a few days ago- my first time seeing a dragonfly here

the dragon fly landed on me, suddenly~ "out of the blue"!!!
and OH so blue!!! I was scared to move...I wanted my camera from inside but I didn't dare going inside with the dragonfly sitting on me~
I used the photo booth on my Mac to take these photos...and after about 20 minutes of it sitting on my shirt...

I got it to climb onto my finger!

Then I wanted to show you~ it was the same blue as my eyes pretty much! The blue clashed with my earrings, so I took them off

and then I had to put on my glasses to study the gorgeous creature.

Finally I needed to say good bye and I told the dragon to fly on~ I don't know where he went. But The next day I swear I saw him flying around in the big space of our yard.

Gardening in Aptos, and looking for advice!

We moved into our house share with lots of property waiting to be gardened.

I've never gotten to garden before, so I'm doing this for the very first time. Before my 50th birthday, I've got a new hobby. We got started with lotsa japanese seeds~

but bought some herb starters~ though the chive seeds are totally not making it.
We got one little bunch of chives, but all in the center I've been watching tiny little chive leaves coming up, but oh-so-slow, and not seeming likely to make it.

Trader Joe's basil has always struggled whenever I've bought the planted pots. Even putting it into the ground. So I bought basil seeds and I started a few pots of them and am hoping we can get some nice basil- some day

Back at the end of April, I planted some shiso in a planter, but those guys just aren't happening. And now, 2 1/2 months later, it's totally...weak...and bugs are eating at them.
I did plant some more shiso (good in salads but so popular around SASHIMI or as tempura) in another plot a few weeks ago, they are very slow coming up. And the Mizuna looks like they weren't planted deep enough... : (

I need a better, finer, watering pot...and must mulch here too it seems.

Back in the beginning of June when I was starting sunflowers for sprouts, I put some in the yard in places...here alongside two beds of veggies:
mid July they've gotten to be more than a foot tall~

and beyond the sunflowers, pumpkins are growing from one sugar pumpkin a friend gave us last winter. I had save the seeds in the fridge, and planted them the beginning of May.

Funny, two pumpkin seeds found their way into another spot, and here they are growing all the larger and quickly

I have had a hard time thinning things out. Feeling sorry for the baby plants. But I got to taking out about 17 pumpkins from the 4' by 5' plot. Now there are about 10 left. Is that still too many? Maybe...

The first time in almost 30 years I grew sunflower sprouts!:

Taka build two beds, in one of them I planted CHINGENSAI, CILANTRO, red radishes &MIZUNA,

it looks like too much CHINGENSAI at the far end tho (we keep making tempura and saute with it)

...but it's the CILANTRO that's losing ground with the Radishes growing SO large!

planted the end of May, here in June:
and now, mid-July:

The bed next to that is an array of japanese salad greens, along with arugula/rocket lettuce (as the australians call it)

I must admit, maybe I've gone a bit crazy having planted perhaps 4 different areas of arugula! Tho true, now there are also four other beds of different kinds of lettuce. We're eating salads with nearly all of the greens from our garden almost every night, or every other night anyway.

I've been able to get lots of free seeds , poppy seeds, blue Nigella, calendula, feverfew...

so I must keep finding semi-sunny places to plant everything, it's a little of a challenge. But, freecycle has allowed me to help pass on/exchange plants too. It's so cool~~

Taka put together a fantastic arbor for two jasmine plants we moved over here from our condo.

Taka put together the shed for our storage (to the right)...then we tried to hide it with the lattice and with the dream of the jasmine growing all over it and around the kitchen windows. There are some sunflowers around too, but they aren't growing so well without more sun.

Taka's been working slowly but surely on a fence, because the deer have been coming around since the dog ran away a few weeks ago.

(can you see the kitty coming through the fence? He runs randomly through the young growing lettuces...doing more damage than deer~for now!)

