Killar whale vs shark

I wondered which won when 2 "strong" living things met. In most cases, I got the answer when I was a kid but this title had been a big question for me until today.
The answer is here.

See this one, too

Lately a lot often killar whales are kept in some aquariums, but they are anyway "wild" living things even if they were familiar with us. It's terrible when this kind of thing happens though maybe it's just a playing for the killar whale. It reminds me that a monkey attacked me to steal the caramels in my hand when I was a 5 years old kid :( It's been a big trauma even now. Now I believe it firmly that we need to keep distance from wild animals.

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Two herbs

I put some thymes at some meatballs as thymes in my garden grow a lot.

I don't hesitate to add some herbs to some meat plates as I have already learned that they help to digest meat.


Camomile tea. Camomiles in our field getting in bloom. Smells like green apples.

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Repairing a roof for tomatoes

We repaired the roof for tomatoes which was destroyed by some strong windblows the day before yesterday.

We make a roof with gardening pillars like this.


Put a germinated tomato in a pot into the ground with chopstick pillars for plastic cover. We need to do this to protect tomatoes from late frost. Here even if it's in June, sometimes we have some late frost.


A blueberry tree in bloom.


Sages got some buds.


Left:Onions Right:leeks
As I had grown in Kansai, I usually don't use thick leeks.


Havested some sage leaves. Washed them to dry out.
It took 5 hours for us to repair the roof today :o

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An egg of .....

People in this region had to work for something today. Someone found this egg below.

It was as big as an egg of quail but was a little bit skyblue in color.
I checked this page
and found it's an egg of starling. I don't think they make a nest in a bush. Perhaps this was an abandoned egg, will never hatch.

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Making a layout #33 On the beach

It's definately difficult to put each and every small figure in the layout, I try to put some in an acrylic board then put it in the layout.
This below is an amazing figure set, a boy escapes holding a bra in his hand and some women chase him up. One woman who is supposed her bra stolen doesn't hide her breasts lol....

When you glue figures, what you want to glue is usually a lot small than you expect, adittionally a lot often where you want to put some glue are not always flat. So figures usually fall down slowly even after you press them enough :( You need to put something next to each and every figure for a while until the adhesive gets dried enough.

Put the figure set beside the lake.

It's a rubber adhesive I use to glue figures and the acrylic board. I need to wait for 15-20 minutes after I put some adhesive at which I want to glue. The need to press both figures and the acrylic board. I still don't understand the difference from the normal adhesive.

Hayaokidori website

Forget-me-not II

Even these tiny flowers are heading to the sun.


They have grown from spreaded seeds.
See, if they were what I seeded, I don't think they are there lol...


Macro photographing

Terrine with vegitable geratine II

Trying to find some best combination among fruits, herbs for a terrine.

Lemonbarm at the top together with some fruits combination. Coated by vegitable geratine.

Ice cream attached.


Another one, spare mints at the top together with some different fruits combination. Also coated by vegitable geratine. I am to have some trial and error when I create something new to build up a complete one :-)

NS commutor train II

The NS ( Holland National Railway ) all double decked commutor train. The bulk body shape looks really nice.


Going a 2.7% uphill with no problem as the driving wheels wear rubber. This is often the case with European manufacturer, but never with Japanese manufacturer if it's HO.I am not sure why. :(



But if that NS Commutor train were located inbetween DB103 for pulling "Rheingold" and Swiss T.E.E train for Gottardo/Cisalpin, my attention is taken by them, not by the commutor train. Maybe because I am in the same generation with them :-)

Hayaokidori website

Transplanting some sparemints

Found some spare mints I devided last year had enough roots growing, so I transplanted them into size 5 pots.
Before transplanting


After transplanting


A lot bigger pot.
Befor transplanting.


After transplanting.

You had better note that you just transplant one into a little bigger pot when you do. This helps their roots to grow good. If you use a lot bigger pot, their roots don't grow good. You just make pots bigger and bigger little by little.

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A water house?

On the way back from Himekewa river origin on my taking a walk, found something like a water house which seems not in use any more. I thought this senery might become one for good old days, so I editted it in mono tone.

Hayaokidori website

Cutting oregano

Before


After



Spread the cut oreganos on a piece of newspaper for a some days to get them tried.
You can use some of them for cooking later. Most herbs are originally from Europe where it's not so hot and humid even in summer, so sometimes I do cut some herbs to let them survive in rainy season here in Japan. I don't think I really need to do this while I am in Hakuba, but would like to let them stay comfortable. Some herbs like basils are from semi tropical zone, so they are okay with hot and humid weather.

Hayaokidori website

Making a layout #32 A wagon drawn by cow

This below is only Noch product in the package I got yesterday from Germany



Figures are all glued to the base paper. I decided not to take them out of the paper after thinking of it for a while


Is cow bigger than a car!? I've seen cow in outdoor only once around Mashu lake in Hokkaido. Exactly they looked as tall as my height when got close to one. It threatened me with its snort and mooing.

Hayaokidori website

Netherland National Railroad (NS) all double decked commuting train

Someone presented me. Now I thought I should share this scenery with everyone :-)

Hayaokidori website

Something harvested at a farm and mountains

As leeks were grown a lot in our tiny field, we cooked something with them.

Gyoza


Shiroae - bases on Tofu. You can add whatever you like, but there's always combinations with tofu. Bad or good, it really depends on your tastes and favorites. I add some cloud ear mushrooms, lotus roots, spinach, glinded walnuts etc together with some seasonings. The lotus roots worked good, it was very yummy.


