真冬の庭 / Garden in mid-winter

真冬の庭は殺風景。花はなく、落葉樹の葉は落ち、庭に色がありません。
連日、氷点下から５℃程度の日が続いて体の動きも悪くなり、虫も見かけません。
でもそんな中、花壇をよく見ると、秋に植えた球根が芽を出し始めていました。

The garden in the middle of winter has no color. There are no flowers blooming, and the leaves of deciduous trees have fallen.
Everyday temperature is still below zero to 5 degrees Celsius. It’s the hardest time for plants, animals, humans as well, and insects. However, when I looked closely at the flowerbed, the bulbs I planted in the fall began to sprout.

そしてスノードロップは、ひっそりと小さい白い花を咲かせていました！

And the snowdrops were quietly blooming small white flowers!

２月下旬～３月に咲く梅も小さい花蕾をつけ始めており、春は確かに来ているようです。

Plums that usually bloom from late February to March are also beginning to have small flower buds. Spring is definitely coming!

大きい鞄 / A big bag

田舎の家と行き来するのに荷物をたくさん運べる大きい鞄が欲しかったので、15年以上前に購入して使っていなかった布で作ってみました。
内側をキルティング生地にしたので丈夫なはずです。
母が洋裁のプロなので教えてもらいました。学生時代は、全て母にお任せで自分では何もしませんでしたが、私がミシンで縫い物をするようになり、母も喜んでいます。

I made a big bag from a cloth that I bought 15 years ago and haven’t used, as I need to carry a lot of stuff to and from the country house. The inside is made of quilted fabric, so it should be durable.
I did this with my mother who had been working as a tailor. When I was a student, I didn’t sew anything by myself but asked her to do on my behalf. Now she is very happy with me buying a machine and sewing what I need.

ブルーベリーを植えました！Planting Blueberry

ブルーベリーの苗を３本植えました。
去年ご近所の方に頂き、ブルーベリーのスムージーを作ったらすごく美味しかったので、これからは自分の庭で収穫したいなと。
ブルーベリーには３系統あり、同じ系統の中で異なる品種を数本植えないと実がならないようです。ややこしい。
いつも通り土は固くて、たくさんの石を掘り出し、穴を３つ掘るのに２日かかりました。腰も痛くて筋肉痛…
こんなに苦労したので、たくさん実をつけるようになって欲しいです。

We planted three blueberry seedlings.
Last year we got blueberries from a neighbor and made blueberry smoothie, which was really delicious. Then I thought it would be wonderful if we could harvest it in our garden.
I learnt that there are three lineage of blueberries and we must plant some seedlings from different varieties from same lineage if we want them to bear fruit. Complicated.

As usual, the soil was hard, a lot of stones, it took me two days to dig three holes. My lower back hurts and muscles are painful… I wish we could get a lot of fruit as I spent such a hard time.

着物 / Kimono – Japanese traditional clothes

実家には母が結婚したときに作った着物が数枚ありますが、本人曰く、結婚以来一度も着ておらず、何枚かは洋服や鞄にリメイクしたし今後も着る予定はないとのことで、もったいないなと思いました。

here are several kimonos which were made when my mother got married, and she says she has never worn them since her marriage, some of them have been remade into clothes and bags (done by her as she was a tailor ), and she won’t wear them in the future, too.
These are made of silk and now it’s expensive to make new one, so I thought if I can somehow wear them.

母は私より背が10cmほど低く細身なのでサイズが合いませんが、調べてみると、着物というのは一反の布（幅が約36-38cm、長さが12m程度）から作られていて、各パーツは全て四角形なので、ほどいて繋ぎ合わせると元の布に戻り、サイズを変えることができるようでした。

これはいいなと思って早速お直しのお値段を調べてみましたが、やっぱり高い… 背丈、裄丈（腕の長さ）、身幅などをお直しすると10万円くらいかかるようです。
子供の頃、実家の近所に和裁が得意なおばあさん（おばあさんの年代では和裁は女学校の必修科目だったようです）が住んでおり、私にも着物を作ってくれたりしたので、まだお元気ならお直しをお願いできたのですが、もう100歳とのことで、さすがに無理です。
これはもう自分でできるようになるしかない！と思い、和裁教室の体験レッスンに行ってみました。

The size doesn’t fit me as my mother is about 10cm shorter and slender than me, but I found that the kimono is made from a piece of cloth (width about 36-38cm, length about 12m) and is not cut that much, rather being adjusted when sewing. Also, each kimono part is square, so if we untie and join each part, it will return to the original cloth and we can change the size.

