Merry Christmas!

I somehow managed to have Joe make a batch of cut-out cookies this week. It just didn't feel right without leg lamp cookies. As always leg lamp cookies were very hard to keep from breaking. They are definitely FRAGILE!
I worked today Christmas Eve as usual, while Joe finished wrapping presents at home. Our special dinner tonight included grilled steak, spicy shrimp, mashed potato, and salad.

Everything was simple yet tasty. A good start to our Christmas weekend + Monday off.

Wishing you a very merry Christmas!

White Christmas

We are most certain that we'll have a white Christmas this year. It really snowed this weekend, close to a foot. Also we've been having super cold temps. Actually when the temps dipped down, it stopped snowing. Too cold to even snow! It supposed to warm up a bit for tomorrow.

A couple of weeks ago I printed our holiday card designs. Not sure if Joe's leg lamp cookies will happen this year... we need to go buy flour and sugar. Well, there are a few days left yet. One thing sure is that we are going to enjoy a relaxing white Christmas.

Our Turkey Day

We woke up on Thanksgiving Day to all white frosted trees in our backyard. It's really starting to look like Christmas!

Then we had a festive Thanksgiving Day breakfast: Joe's famous breakfast + pancakes.

Since we weren't cooking turkey or anything, we went out to feed the deer and check out Joe's deer cam. We both loved the fresh snow on tree branches in the woods. On our way home Joe picked up his all nicely processed venison meat and 4-point antlers.

We'll be celebrating the Turkey Day with Joe's family this evening before I have to go to work for a few hours. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

And Finally... Snow

This past weekend it finally snowed... enough for Joe to use his snow blower for the first time this season. Joe was glad that he already got his deer and wasn't sitting out in his blind on such windy snowy cold days. The gust of wind we could hear from inside our house was impressive.
Joe's deer is being processed at a butcher shop. Meantime, I started to try using what's in our freezer to make room for the venison that's coming. We had sushi rolls with cooked fish and stir fried veggies and venison, which was saved in the back corner of our freezer. It turned out to be a celebratory meal after all.

We are wishing you a happy Thanksgiving!

Joe Got a Deer!

Yesterday was the opening day of deer season. Usually not much happens on Day 1, but Joe saw a couple of bucks in the morning, then just before lunch heard two bigger bucks fight clunking their antlers in the nearby woods. Exciting. After lunch he shot this respectable 4-pointer. Though he only had 1 deer tag this year, with only limited days to hunt, he decided not to wait for the more illusive trophy buck.
His deer cam happened to capture his deer the day before.

The first day of deer season became Joe's last for this year, but he had an interesting deer encounter when we were in Nara, where the Great Buddha stands. The city is famous for their wild deer population... well, the tourism helped these wild creatures tamed and bold. Joe was carrying a paper shopping bag when a couple of deer attacked and ate parts of the bag. 

The interesting thing Joe noticed about his deer that he shot was that its antlers stood strait up just like those of the Nara deer. Usually the deer around here have more curved and spread antlar shapes.

Temperatures are still staying well above the freezing point, so Joe has to get his deer processed right away.

November!?

We are having a very warm November so far. Last Sunday we went out to the lakeshore without any jackets. The lake was calm and blue. Enjoyed skipping rocks!

Joe is getting ready for deer season. Hard to believe, but the opening day is next Tuesday already. The below picture, taken by Joe's deer cam, shows the current balmy warm woods as well as me taking pictures of trees.

When we came home from outdoor on Sunday, we ran out of excuses for not raking our yard on such a beautiful day. So we both contributed some time and muscles to raking as good as we could. The reward was an unexpected daikon radish that grew voluntarily all by itself in our untouched garden space.

We were making gyoza dumplings that night, so the radish was a perfect addition to our miso soup.

Japanese Meals & Halloween

We brought back some dinnerware from our Japan trip, so I cooked a Japanese meal the other day to use our new dishes and bowls. Joe had tonkatsu, breaded pork cutlet, several times in Japan, but he didn't complain about having another one.
And last night we had authentic Fukuoka style ramen. Our friend Tak gave us a package to bring back. Not quite like the ramen we experienced at an outdoor noodle stand there, but it was still very good. We wish we had a good ramen place nearby....

Joe is getting ready for deer season now. He just put his "home away from home" aka deer blind in the woods.

Lastly, we wanted to wish everyone a Happy Halloween!

Our Japan Trip

We had a wonderful trip to Japan... it is hard to believe that it hasn't been a full week since we came back. First, we spent our 2nd day with my childhood friend and her family visiting Gujo. All that walking uphill gave us no time for jetlag.
We took a small family trip to the bay areas of Toba, enjoying fresh seafood, cooked and raw. Joe had his first experience of a ryokan, a small inn which usually serves bath, dinner, and breakfast.

We took a train day trip to Nara to see the great Buddha. The photos didn't do a justice to show how grand it stood. And it was just mind blowing how ancient those artifacts we saw were... like 2000 years old!

Then we took a shinkansen trip to Fukuoka to see our friend Tak. We made sure to taste much of what the town offers, including famous ramen noodle.

On the Sunday before our departure we went along with my parents on a walk. Took morning trains to get to the little hot spring town of Gero and followed arrow signs to complete our 5 mile walk among many others. We definitely saw a lot of my parents' backs in distance that day.

Luckily we had good weather every day in Japan. For the time we had there, we visited new places, tasted many different foods, and spent quality time with my family and important friends.   

