3 in 30 - 2000.05.20
The ayame (あやめ Japanese Iris) that we rescued bloomed again this year. Each spring, I look for stalks with buds. For the first three years, we didn't get any blossoms. The first year that there was a blossom, there was only one, but it was a beauty. This year it looks like there may be half a dozen blossoms.
It seems as though the iris is a favorite of many people. It was one of my mother's. Bev's folk house in Loveland has iris beds on three sides of the house.
やまとや
It may not be long that small family owned shops like this Yamato-ya continue to survive. In a previous 3 in 30, March 26, I suggested that we didn't have a 7-11. We didn't, but do now. A bread store was torn down and replace with a three story building with a 7-11 on the ground floor.
Small stores such as this one find it difficult to compete with huge impersonal franchises as represented by 7-11, Lawson, Buy-Go, and Family Mart.
ちゅおせん
This train is pulling into the Haijima station to the left. It will go as far as Ome, about 15 kilometers up the line. Only two stops in the same direction (west), is the Fussa station, fairly close to the air base. Candace takes this train from the base home after spending time with her friends.
Another train goes to Okutama—the end of the line—about twice an hour. Most of the time, we take the train in the other direction down into Tokyo. We haven't been up into the mountains in a long time.