We cut apple trees

She is a first wwoofer this year.Her name is Kaori.She came from Tokyo.

We cut all the apple trees on one of our 7 orchard.

We use these trees for the stove in my house.

We need trees to make a fire in our stove.

But this is not reasen to cut apple trees.

So,Kaori is collecting cut-trees now.

It hurt my feeling when the trees were cut.

Because I saw these trees had beautiful flowers and lots of apples last year.

If we didn't cut these trees, they will have many apples this year too.

We have many reason to cut these trees.

It is very cold here!!

Look at this picture!! It's fine this morning.
The temparture here is -10℃（７Fahrenheit)

I look forward to reading the thermometer every morning.
What degreee is it today?

Whenever I looked at our car, I remembered the movie, of "Back to the future".

Have you seen this movie ?
Do you remember the scene when the time-machine appeared from the truck? The car looks frozon

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=yosuvf7Unmg

I can see crystal on the window of the car.

I give my dog some water every evening, the water become ice by the morning!!

That is how cold it is here!!

We took a part in the ceremony in this small area. We call this ceremony, Sankurou.

It is a burning ceremony of ornaments from the new year, and we take this smoke and wish for our well being for this year.


Here is how we start this ceremony.
First, we knock on neighbor's doors and collect some used new year ornaments form each house, then we built like an ornament delta corn, using bamboo and pine trees.

When we burn this, it has a good sound.

I like to seeing the fire.

I like this celemony, because I grew up in Yokohama.

We weren't able to make a fire like this.

Because Yokohama is a big city.

There is no space to make a fire.

We can make a fire here, and can get together with neighbors at the same time .

Children and parents look fun. We had a good time together.

A Happy New year!!

This is our Osechi

A happy new year!!
How's your new year?

Our family is all well!
We woke up early and watched the sunrise and pray to the sun.

We ate Osechi and Mochi .
Osechi was cooked yesterday.

We prepared Osechi for new year until the day before.
Osechi is a special menu only for the new year.
We serve food in the special lunch boxes.

Each menu has a meaning.

For example,Kuromame(black beans)means if you eat this you will be all fine and can work well.

We went to the book store and McDonald.
This is not a typical Japanese culture for the new year.
That is only our family culture.(culture?)

We usually don't go to McDonald, but our children want to go there.

SO, we go to McDonald once a year.
It's today!!

Our children are so happy because they are given a special toy from McDonald.

I hope this year will be a good year!!