We got 6 tomato plants from one of Taka's co-workers...then ten more from a freecycler~

I've been given conflicting advice as to how much water to give. Too much makes soggy tomatoes so I should "stress" them, and not give much...but too little water doesn't help the plants grow much...what's right?!

Guess I'll find out...cause I'm inclined to give medium amounts of water but...don't know!

You know?

Next to the tomatoes are Okra which grows very slowly. I planted more red radishes between the okra, but now I'm worried whether the okra will grow quickly enough so the radishes don't overtake, and shadow them!

Japanese cucumbers, also, take a looonnnng time to grow, too. Or- it's the sun-less-ness I guess. I did move them to a sunnier bed and started some more seedlings~(true, I need to mulch!)


From our kitchen window....

I still grow alfalfa sprouts...and then I'm into giving a second chance at life for those green onion end roots!

In a "nutshell"~ hardly! But this has been some of what I've been up to since May and moving into our Porter Gulch digs. Ha~ yep, two and a half months of digging into our new "digs"! : )

Zen at work; and going to play (in Japan)~and miscellaneous more

Whenever I'm departing from San Francisco airport I always want one of these:Eggs Benedict!

Zen was ravenous so~ he could appreciate it, totally. He was the one to be departing this time~

Zen'll be gone to Japan from 7/12-8/8...I get choked up when I think about having ALL four kids half way around the world away from me. And homesick...

So, I have to stay busy...and thankful, and grateful. The kids are all SO happy and healthy in Japan. And we are here in California too~ really!

But, anyway...here...back to other things of interest~I saw, for the first time, at the entrance to the metal detectors and gates at San Fran airport, a mailbox.

Where we can send home...what we're not supposed to be carrying through the detectors

How considerate!!!!

Speaking of signs...four plus years ago when we first moved over here to the U.S.

I heard about how we weren't supposed to use cellular phones when fueling our cars...

that it could cause an explosion~

Last week was the first time I see a sign SAYING to not use phones!

I'm so surprised more notices aren't around, considering how everyone uses phones so...often~

Last week, before leaving for Japan, Zen got a little more work in at Uncle Lynn's landscaping company. Here, below, with Taka...putting together more gopher baskets~

Using planter pots to mold it around, then lock it and hammer it tightly together.

Zen smiled for me! : )

Ahhhh, another day...at home, Joseph saved a lizard from the claws of the cat...he had a leash for the lizard...keeping the lizard safe until he could release him elsewhere.

That was so cool, a leash out of some twig!!!

Just before saving the lizard, the cat had already gotten part of the tail~

Poor thing, that lizard~ Joseph the savior!

4th of July Family Weekend

We got to have Taka's relatives come for a BBQ from over the hill, Los Gatos. Well Aunt and Uncle Tsuruta were visiting from Tokyo and were to fly back on Sunday.

The kids, Luke and Noah got to hit whiffle balls in the batter's cage and also get in the hot tub~ all after a day at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk.

There was a stone in my salivary gland!!

A Stone in the Salivary Gland~

It took 24 hours after starting antibiotics to pop out the stone from the salivary gland from under my tongue.

What happened:

Wednesday, June 15^th, 2011, I felt my left lymph gland in my neck was swollen. It happens about twice a year, perhaps from getting run down, drinking too much, and I usually feel like I’m on the verge of getting sick.

I’d gone for a full check up about a year ago at the urging of a friend, and was fine.

But on this evening of the 15^th I noticed that inside my mouth, under my tongue on the left side was sore and swelling too. Eating was becoming uncomfortable.

Thursday morning, out for a birthday brunch for my son, it really hurt to eat. I had to chew slowly, and couldn’t eat much. I began to notice that my lymph would swell, and inside on the underside of my tongue too, was swelling every time I ate something. Drinking didn’t seem to bother me as much. The swelling and pain would pretty much go away when I wasn’t eating.

Thursday night, my son’s birthday bash was going to go down, and we were packing to leave the next morning to go camping. I knew I could be in trouble~ I googled “pain and swelling under the tongue” and read that my salivary gland could be blocked. It was about 8pm. I went to the Urgent Care.

