Veronica in Ishiyama

This weekend we were supposed to go to Kyoto and watch foreign movies at the Goethe Institut. Instead we woke up late Saturday morning and missed our chance, so we stayed in and ate breakfast at a very leisurely pace and just spent some quality time together. Yesterday we explored the rice field in her backyard and did some nature-watching. There's a little stream that runs between the fields, and we tromped along beside it and looked for frogs. We didn't find any, but there were many crickets that would hop away as our feet brushed the grass, and we saw some red dragonflies and several butterflies. She said that dragonflies are a sign of a healthy ecosystem. I was worried that the clear water of the stream meant that it was acidic so that no algae would grow. The dragonflies meant there were mosquitos, which are their food, just as we were the mosquitos food. I guess this means the dragonfly is very high up on the food chain. At one point we sat by the river and watched a butterfly fanning it's wings, with a motion that made me think of mechanical things. Was it drying its wings? It would flit from one flower to another, then perch and flutter in jerky movements. Then it flew toward us and we were rewarded in our nature watching by a close-up view as it perched on a blossom very near us.

The sun was warm this weekend and I remarked that this would be great if it were the regular winter weather. I hope the winter goes by quickly, and is warm. They say the ocean water around Japan is unusually warm this year, and that's why there have been so many typhoons. So perhaps the warm water will make for a warm winter.