Archive for May, 2016

Some of my little friends

Thursday, May 26th, 2016

In my Advanced Discussion Class this week we talked about pets.

It’s an interesting topic, and it can be talked about at a lot of levels from having pets, naming, caring for them, choosing pets, and what pets you might want to have or think would be fun to have.

You can also talk about the benefits of having pets. There are many besides the obvious benefits of companionship. Pets are also a liability and come with their own sets of difficulties. It’s interesting to see both sides.

I have had lots of pets in my life, and some of them have been a little out of the ordinary. My house growing up was home to raccoons, hawks, and even a pig or two besides the normal dogs, cats, fish, and turtles.

We have those at my house now, well, the fish and one turtle.

One set of fish live in a large bowl on the landing between the first floor and the second. I pass them several times a day and almost every time I at least talk to them in passing. I clean that bowl completely every few months, but add water and wipe the sides on a regular basis.

I lost my net about 2 or 3 years ago, so I have started using my hand to scoop the fish out. They’re very funny about that because they’re also very used to it. They don’t just jump into my hand, but once I have them in my hand, they just lie there, mostly quietly, while I move them to their little bucket to wait for the cleaning.

Here are a couple of pictures of them and the process.

In transit

In transit

Waiting for the cleaning crew to finish

Waiting for the cleaning crew to finish

Back in the water

Back in the water

The early bird would be in trouble with this worm

Tuesday, May 17th, 2016

Early this morning as I was walking to my class, I saw what I thought was a snake. I of course didn’t panic, or scream, or jump up on the stairs 😉 But I when I looked closer I realised this was actually a worm, an earthworm, a giant earthworm.

I’ve lived in Japan for almost 15 years, been visiting here regularly for years before that, and I’ve never seen anything like this. One of my friends told me this was nothing unusual at all, and that though they would lie out in the sun the birds didn’t even bother them.

You’d think they would be quite a meal for some bird, right?

There’s a popular expression that says “The early bird gets the worm” but birds weren’t rushing to get this guy.

I know my first thought was they would be an awful lot of worm to put on a hook for fishing 😉

Here are a couple of quick shots I took with my phone.

Worm 1 Worm 2 Worm 3

My Garden Helper

Thursday, May 12th, 2016

Last week I mentioned that we had a little visitor to our garden. It was a small lizard.

Sometimes we forget that there is a good side to having the little creepy, slithering visitors.

Our garden has a small pond, but the fish there eat the mosquito eggs. There are still a large number of mosquitos because our neighbour’s yard is a very traditional Japanese garden and a good place for those baby mosquitos to grow up, and then come visit me!!

We have a lot of birds who visit our garden, too, and they help take care of the bugs some.

Anyway, this little fellow is pretty common in our area and likes to eat grasshoppers who like to eat the leaves of my wife’s favourite flowers.

garden-visitor

Garden season is back

Thursday, May 5th, 2016

The Golden Week Holiday is just about done, and it is usually the start of warm (or at least warmer) weather. This means our garden is really starting to bloom. I did see a small lizard there among the flowers this morning, but the mosquitoes are also already biting!

We decided to try to grow a few tomatoes this year. We tried this several years ago, but between the blistering sun and the birds we didn’t get any to eat. The birds enjoyed themselves a lot though 😉

This time we only have a small pot with some cherry tomatoes – not really  garden material, but I’m having fun with them and hope we can get a few to eat.

There were also some new blooms this morning. Below you’ll see a couple of quick shots of the tomatoes, sitting by the fish pond, and the new flowers.

Could be a good year for our grapes, too.

Anyway, it’s back to class for Friday!