really important things in life and seek pleasure with their excess)therefore what is my position as a Christian, like what "side" am I on--should we be on any??? they are all failing human systems, think Rome, our position is God's which is a different system altogether, where the first shall be last and the last shall be first, truly. Wherever I may be-we are called to be in, yet not of the world. We will not be able to change the world to a 'paradise', the Bible is clear that wars, and all other kinds of bad things will always be part of this world until Jesus returns am I right? i've been thinking and hearing and talking about that no matter where I am(Christians are),in whatever economic system they find themselves in, the lifestyle they live must be different enough from the culture/system that people stop and wonder, ask and are drawn, because God's way is always best. We have within us God's spirit if we believe in Him, we should be able to use the good things in our culture to an amazing extent to honor God and show His love. He created us, He knows what is ultimately best and we have an in---amazing thought, isn't it. This will obviously mean that it will be different ways depending where we are. I was meditating on the ways that Christians in different places can inspire and help each other, like Chinese Christians under persecution and their faith under fire, American Christians and their ability to give--I could go on, but the point is the difficulties/weaknesses in our inherent economic system/culture can even be used by God for his purpose, as can every bad thing. Jesus said to give to Ceasar what Ceasar is due, (to some of you more controversial-centurions/soldiers and how the Bible says for them to do their job to the best of their ability),it seems to me that whatever it is that God has made us good at, wherever He has placed us, be it within whatever failing/corrupt gov or without, He can use us for His glory-which is our purpose, right?(think Daniel, Esther).So my business is about knowing God, who is my Creator and knows me better than anyone else, so that I can be doing the best I can at whatever job I'm presently doing. Okay, blah, blah, I'm overly simplistic I'm fully aware of this!!!

Next random thought process, I've been discovering that farm labor is great for reflection and contemplation, thus my random thoughts! I could do this forever, because I love to contemplate. I feel like I am at a monastery sometimes, I don't leave here very often, which suits me fine. The conversations with great minds, the work, the nature, the feeling that I am part of something very good, I am refreshed within and inspiration is much closer.

Next thought, Lucas is so amazing, he is talking like you wouldn't believe. Normal, but very early for my kids! He is a charmer, we all love him very much, there is just not much else in life more heart melting than the smiles and laughs that come when you are dancing with your toddler, (to blues brothers no less),you should try it if you haven't.....

I am beginning to see more and more the amazing inspiration that comes from a combination of God's great creation and the hard work of being in community with his greatest creation-people. Gotta go...

Minna no toue-rice planting by hand with Menno people

2005-05-23T13:55:00.000+09:00

Hey everyone, Kenji posted a short bit yesterday, but here I am, with a big sigh of relief to be back online, it was an oddly disconnected feeling to not be able to reach any of you with a simple tap of my fingers, although I did have more time for other things....we hope you are all marvelous and we apologize for any unanswered emails, we'll get to them one of these days I promise. life is moving along and we are all adjusting quite well I think. we are just going to fly into what is going on here at the moment and I'll catch up with other details later. Yesterday was a gorgeous day for the yearly rice planting, an event held for several years now. Many people, mostly CSA members and church members come to help plant one rice field by hand and to hang out on the farm, they'll come back later to weed the same field once and then to harvest, all by hand. the rest of the rice fields are planted by machine as is common these days. It was possibly the warmest day we've had here yet with beautiful blue skies. Just wonderful and great fun.Enjoy the pics. Unfortunately I didn't have the camera when Akiko was teaching a traditional rice planting day dance taught to her by a very old rice farmer from around here, it was traditional to this area and was danced by the rice planters at the end of a day of rice planting to celebrate. She had a tape of the music, it was really pretty cool with movements derived from the motions of planting rice by hand. We have had fun reading your comments so keep in touch all and don't despair, HOPEFULLY we won't have any more long periods of silence!

2005-05-22T21:47:00.000+09:00

Orie and her kids koko and ritakun, she works at Menno Village