Sprouts from angelica trees mixed with tiny baby fish what we call "Shirasu".

Structures fron Germany just arrived

I orderd something at the first half of February and got it now, almost took 3 months and a half!!!!!

Huh? A TRIX catalog is endlosed in this package though I didn't order it. It took only 4 days to get a package from Canada when I ordered something to a shop there, so I expected that it would arrive at my place around May 6th as they notified me that they shipped it on May 2nd.
I e-mailed them a couple of days ago to make some joke saying " Did you kindly deliver my order through Syberian railway because they are all model train stuff? :-) "


Oh? Was it delivered by sea-mail?


Seems like that. It seemed to take 13 days for this package to travel from Germany to Yokohama as this document says the arrival date is May 15th while the shop notified me that they delivered it on May 2nd. Much faster than I supposed if it's by sea mail. Where do they travel through? Maybe from Hamburg or Rotterdam -->the Gibraltar Channel -->the Suez Canal-->the Strait of Malacca-->Yokohama ? Or perhaps carried by land transport to somewhere Genova or Athens then ship there to save some time.

Hayaokidori website

Narcissus Flycatcher singing but..

As birds in the forest around my house were singing a lot this morning, I went out to see what birds they were.

As is often the case with watching birds around, it's very hard to find even when you hear them singing. Looked around a bit and finally found a male Narcissus Flycatcher at a branch. A male Narcissus Flycatcher looks like this. A female one looks very different. Female ones look like Nitingales.
As is often the case with Flycatchers, female ones look very similar. It's easy to specify which is which if it comes to male flycatchers but it's not if it comes to female flycatchers.

Hayaokidori website

Even local trains don't stop now :(

Now ski season is over. Even local trains don't stop at Yanaba skijo mae station. You just can see a tiny platform there.

Hayaokidori website

Skunk cabbage nature park

Japan North Alps view from Shirasawa tunnel Hakuba side exit on Route 406. Damn, the peaks were hidden in the clouds :(
We went to Skunk cabbage nature park in Kinasa after a long interval.


Route 406 is a very curvable one, you have to be careful to drive a car there. We arrived the tourist center 1 hour later we left our place. Someone stops your car on the way to charge 400 yen per person for the entrance fee to this natuer park.


It's roughly 40-50 minutes on foot for one way from the tourist center to the entrance of the nature area, we got on a bus to save our time ( To be honest, we are too lazy to walk! )
It took 5-6 minutes ride. The path buses run is very tiny and narrow, buses have to meet at a place where they cross each other.

After getting off the bus, the path we walked was still paved one.


Cherry blossoms there just looked like they started blooming.

Birds were singing there noisy! How many kinds of birds can you recongnize? I did only nitingales lol...



Found something in a pond. Frog coes??


Finally they provide a signboards not only in Japanese but also in English :-) But I wonder does it really need "The" for the trees described there? ("The" Horse Chestnut, "The" Japanese Oak etc) Anyone tell me please! lol...


Pathes there are unpaved which I like!


Water runs inbetween big trees, skunk cabbages are here and there along the running water. Skunk cabbages are called " White fairies"


Skunk cabbage flowers (Mizubasho in Japanese)

Do you know which part is actually a petal? The white ones look like wrapping somehing like cores are NOT petals, the tiny yellow ones around the green cores are exactly their petals.

I have ever visited this place some times, but that was the first time for me to get in Koumidaira area.

The reason why we Japanese call this flower "Mizubasho" is their leaves look like basho. But I think I have to google to know what basho is :o lol... :p
I like this water noise, even if it's my bedroom side, it would never bother me from falling asleep. Probably it's an alpha wave.


A signboard which explains some virgin forests of beeches here.


Maybe a white birch? Looks cool.


There are so many tall trees here and there. They are too tall for me to take pictures of entire their height. So I took pictures of this tree by deviding it into 3 parts then editted them to connect. Not a good skill lol... :p But I hope it helps to show how tall they are when you find some people at the left bottom of this picture for comparison.


Skunk cabbages in bloom along the wood path.


Trout?


They are perhaps "Sukanpo" we took along pathes when we did picnic there.



I hear leaves exhaust tannin when they get deep in water. It looks like they make the water dirty but actually tannin provides some nutrition for microorganisms to grow which is the start of a food chain. Nothing wasteful there.


Many big trees of 300-400 years old here and there. This signboard explains that the tree behind the signboard is what we call "Shinanoki" in Japanese. Also explains "Shina" for Shinanoki means "to connect" something in Ainu language which was spoken in Hokkaido among Ainu people. Another interesting thing this signboard says is people in Nagano prefecture in old days offered pieces of paper from this "Shinanoki" tree to the Imperial Court in Kyoto, that's why they named this region "Shinano" which is an old name for Nagano prefecture.


Yachidamo tree which has an unique skin. Not sure what they call this tree in English :(


It's a big place to walk around, feel a presence when birds sing.


Water from the mountains on this background must support all the ecosystem here.


Found a dying tree with a hole on its side. Wondered what lives there. A flying squirrel family or an owl family??


Though I live in a kind of countryside Hakuba, if I go deeper in mountains and nature, I am always impressed by them. I guess probably this post is a little bit longet than you expected, I appreciate for your time and patience to check this out all the way to this end :-)

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