End of Trout Season

 

This Friday was the last day of trout season, and we both took a day off for fishing. We really didn't have good luck catching any fish on Apple Creek. We could see a few salmon swimming under water. Nothing was hitting on either spinners or crawlers. The weather was gorgeous. Our pasty lunch was very enjoyable. Later we moved to another spot and had a little more action. We kept on going upstream, hoping to catch that last big one, and explored the stretch of river Joe hadn't fished for a long time. There I actually caught a few nice rainbow and brown trout. It was a good way for me to finish the season, remembering how it felt to catch a fish. Exciting! Fall color was also starting to emerge. Thank you, Fish God, for watching over us during this season.

Joe expressed his love for me by spending an hour cleaning salmon roe after catching a female salmon last week. It is a tedious job.

I marinated the roe in sweet soy seasonings, then served it with avocado slices over rice. Yummy. Once Joe passed its funny texture, he enjoyed his meal, I think.

 Lastly, we are getting our roof worked on right now. It needed new shingles put on for a few years. The part that's done (upper and above bay windows in the picture) looks very nice, doesn't it? It feels good to have this one big job done before winter for sure. We'll see if our guy can finish it all before we take off for Japan this Friday.

Fall Salmon At Last

Yesterday we went out fishing in the morning with cousin Al. We were all fishing for the fall salmon. The river looked perfect. The morning air in the woods smelled like autumn. We soon found out though fish weren't interested in lures. Joe switched to night crawlers right away and caught the first salmon, 20 inches, 3 pounds. I was too stubborn to try crawlers and kept catching twigs on my spinners. Lucky I didn't lose any, though I came real close more than once.

Now that Joe pulled his fist salmon of the season, he was itching to catch more. So after lunch Joe and I went back to the Big Hole. Joe with his night crawlers caught 2 nice rainbow trout, 1 was a lake run that was bright pink. Then he caught a bigger salmon, 21 inches, almost 4 pounds. This one fought and took some line and jumped. It was exciting to watch. Me, I kept trying with my spinners of every color, even digging into Joe's tackle box. Fish weren't after any lures. Finally Joe convinced me to try a night crawler, but I soon found it required some skills. I ended up in a snag. All in all, I still didn't lose any of my lures and got to taste a fresh salmon. A good day fishing!

Trout season is coming to a close at the end of the month. We both have this Friday off for the one last day fishing on Apple Creek. I really hope to catch a salmon of my own.

Last Weekend

Last Friday I made some sushi rolls with the cooked trout from the other day. They looked pretty with some roe. My Japanese lady friend J made the inari sushi.

Since the river was still high from rain we had, we decided to take a break from fishing on Sunday and took a drive to Canyon Falls. It was a good idea to check out the falls when the water was high.

Falls almost had as much water as during spring run off.

Well, we couldn't completely forget about fishing... we took a quick fishing trip in the afternoon. Joe caught a nice 12" brook trout that was picture worthy. The trip helped with our fishing fever, too.

Fish God Smiles Upon Joe

Last Saturday Joe got soaked fishing in the rain and only caught a couple of small fish. Fish God rewarded him on Sunday, however. My only complain was that fish were not hitting on spinners at all, but on night crawlers only.
In the first picture is Joe's first 14" brown, right after an 11" rainbow.

Meanwhile I tried many different lures, but fish hardly wanted anything to do with any of them. Then later Joe pulled out another brown, even bigger than the first one, on the crawler. It turned out to be a 16" lake run brown that has come up the river to spawn.

A very nice surprise. She weighed 2 lb. That means salmon are not far behind. With all the fish Joe caught, we had a nice last-minute get-together with a couple of friends who enjoy eating fish as much as I do. I still wished I had caught at least one of the fish on the platter!

Fall is definitely here. Our grapes are starting to take on some color. We are really hoping they will be ready for jelly making before our trip to Japan.

Finally, my logo design is up on the sign for everyone to see. We haven't seen it yet, but it lights up at night, too. Pretty cool.

Chasing a Monster Brookie

When another fisherman/ a friend shows you a picture of a big fat 15" brook trout he caught and tells you where the river is, besides the spot is only 5 minutes from your house, you just have to go check it out. Pronto! That's what we did last Sunday afternoon. Carp River is no secret among local fishermen. In places the Carp gets shallow and slow, so naturally Joe was surprised to hear such large healthy brookies exist in the river. Another thing about fishing an unfamiliar spot was to figure out how to access and cross the river, tangled by branches and tall grass, taking uncertain steps.

Aside from catching a few small warm water fish, such as chubs and perch, we thought the best catch of the day might be the cool looking clouds in the sky. Then we actually caught a few brook trout, barely legal sizes. Still, it was nice to see them. Fishing is always fun, but catching makes it even more enjoyable!

It was definitely an adventure, full of unknown, mystery, and anticipation for a big catch.

A Week in Blurr

I (Kayo) had a very busy week. 10 delegates from the sister city in Japan were visiting, so I helped with translation for their morning activities plus my normal job Monday through Thursday. Yesterday I got to join their all day bus trip to Pictured Rock National Park and a cruise, which was a nice reward for my small contribution as an interpreter. The weather stayed very nice, and all delegates were wonderful. My mission is complete.
This morning it was really nice to go fishing to enjoy the quietness, though I know I made enough noise on the stream.

No fish! We could feel the breeze switching its directions as we proceeded the stream. Fish don't like the change of weather. It was a gorgeous morning in the woods nonetheless, and Joe enjoyed his last cigar.