Kaki wo kajiru - Noelle eats a persimon

Autumn is the season for many fruits of the land, and of the the favorites of the Japanese, and Noelle, is the persimon or "kaki" in Japanese. They are hard to hold on to for her, being kind of slippery when peeled, but she loves to bite into them. Right now she really likes to feed herself as much as she can. She is not very good at it yet, getting food all over her face, in her hair, all over us, her high-chair and the floor. We always set her high chair over a bunch of old newspapers to catch the shower of food, bowls and other utensils that come down.

Snow in Ashibetsu

This just came in this morning from a former student. It's snowing in Ashibetsu! I think it is time for me to change the tires on our car to studless tires. In contrast to the weather in Ashibetsu, it is a gorgeous sunny day with blue skies here in Makubetsu. The weather brings me to another topic: tires. I had only just heard of "studless tires" right before coming to Tokachi. My father in law was using them on his car. Then when I came here, I learned that EVERYBODY uses special winter "studless" tires and special tires for summer. It was a new thing for me. The summer tires that most people put on their cars were like sports tires or racing slicks. Now way you could use those for winter. In Wyoming I had always used all-season tires and never changed tires during the year. If I weren't married with a child, I think I would try to use only all-season tires again rather than buy another set of expensive studless tires.

Choosing a Pumpkin

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Originally uploaded by mr_caffeine74.

I like this picture. Here I am looking at all the pumpkins trying to choose just the right pumpkin to bring home to display at my dad's house. I choose a nice round one that wasn't too small and wasn't too big. I didn't have time to make it into a jack-o'-lantern but still it was nice to have it. Halloween is on October 31st. I carve one or more pumpkins into jack-o'-lanterns every year for Halloween. I put a candle in them and light them up at night for the people in the neighborhood or passersby. Did you do anything for Halloween?