I got to see Dr. Karl Segnitz, who helped me with an infected bed warmer burn on my foot more than a year ago. (I met him also when 91 year old Grandmom was sick a little bit back. She remembers and likes him too).

The doctor said I was right, and that dehydration probably caused it. A stone in my salivary gland. He tried to get it out, couldn’t, and prescribed antibiotic “AMOX TR-K CLV 875-125 mg tablets” to take twice a day. 20 tablets. Ten days?! Also painkillers, I didn’t think I wanted, but then changed my mind when later Thursday night, and the next morning when the pain was so bad after eating again (The pharmacy’s PC went down when they were trying to fill the prescriptions Thursday night- I had to go back the next morning, tho they gave me 4 tablets for until I’d return).

I was also told to gently massage from my throat, along the underside of my jaw, out to the front of my mouth, to try to help get the stone out. And to use a warm compress. If the stone didn’t come out in a few days, I would need to go to the hospital to have it removed, the Doctor said.

I couldn’t imagine it was honestly like a stone. I hadn’t thought to ask the Doctor whether the antibiotics were going to help dissolve the stone~ or what? The pharmacist didn’t know either. And everyone I told about this, no one has ever heard of it.

About 13 or 14 hours after going to Urgent Care, while we were driving to Mendocino county through San Francisco, I tried to eat again, and the pain brought me to tears. I hadn’t taken pain killers but it felt like I would want to-maybe.

I kept drinking lots of water and massaging… and I actually ate a bunch of a sesame stick snack about an hour and a half after that tear jerking pain. Surprise, I didn’t have the same pain! (I was hungry!!) Also my lymph swelling seemed to be staying down.

We got to the campsite, and set up camp. I wasn’t uncomfortable…and I could drink without pain. And then, Friday night, about 24 hours after the first antibiotic on Thursday night, I was running my tongue down around the sore area and the stone popped out!

It really WAS like a stone. Or like a miniature tooth, about a cm round? It looked a little like a mini piece of popcorn, but like a tooth, it had some sharp edges, as roots do, three of them. THAT’S what all that pain was about! From then on, all was fine. My lymph swelling proceeded to go down and go away.

Thanks Doc!!

Sierra Nevada World Music Festival June 17th-19th, 2011

We left cool Santa Cruz with Joe and Zen in our Suburu for the four hour drive to BOONVILLE, California, in Mendocino County~for MUSIC!!! We warmed up (with the weather) as we got closer to the festival site~June 19th-21st. Vineyards look so beautiful~ohhh California~

And seeing bales of hay always makes me feel....good~

our lovely, trusty ol' '94 Subaru, made it with our huge load

and when we were finally parked, everyone jumps out to set up their camps as quickly as possible tho

Zen and Joe set up a little ways away~

There were two stages again~ this smaller one's called the Village Stage (the larger is the Valley Stage). I loved their little bamboo fencing

and the little boy, and my big boy sitting on a cool tree stump of a seat!

The HAIR DOS! The woman with the feathers, when she danced those feathers fluttered in the wind.

SOOOO many children wore these "ear protecters", ear "muffs"?! I don't know what they're called, but a very nice idea!!

The food...expensive, and so-much-of it, was everywhere. It was hard NOT to indulge.

I never have seen people trying to light a smoke with a magnifying glass! True...to make a fire, I've seen it~ I was impressed actually... lighting this way to be natural?!

We found this woman Barbara who we met last year when we were with Sayoko-tachi!

Barbara is a faithful concert goer~ and supporter of many people and causes, including the people she bought this coffee from.

Toot's and the Maytal's were the highlight for us~ though Coli Budd's band was NICE!

I loved seeing all the young people loving the old bands we grew up loving.

I got turned onto Toot's for the first time right here in Santa Cruz when I was a new College student in 1980, so~ it brings back real good, nostalgic feelings!