For the first time ...

Last Saturday evening a friend suddenly called and asked if I'd like to go find fireflies with her family. Of course I said "Yes" as I had never seen a firefly before.

We went to an area near the foot of Mt Tsukuba and after an hour or so, found a spot with a few fireflies. I was quite surprised because they were really small! My friend's husband caught one and I held it - it was less than 1cm long. I thought they would be 2 or 3cm :)

The fireflies were on some plants growing in the middle of a small river. I heard they only live in clean water where a certain kind of freshwater shellfish live. Firefly larvae eat the shellfish. Nowadays it is really hard to find such clean water as farmers use pesticides and herbicides. It is such a pity that we are destroying our own environment.

This final picture is one I found on the Internet and it shows you what a firefly looks like in the light. I tried to get a picture of the one we caught, but he moved too quickly!

firefly - 蛍
foot of a hill/mountain - ふもと
shellfish - 貝
larvae - (larva is singular) 〔昆〕幼虫;〔動〕幼生(オタマジャクシなど
pesticide - 殺虫剤
herbicide - 除草剤

Coffee plus ...

I don't drink (alcohol) so much but I do like Bailey's Liqueur. It's nice by itself, on the rocks, with milk, mixed in a cocktail or in coffee!

Try adding about a tablespoon of Bailey's to either hot or cold coffee. Yum! And if you'd like an extra 'kick', add a teaspoon of brandy too!

Did you know that such liqueur coffees are very popular? Almost all restaurants in Australia serve them.

Oh, and Bailey's over vanilla ice-cream is a heavenly treat for 'grown-ups' :)


grown-up = adult

Dai koubutsu!

I like the word 'daikoubutsu'. The Japanese kanji are 大好物。If you can't read kanji on your computer, they are 'big' 'like' and 'thing'. Actually, it means a 'favorite food'.

I learned this word long, long ago on a nature show. I know lots of vocabulary from nature shows :)

This picture is of my 'daikoubutsu'. Apricots are truly my favorite food and I could happily eat them every day. It is a big pity that you can't buy nice apricots in fruit stores here.

The secret of good apricots is to leave them ripen on the tree. If you pick them green and ripen them later, they won't taste nice at all.

Last autumn Mrs K was very kind to give me two apricot saplings. I am growing them in pots. This year they had blossoms but it was windy so most of the blooms fell off and I could get only one fruit. But that is okay because I thought I must wait a few years for the trees to mature.

And I was a wonderful wife and shared my single apricot with my husband :)

ripen - 熟する, 実る
sapling - 若木