There goes another week...

We have had unbelievably warm weather this week. Today I felt like we had skipped spring and jumped into summer as I melted in the hot car, gulping down my first bottle of cold mugicha of the year.

Yesterday, I attended Aishin's entrance ceremony and the welcome lunch. We were entertained while eating by 2nd and 3rd year students interviewing the new 1st years. Some of my favorite questions included:
When you take the lid of your pudding, do you like it or throw it away?
What do you think of your roommate? (who was doing the interviewing!)
Do you prefer bamboo or synthetic brooms?
What did you want to be when you were a small child?

Some very interesting students have entered the school this year. There are 19 total. Since they were quite shy during yesterday, I was really worried about them in our 'oral communication' class. But we got through our first lesson today with many smiles and they understood fairly well. I think they will be able to speak fairly well but I am a bit worried about the boy who chose to write 'Satan' on his name card. Teenage boys and attention...

I posted the photos from last weekend's miso making onto my previous miso post if you are interested. We ended up making about 10 kgs for ourselves. The rest, about 20kgs, another woman who owns a lunch box company will keep. For the next community event our friend is running, I was asked to make a 'bean' dish using the leftover soy beans. I have no idea what I will choose yet since it needs to suit kids' tastes too. Hmmm...

Perhaps the strangest thing that happened this week, began with my discovery that about four of our newly planted snap pea shoots had broken off very near the root base and therefore have no chance of re-growing! I was SO disappointed since this crop is one of my favorites every year and snap pea are insanely expensive at the grocery (about 10 pods for 300en!). Anyway, I figured it was a beetle or something else gnawing away. I cursed the creature and got on with it.

Then on Wednesday, I had the glass doors open but the shoji (paper doors/windows) shut and I heard a soft tinkle. I slowly opened the inner door and saw a small cat wandering about the yard. Cute, I thought, shut the door, and went back to dusting. A few minutes later I heard quite a thrashing about combined with the same tinkling. I slid the door open and was shocked to see the same 'cute' cat with a 2 foot long black snake hanging from its mouth. The cat was whipping its' head back and forth in an apparent effort to kill said snake. I shouted at the cat and it bounded off with its prize. And just where was this violence taking place? On top of my pea shoots...another two bite the dust...