12 posts tagged “nature”
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The rainy season hasn't finished yet here in Fukushima, and it's been really humid as if my brain is getting moldy. I have no idea what the humidity is right now, but it's over 70%, I assume.
This muggy weather is so annoying. However, there is only one thing I really love this time of the year: the sound of evening cicadas singing.
This evening, I enjoyed the very beautiful chirping of evening cicadas from the backyard. Thanks to living in the countryside, I can enjoy not only beautiful greenery but also all of the natural sounds, like bush warblers and Japanese cuckoos in the early summer; long-tailed cocks, evening cicadas and a chorus of frogs during the summer; robust cicadas in the middle of summer; a variety of crickets and grasshoppers in autumn; and swans in winter.
The rainy season hasn't finished yet here in Fukushima, and it's been really humid as if my brain getting moldy. I have no idea what is the humidity right now, but it's over 70%, I assume.
--before-----------------------------------
The rainy season hasn't finished yet here in Fukushima, and it's been really humid as if my brain getting moldy. I have no idea what is the humidity right now, but it's over 70%, I assume.
This muggy weather is so annoying. However only one thing I really love this time of the year. It's the sound of evening cicadas singing.
In this evening, I enjoyed very beautiful chirping of evening cicadas from the backyard. Thanks to living in the countryside, I can enjoy not only beautiful greenery but also every bit of natural sounds, like bush warblers and Japanese cuckoos in the early summer, long-tailed cocks, evening cicadas and a chorus of frogs during the summer, robust cicadas in the middle of summer, variety of crickets and grasshoppers in autumn, swans in winter.
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I visited my previous blog I used to use it before I joined The Linguist, and noticed that I wrote similar thing about everning cicadas last year. :->
While I was hanging out the laundry to dry, I heard the echo of a birdsong from somewhere nearby. High up in the sky, I saw a flock of wild swans flying overhead towards the south. Ten swans formed up a V-shaped, and they were singing or maybe yelling, as they flew against strong winds.
Here are some of the pictures I took last Sunday. There were plenty of flock of swans and ducks that we could see on the the Abukuma river.
I saw red dragonflies yesterday, and I felt that we were getting to the best part of autumn.
It was the very first time I have seen them this year. I was a kind of excited and happy, so I told my husband about it. He said that he had already seen them in the middle of September. Hum.
According to a local TV news program I saw today, Bewick's swans (小白鳥 kohakucho) have already come back to Lake Inawashiro. In the near future, probably within a week, like always, a lot of swans and ducks will come to the Abukuma river, which is my neighborhood. Winter is approaching. :->
It's getting sooooo cold here. Right now, probably 14C to 15C, and even though I am wearing a thick sweatshirt and a pair of jeans, I am cold. Brrr...
Even wearing a think sweater, I am cold.
Even though I was(am) wearing a sweater I was(am) cold.
Even if I wear a thick sweater I will be cold
It's 5:15pm now, and I'm going to leave now joining a BBQ/nabe party which one of my friends invited me. Her parents came to Japan just yesterday and they's staying until the end of next week. Okay, gotta go. Brrrr, 寒いっ！
Satomi wrote:
on Oct 8, 2006 at 12:14 AM | Delete
I could not catch what they were saying.
I could not catch on when they were speaking.
He ran fast. I could not catch up to him.
Whenever I got a clue.
They told me what it was.
I have been skipping morning walk for a while, because I can't get up early anymore. We have very comfortable temperatures past few weeks, and it's hard to leave from my bed.
Anyway, I took a walk yesterday's late morning after a long interval. While I was walking along the rice paddies, I heard some strange rustle noise from the edge of paddies. I was curious to know what was making the sounds, and I crouched down close to take a look. Then found out there were lots of grasshoppers tried to escape from me, and hid behind rice plants. It seemed like they were seized with by panic. Poor grasshoppers, but to me it was hilarious and yet cute.
A smell of dried grass was lovely. I could hear the sound of elementary school's sports meet announcement and cheers. What a wonderful autumn day.
