New year's ornament

Tomorrow is the last day of the year.

The picture above is a few new year's ornaments that we were making the other day.
After decorating them with 'Urajiro','Hpndawara','Seeweed' and 'a tangerine', we hung them at the entrance of the porch, on the household Shinto altar, on the well and each room.

By the way, it was very cold yesterday and light snow was flickering.
In the coldness, my husband and I went to our grave to clean there and to hang a new year's ornament for the grave.

Today I offered some rice cakes to the Shinto altar, Buddhist altar and an alcove in Japanese za-shi-ki room.
And I made some flower arrangements using 'Se-n-ryo' growing in my yard.

I felt fresh preparing for a new year.
And I'm looking for the coming of a new year because it is a special day for us.

Warm winter

Flower cabbage

Only a few days are left this year and a new year is around the corner.
We Japanese value 'the New year's holidays' very much as well as 'Bon holidays'.

We are making some new year's ornamens by rice plants.


It is very cold about this time of the year, but it isn't cold at all this winter.
It hasn't been snowing but raining since this afternoon.

The other day, I saw some snakes in my yard and two of them had been dead.
I think it strange that they aren't hibernating now.
That must be because of the warmth of this winter !

Pruning of garden tree

I had some trees of my yard pruned yesterday.
Five retired men who belong to 'Silver Manpower Center' came in the morning.
They cut the twigs one after another.
It took longest to cut the leaves of a pine tree of all.

Though it is very windy and cold about this time of the year, it was very warm yesterday.
So I was relieved as I didn't worry about it.

We are preparing for the coming New Year !

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Christmas party

We had a small Christmas party the day before yesterday.
One of my friends who is very good at cooking invited us for lunch.
After lunch, we enjoyed these cakes and candies etc. with a cup of apple tea.
We had a good time chatting each other.

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Family temple

This is our family temple named 'Ri-n shy-o-u ji';(Temple of bell).

The main temple became so old that rain dropped down from the ceiling and the roofs flew away when the typhoon brought heavy wind.
So we decided to build a new one and began to save money about four years ago.

Today was the beginning of construction and a ceremony called 'Mu-ne-a-ge shi-ki' or 'Jyo-u-to-u-shi-ki' will be held tomorrow afternoon.
Lots of red and white rice cakes will be scattered from second floor of the building cereblating the construction then.

So we made red and white rice cake.
The number we made today is about 8000 using 280kg rice.

About 40 members of the temple cooperated together, cutting trees and cleaning the precincts and so on.

We will be able to see a newly built temple after a year later.

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Google Picasa 2

I tried online album by Google Picasa 2.

Please click this picture and slideshow next!

Art

Oncidium
I saw a TV program named 'Studio Park' the day before yesterday.

Shougo Kariyazaki who is a very popular artist of flower arrangement was talking about his attitude to flowers on the program.
He said that he had loved flowers and plants since his childhood and that flowers would give energy to people.
Now he is giving lessons in flower arrangement l to lots of people all over the world and performing it at various places.

He likes cooking very much too and and has written a book.

Watching the program, I thought he is very energetic and really enjoying his work and life.
I was also given energy a little from him to see the program.

His flower arrangements are really gorgeous and beautiful !

There are some kinds of art in the world.
For example, various kinds of music, fine art, play and so on.
Those arts will make our life rich in mind and more enjoyable.

Art is wonderful, isn't it ?

Full moon

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17:37 and 17:14

After the sun set in the west, the full moon began to rise in the east.
I happened to see the big orange moon above a mountain.

We Japanese love harvest moon; ' full moon' called Tsu-ki-mi in September or sometimes in October.
We enjoy seeing the moon offering rice cakes and Japanese pampas grass to the moon.

The moon this evening is also very nice !

Rice field

After harvest, rice fields around my house is like this now.
Green grasses are growing and look green carpet.

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Pond in late fall

These are scenery of a pond called 'Big pond';(O-o-i-ke) near my house.
Lots of ducks came back from north and floating on the water.
They will be there till next spring.


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