Look for my new blog... but one last entry here "for the road" WHEN WE WERE IN MONTANA

Okay, I have reached my limit~ This blog update is the last "memory" left to add to it. 

I am deciding to leave this~ to let this blog "Life in Thia's Worlds" be as is

(I I was told I couldn't add anything more here)

I will begin a new blog titled 

"Life in Thia's World part II"

http://thiataka.blogspot.com/

I will start Part 2 with more lovely photos 

from this Montana trip to Mom and Frank's this summer.

Mom and Frank have two of their own horses at home, but the horses haven't been ridden for a while. 

The first day in Montana a woman named Katie was over to shoe the horses. 

It was so cool to watch her at work. 

She also is a chiropractor~ especially helping people learn how to work their bodies, 

and not hurt their backs while doing this sort of work.

I loved watching her with her tools, and how she managed, and cared for the horses along with her dogs around. She's a teacher of this trade, and she told me she's written books about this work as well.

Wild life in Montana~ this little snake ended up sliding down that hole there! It was full of something it ate- you can see in the middle of it's body! S/he hung out there for quite a while- digesting~ in the sun.

We went hiking one day~ and driving to this place called Crazy Lady. Mom told me it was where a woman's family were all killed by Native Americans, leaving her behind.  

When she got home she went crazy on the Native Americans. They took her in and she ended up staying with them. At this location, here~

We hiked with Rosco too... and where the falls were so beautiful. We kept wanting to follow it further down, further along around the next turns. (See Zen's little big body at the bottom of that fall?)

Mom:

...and we got our feet into the cold, COLD water!

Zen and sis! Sheon-chan!

Mom and kids! pooped!

Zen's kind of tired of my photographing them

One day we skyped with Ischin in Japan~ the next day with Naomi too!!

That was a week long with Mom and Frank, and Rosco. 

One of the best trips we ever had (except for not being able to have Ischin and Naomi there too).

Kind of life changing. 

This week was a time I had hoped would start a positive new phase in our lives.

And now, two weeks later, I

 can say that our lives really are on a higher and more positive new course.

August in Santa Cruz

I planted zucchini back in May~ here are some of the first ones. 

The three colors are from one packet of seeds. Pretty, huh?

Last Autumn I planted GOBO- burdock- and they grew a little then died.

But they came back this past spring and look at them now!

 They are so hard to dig out, even though our soil is sandy. I dug down almost a foot...

 but still it broke off, I couldn't get deep enough. It wouldn't let go.

  Burdock- sometimes we buy it at health food stores. When I go through the checkout sometimes people ask me what I do with it. I tell them we use it in either MISO soup or in a Japanese dish called KINPIRA GOBO which is slivered as we do for miso soup, but after it's soaked in water for 10 minutes or so, it's drained then sauteed with slivered carrots and sliced red pepper in MIRIN, SHOYU (soy sauce) and SAKE.

When making miso soup, we boil gobo for 7 minutes or so before adding the other ingredients.

 Often we like to have DAIKON in it too (I'm growing some daikon, but was late starting it so...the homegrown daikon won't be ready until...winter?)

This pot of miso soup I made I used sliced onions, and that then boiled with the burdock for another 4 or 5 minutes? Last, I added tofu and then wakame. Not needing to boil those.

The MITSUBA! It grows SO easily here!!! I grew a small pot to put on our kitchen window sill.
That is the garnish we add to the soup when serving it~ 2 or 3 or 4 leaves, cut up or not.

I dissolve the miso into the soup last, as I watched my Japanese mother-in-law do for the ten+ years we lived together. With a ladle and HASHI- chopsticks to dissolve it.
DO NOT BOIL the miso soup.

Sorry- I didn't take a finished photo of the soup to be served~ maybe I can get one in here another day!

But out in our gardens, the MITSUBA (which means "three leaves") it grows amazingly well. I keep trying to give plants of it away. But I don't know what else to use it for. When we don't have mitsuba to put on our miso soup, we use thinly sliced green onions.

Sheon-chan's been here since Valentine's Day. Sometimes Taka's so fortunate and gets one of her bentos for his lunch!

It's funny to see displays like this in markets. 

And some of the "Japanese" foods like"EDAMAME SOUP!" 

And THEN, this is the second time I got to see one of these seals on a car here in California. I wondered where the driver got it. I missed the chance to catch the first driver I saw with it, but this time I caught up with this guy~ who was all speedy and at a stop light I pulled up next to him to ask him where he got it.

He said at some car races! He doesn't know what it means, just he thinks "driver". I didn't have time to tell him anything else since the light changed and he turned left, we turned right. I do wish seals like this were used here in the States, it'd really help new drivers and the elderly.

That's all for today! We're off to Montana tomorrow for a week. How will my garden grow while I'm away?!

This Summer~What's been up~~

This year has been full of mishaps.

Until mid summer- then I decided it had to stop.

Our living situation was seriously difficult- though finally now, after working very hard, we can live in  peace and love.

But this year- actually since 3/11/11~ last year, when Japan began blowing up, life has been harder.

I've been trying to feel positive again.

However my sister died this past May... Taka and I went East for the funeral for her.

I came back to lots of machinery breaking down at home.

One of our cars ran without radiator fluid. Parts melted, and we could only sell it for parts. That car we were advertising to sell for $4,500. We ended up only selling it for parts for $500.

I came home from that~ to see that all the tomato and broccoli plants had been eaten up by deer.

The hard drive on this computer stopped working when an Apple store guy did something to it... 

$300. +  for a new hard drive~ it does help my four year "old" computer running really well again. Just costly.

The hot tub heating element broke down. $100. to fix that.

My camera broke. Sony wanted $130. to fix the one and a half year old $340. camera (but today a camera man in Santa Cruz said he can do it for $90. Happy, happy I am for that one. The burst shots for basketball on the camera have been great- what is what we bought it for).

Our washing machine acted up and we had to do work to make it more secure- hard work pulling out strange unnecessary flooring that was under it. That scared me though, thinking that we'd have to buy a new washer.

The refrigerator is making lots of noise now~ worrying me.

But, but, but...we have these gardens that I've gotten to grow new life into our life, for our lives!

BUT, since my camera's been broken (though I'll get it back tomorrow)  it's not been easy or convenient to get photos into my computer. That's not the only problem, since my hard drive was changed, I've not figured out a few other things for this dear computer.

All of that, and a slump in my feeling for writing has kept me from being better about writing here for you dear friends and family.

But look here~ this is one thing I can feel so positive about~

Plants like this Shiso! I could grow SHISO! And shiso has not been easy for me to grow.

From seed even.

 We've been eating it in salads most days of the week.

and on special occasion Sashimi. 

But also recently Sheon and Yuriko made DONBURI! 

MAGURO DON!!!! (and miso soup with mitsuba)

I've been gardening, but also for salads, SPROUTS are what I love to grow too. Sunflower sprouts are DELICIOUS!

I found another recipe for corn. For cooking corn on the grill~

I took off some of the outside husk, and then peeled back the husks left on the corn. 

Then I rubbed butter,  salt and pepper on the corn. From the older outside husks, I tore strips to use to tie the corn husk back on top of the butter, salt and pepper. Then grilled it. VERY good!

We found ramen at the Japanese market MITSUWA where we shop in San Jose, 

the ramen was from HEKINAN!!!! (near where we live in Japan!)

Nothing's like my favorite ramen from GONKICHI, but Taka made this Hekinan ramen taste good

Again~ apologies for not having written. I got a new recommended book tho- The Artist's Way...and I will try hard to get to reading that!