I thought this was good and immediately checked the price of the repair. As assumed, it was expensive… It costs about 1,000 USD to adjust the height, sleeve length, width of the body, etc.
When I was a kid, an old lady who was good at Japanese sewing lived in the neighborhood of my parents’ house (Japanese sewing was a compulsory subject for girls’ schools of her generation). Sometimes she made kimono even for me.
If she was still fine, I could have asked her to repair them, but I heard that she is already 100 years old now and seems to be impossible.
Now that what I should do is repairing the kimonos by myself. I decided to have a trial lesson in the Japanese sewing class.

和裁というのは、ミシンを使わず、全て手で縫うようです。（生地が絹なので）
中指の第二関節に指ぬきをはめ、親指と人差し指で針の先端を持ち、針のお尻は指ぬきにあてて縫い進むようで、簡単そうに見えてすごく難しい！

In Japanese sewing, it is done by hand without using a sewing machine. (Because the fabric is silk and a stich by a machine is too strong.)
Put a thimble on the second joint of the middle finger, hold the tip of the needle with our thumb and index finger, and the butt of the needle is set against the thimble. This looks easy but actually very difficult!

先生が縫った見本（一番上の緑の線）と私が縫ったもの（その下の緑や赤の線）の美しさがはるかに違います。
これができないと何も縫えないので、練習あるのみ！で夜な夜な練習することにしました。

The beauty of the sample sewn by the teacher (the green line at the top) and the ones I sewn (the green and red lines below) are much different.
I won’t be able to sew anything without mastering this skill. What I should do is just practice! I will do this every night.

酢橘 / Sudachi – Japanese citrus

ご近所の方に酢橘をたくさん頂いたので、チーズケーキを作りました。
通常はレモンを使いますが、酢橘で作っても非常に美味しかったです。
この他、酢橘の蜂蜜漬けも作りました＾＾

I made cheesecake as we got a lot of sudachi from our neighbors. Usually we use lemon to make cheesecake, but it was very delicious with sudachi instead.
We still have some more sudachi, so we made honey pickled sudachi as well.

どんど焼き/ Dondo-yaki

新年はどんど焼きでスタートしました。
地域の催しで、お正月用のしめ縄飾りやお守りなどを一緒に燃やしてもらいました。
お正月に出迎えた歳神様を炎と一緒に見送る意味があるそうです。
今年も皆が健康で穏やかな一年を過ごせることを願います。

New year started with Dondo-yaki, which is a local event usually performed everywhere in Japan, meaning to see off the Toshigami (one of the gods in the Japanese myth), who we greeted for the new year’s day with the new year wreath, by burning the wreath.
We attended the event and had the wreathes burn with neighbors. Hope everyone has a healthy and peaceful year.

しめ縄飾り / Creating New Year Wreath

9月に頂いた稲藁でしめ縄飾りを作るのを教えてもらいました。
稲藁を20本ほど束ねて、両手に水をつけ、締め上げていきます。簡単そうに見えますが難しく、最も簡単な輪っかを2つ作るのがやっとでした。
このしめ縄に、南天などの赤い実、裏白という名の葉（葉の裏側が白い。腹黒くなく白い人という意味だそうです）、ゆずり葉でリースを作り、玄関に飾ります。
しめ縄が２つできたので、リースは夫と一つずつ作り、上手くできた方を玄関に、もう一つを勝手口に飾りました。
夫の方が器用で上手くリースを作れたので… 夫のを玄関に飾りました。

I was taught to make new year wreath called shimenawa decorations from the rice straw we obtained in September . Bundle about 20 rice straws, soak both hands with water, and tighten them. It looks easy, but actually it’s very difficult, and I finally managed to make two of the simplest rings.
On this shimenawa, make a wreath with red fruits such as southern sky tree, leaves named back white (the back side of the leaves is white. It means a white person who is not scheming), and yuzuri leaves, and decorate the entrance.
Since I made two shimenawa, my husband and I made one wreath each and decorated the better one at the entrance and the other at the back entrance. My husband was more dexterous and could make a wreath well, so we decorated my husband’s at the entrance.