2008 September 23 Tuesday.

Today is the Autumn Equinox 秋分の日 and a National Holiday in Japan.

Not only is this day the official end of summer on the calendar, it is also noticeably colder in the air with some rain in the evening.

Time to switch from cold water baths to hot water baths.

Ikuko and I stayed home today, and didn't go anywhere except to the supermarket just before closing time.

I did some work on the internet, and then later tried again to make some musical sounds come out of my newly acquired plastic ShakuHachi 尺八 Flute.

I am making some progress and discovering a whole new world of music at the same time.

I love to feel the deep vibrations of the flute when I make a sound that can be called a musical note.

Oh no! Another obsession.

I usually go down to the bank of the Biei River to practice, but today it was so cold and rainy that I just stayed indoors and practiced in my classroom.
So far, nobody has complained about it.

Of course, I closed all of the windows double tight so that none of my horrible sounds could leak out into the world.

I am years away from any kind of public performance, but I will get there.

Practice, practice practice.

2008 June 30 Monday.

The last day of June and heading into summer full steam ahead.

I will be closing my little classroom for about 3 weeks from July 27 until August 17 so that I can relax Spread Eagle Style in the great outdoors of Hokkaido.

The photo you can see in today's blog is of Oregano Flowering Plants that are located just outside my window along the sidewalk.

In fact, the color of this flower is the same as the color of my laminated signs, that I have taped to my windows.

I made them that way on purpose.

By the way, on last Saturday at about 15:30 while I was walking along the upper cycling road of the Biei River and towards the RyoJin Bridge, I was suddenly and viciously attacked by two crows!

The attack went on for a good five minutes, as I was forced to spin around, walk backwards, walk sideways and flail my arms around above my head.

The two of them were most definitely after me, and I was not very close to their nesting areas, so I know there must be another reason.

Crows have good memories.

Crows reincarnate at a more rapid pace than humans.

These crows remembered me from Kodiak Alaska.

Yiikes!!! What comes around goes around.

I lived for 2 and one half years in Kodiak Alaska, and I must say that there is nothing to do there.

Except, go walking around the hills and valleys and shoot guns and camp out.

There are many dangerous Kodiak Brown Bears all over the island, so it is just common sense to take firearms with you when you go outside of the USCG Air Station gates.

I packed a .357 magnum revolver, and a rifle with me at all times outside of the airbase.

The long gun would be either a Ruger Mini 14 Model .223 caliber semi automatic rifle, or an 8mm Mauser German WWII vintage standard issue rifle, with scope.

Either way, if I had happened to stumble into a bear, I would have had a good chance of surviving.

I never did run into a bear. Never. But, I did bring the firearms with me every time.

So, I started shooting at crows. I must have killed hundreds of them, both from up close and from very far away.

Two of those crows spotted me on Saturday afternoon, and would have shot me too, if only they had guns.

They don't have guns and neither do I, anymore.

The 5 minutes I spent fighting them off, as I slowly walked along the upper cycling road towards the 両神橋 on my way to the BBQ party, made me wish that I had a slingshot.

I could have saved a lot of energy by using an archery type method of self-defense on them.

Crows are big and intelligent birds. They can be noisy and obnoxious, and they do harass my favorite sky rider, the Eagle Hawk 鷹 鳶.

Maybe the eagle hawk and I should join forces to drive away the crows.

Naaaah!, it will never happen. Crows will always be with us.