Near the end of August 2015 and getting ready for a month in 日本！

At the time of the start of writing this entry, my granddaughter Kieahla is 9 months old!

 I dream of her sometimes, as though she's my own baby! In my dreams I do remember, she's not "mine"!

A gate got set up just in time! She was quick to start pulling herself up on it... one more

step on the way to starting to walk?! Well... she hasn't quite gotten to even crawling yet!

 

BUT, she DOES roll!!! Well, we joked, she "ROCKS" and rolls cause she'd sit and rock back and forth, sometimes falling over!

We have had these great friends come through recently... 

Eiko, via Hawaii... wait, from when I moved to 日本 in 1986, one week after we met. Now she's moved to Carmel, California after finishing her midwife nursing certification! Naomi lived with Eiko's family in honolulu for 9 months 2007~2008 too! Seeing her with Kieahla was beautiful!

Then also an English teacher at the same english school (Fukuda) as Eiko and her husband John, was Frankie who came visiting California from Minnesota! Her mother lives in San Francisco, so it was the second time we got to catch up with Frankie, her hubby and little girl. What characters! Frankie teaches Japanese in a Minnesota High School now!

SAYOKO!!!  And Grandmother to be soon TOO! Another wonderful woman Kieahla felt perfectly comfortable with. Sayoko's family, running Cafe Ocean, restaurant where Ischin runs the pizzeria, and where Naomi worked as vegan baker from the start of the restaurant. Sayoko... another amazing woman friend to many, many, many of us! 

Soramon!!! (And the ORB in his hands by Pinto Lake at the end of our property!) His parents, Naka-chan and Junko... long time friends from Nishio too. And Soramon... born at Hirahara after Sheon and Zen were born! 16 years old now and he came for a homestay in San Francisco, then we got to have him stay with us in Santa Cruz!!!

Out where it originally began, in Humbolt County, by Percy California, was the 31st annual REGGAE on the RIVER which Taka and I got to go to again! Out in REDWOODS!

As we got closer... the more excited we felt. It was maybe my 7th time going, perhaps Taka's 4th.

It was the end of July and we were PSYCHED to get to go camping back at ROTR!

Yeah, it's dusty and hot but, there's a RIVER!

Not far from where we camped

We set up and next "door" were cool guys 

from the Bay Area, Phillipino they said, firefighters.

The one very difficult part was that right by the site we were directed to park our car and set up camp, every night, the four nights there, there was an "after party" along the river where music, like reggae-rap, made the whole earth pulse, that even ear plugs couldn't help quiet. It was awful really. Until 5 or 6 a.m. all night till sunrise. This wasn't like the lower key Sierra Nevada World Music Fest where we have gotten to go a number of times now. There, Security made rounds to help quiet down heavily doped up partiers and hollerers from about 3a.m. No... ROTR... "not enough security" said they. 

Also near us on one of our walks around I had to say to these guys below "NICE SHOJI!!!" They didn't understand! But I pointed out, their shoji screen! It was something they picked up from a recycle place. Looked SO excellent out there in the redwoods!

Since California has had so little rain, I was worried about the River water that we had swam in so much during visits before.

We did find one creature there, reassuring us that the rather green, moldy smell wasn't killing those little guys, so hopefully we were safe too!

Can you see the little pretty frog I got a pic of?

We found this nice shaded spot to sit and stay when we weren't heading up to the stage. 

The stage, beyond those tall puppet like characters who also entertained us.

Great food, and some shopping (See my earrings!)

Also, GREAT musicians! One of our favorite: Nahko who's played with Michael Franti recently too:

A lot of people helping people have a great time, for the most part!!!

After one last all night dance party, we were really ready to leave though!

Back home in Corralitos~

Where the farmers quit leasing the land for farming, and plants had reseeded, and some grew without any watering: chards, artichokes, green beans, flowers... and LOTS of snails... one day the landowner's friend came and TORE through ALL of the acres to MOW IT DOWN! (Along with chopping up lots of snails, or basically leaving nothing to shade them from drying up in the sun!)

It felt sad in a way. But it was really the fact that just before this happened, Zen  had just left California since he had signed on with an agent who was hooking him up to sign with sa professional  team in Japan to play prof basketball there! So... life "looked" really different to me, both from our kitchen window, and how it felt in my heart!

Geese found their way into the fields one day. Silly, me, I had actually gone and bought a goose whistle thinking I could somehow lead geese into the fields, like the Pied Piper, to feast on snails a month or so earlier!

They didn't stay long. I hid with my telephoto from our front door, but somehow they felt something "lurking" and flew off not too long after I noticed and photographed them.

Meanwhile...around our home, iris's bloomed... Taka brought a few home and the smell was heavenly! I set hem right by our kitchen window so I could breath in their fragrance.

In the beginning of the summer Taka recycled this large standing wooden crate-like contraption! He made it so I could put in soil and plant some herbs. The cilantro took off, the shiso didn't, basil grew well, and parsley also got going. I worried it would dry up too much but sometimes I covered it with a bamboo screen. It grew well! All the peppers and tomatoes in pots were growing well too. I started planting out here after the farmers left. On the other side of the fence, inside we have the beds growing some other stuff.

Oh, and beyond the tall planter box are japanese cucumbers! It was my first try at aiming to get them to climb that plastic netting. They were producing a nice little bit... but then Taka and I headed of for a month in Japan

To the right of the cucumbers, on the ground grow zucchini's. Amongst the zucchinis, grew some while POPPIES!!! I now have seeds for orange, purple AND red poppies. It just seems like I can't grow them from seed. They seem to grow themselves when and where they feel like!

Below are a few pictures we got, after Zen signed on with the team Levanga in Sapporo Hokkaido!

His settling down in Hokkaido is BIG! 

Exciting and... makes for more trips back to Japan look WONDERFUL!

I could take pics of these cool images in our bedroom after Zen flew off for Japan in June. The sun was shining into our bedroom in a way I'd not noticed before. Straight onto a hawk drawing Zen had sketched:

Then the light reflected over to a photo of Taka and me on our wedding day in '07!

Other times I found the light like this! Loving it! It was the first time for Taka and me to be without children living with us at times, and at first it felt a bit sad, eventually though, Taka and I could love just having one another home for each other!

On August 8th, actually the night Soramon came to stay with us, I had a pretty awful accident~ don't look at the photos following if you are inclined to feel sick by stitches and "meat". Or just glance over them

It happened because we were trying to open the futon couch out to 

make a bed. My finger was in the wrong place. At first I hoped it was 

just my nail that got damaged...

...rather, that Saturday night at 9:30 I saw how bad it was, without glasses on, and told Taka I had to go straight to the Emergency Room. An hour and a half later, and with 11 stitches, we went home. Later we'd find out our insurance won't cover anything, and we'll be billed $6,000 for that trip.

Ten days later I got the stitches out.

On September 2nd, I took this photo to the right:
The nail didn't totally come off, but the top 2/3 looks dead and is growing out. My finger looks like an E.T. finger, all big compared to my right hand middle finger. As I type now, a couple of weeks later, my finger is still numb. Typing feels very weird, I'm just trying to use it and get used to it!