At night, I joined a group discussion on The Linguist with Tony, Mai and Yukiko, under the guidance of Tracey. Our topic was "TV shows". I said my favorite TV programs were CSI, Bones and True Calling. I had better to add more information about those programs and why I liked mystery/crime investigating kind of dramas, but it was hard to explain with my awkward English. Hmm, I have to enrich my vocabularies, and to speak more logically and coherently.
I was deeply impressed their English fluency and accuracy. I have to study hard, and sometime soon, I would like to catch up their conversation more naturally... I hope.
Today, I watched five dramas, I recorded last one week. Three Americans (Bones, Killer Instinct, LOST) and two Japanese programs.
Saturday and Sunday
Listening : podcast (NPR Your health/Business Story) 30min, TL(Dave's Content of the Month) 30min
Speaking : GL discussion on TL 60min
Reading : Nothing Last Forever 30min
Writing : on Vox blog 20min
Total : 170min
Oops! I should have done more... I have to spend more time to review words and phrases.
Again, during an office hour yesterday, I sometimes smelled of osmanthus (金木犀 kinmokusei) from the outside. It made me happy, even I had to struggle with boring duties there.
Speaking of the office hour, I was dreadfully sleepy, and my eyes were dried and bleary all day yesterday. I stayed up until late at night of the day before yesterday, so that lack of sleep brought me a sleepiness and, again migraine.
I already took a painkiller in this morning, so I am okay now. It's just too bad that I missed THY though.
Finally, an osmanthus tree next to my house comes into bloom today. How wonderful smell!! I took some pictures, not only kinmokusei but also a persimmon tree.
It has been almost one week since I have posted. Every time I gave up right after I started to write about something, most of the time it's just one line or two.
I would like to write about my convivial 1 on 1 conversation experience with Jill, in the morning on the last Tuesday. I also would like to write about what I have learned from an English conversation club where I join every Wednesday night. Or, another English class at my work on every Tuesday's office hour. And about my favorite podcasts.
However, it's already 11:20 PM so maybe I have to wrap up this and go to bed for my beauty sleep.
So just one thing I would like to write about here tonight. While I was working at my office, I smelled nice aroma with gentle breez from a wide open window. It was faint smell of a flower tree. My dictionary says this tree's name as a fragrant orange-colored olive (金木犀), but when I asked about this name to my American friends about the same time of the last year, nobody knows it. So maybe this is not proper name. I really love this marverous smell, and every year when I smell this delightful fragrance, I feel that it's already the middle of autumn, my second favorite season arrived.
... Oops! It's already 11:45, I must go now.
While I was walking this morning, I found two young chestnut burs (I don't know how to explain 'いがぐり' '毬栗' in English) on the ground. So I looked up and found out where those cute chestnuts came from. There were a plenty of chestnuts here and there on the trees. After I came back home, I told what I have found to my husband, he said he noticed that already several days ago.
Anyway, over the past one week, I have found some clues that we already have an Autumn here in Fukushima. こおろぎ (cricket), きりぎりす (grasshopper), すすき (pampas grasss), がまの穂 (cattal), いがぐり (chestnut bur), 稲穂 (inaho: rice in the ear). All of them categorize into Autum by a season word (季語 kigo) in haiku (俳句). Haiku means a Japanese seventeen-syllable short poem.
Even though, I am not familier with haiku, still I can feel the sense of the seasons from nature.
Another beautiful morning. The air is fresh and cool, the sky is shiny and clear.
After I came back from a walk this morning, I picked some tomatoes from the backyard. Tomato plants grown organically by my mother-in-law . And then I made tomato juice, adding a spoonful of honey and lemon fresh juice.
While I was walking in the early morning yesterday, I saw Japanese pampas grasses (susuki すすき) here and there, as well as cattails (gama 蒲). Ears of rice were getting color changed with yellow-green to gold gradually. I can feel an autumn is just around the corner day by day.
In this morning, I had an unpleasant awakening with the sound of a mosquito's whining. Phew.
Neighborhood
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I came back home
therearound 10pm, it was such a nice party. Five Japanese and ten Americans. I sometimes I couldn't catch on when English natives were speaking, but whenever I got a clue, I asked them the words I caught with rising intonation, as a parrot, then they told me what it was. :->