Autumn fruits

There are two fruit trees in my garden. Before you feel envious, let me tell you that NEITHER of the fruits can be eaten ...

The first is a Chinese Quince tree. (karin) I know you can make some kind of liqueur by cutting up the fruit and putting it in white liquor with rock sugar - but I think that tastes like medicine!!!

A few weeks ago there was very stong wind and some of the quinces fell on the ground. Here is one with a 'bata' grasshopper on the top. (Actually, I don't think 'bata' are really grasshoppers {kirigirisu} but I don't know how to say 'bata' in English...)

Oh, if you are wondering, there are quinces in Australia but a different kind. Karin are 'Chinese quince' but the quince I know can be eaten. They look kind of the same, but you can cut them up and cook them like apples. When they are cooked, the flesh becomes pale pink! My father really like stewed quinces. I wonder if I could try cooking Chinese quince?

The second tree is a persimmom tree. Of course you can eat persimmom, but the fruit on this tree are bitter. Despite that, the birds love them! A family of Japanese crows sometimes visits the tree (I don't like the awful noise they make) and yesterday a flock of beautiful birds came. They were about 30cm tall, with white/beige bodies, black heads and pale blue/grey tails. I hope those birds come back again. I tried to take a picture but my camera's zoom isn't powerful enough.

Learning something new

Last week one of my English classes changed into a flower arranging lesson! One of the members is studying to be a flower arranging teacher, and everyone else asked to teach us how to make a simple arrangement - in English!!!




M-san's class was really easy to follow. She had prepared a handout with the basic design, and after we finished that part, she said "Now you can add flowers as you like". I was happy with this idea because we could make our own original designs.

It was interesting because even though we had the same flowers, everyone's arrangment was a little different to the others. What do you think of mine? (It was my first try ...)



Flower arranging is quite relaxing so that night I made another arrangement at home to use up the flowers I had left over.

By the way, the very small pink flowers you can see are called 'wax flowers' and they are from an Australian native bush.