KANAKITAs KAMMER in the US

They are our most recent frequent guests on our new backyard.

Magpies!

I often see five of them squeaking each other. "They must be a family", my husband said.

Some of them dare to come to our simple water spot. Hooray!

This year, I'll plant them a little earlier than last two years.

Hiking in Mill Creek Canyon. This time we went to Pipeline Trail. The signs on the trail also showed "Rattlesnake Gulch", so my husband was thrilled because he thought he could finally see one, but fortunately we didn't encounter none of them. Good for ME!

From the viewpoint.


There was a rainbow on the mountains. Well, you can't see it very well in the picture...




I don't know the name of these flowers...




This one might be "Scarlet Paintbrush", I guess.


These are "Yellow Gracier-Lily", also called "Snow-Lily".




These flowers reminded me "katakuri", which is named as "erythronium japonicum" in Latin. It has a purple flower instead of yellow. I found it every year in the forest behind our home, and felt that the early spring was there.

People used to got starch from its bulb, and this starch was called "katakuri-ko", which is replaced with potato starch today. But the name "katakuri-ko" is still used unchanged to call starch.

It's still chilly sometimes, but it's becoming warmer steadily. 

Finally, we can sense the spring here in SLC...

I'm still baking cookies...







The brown ones are ginger cookies. I used molasses for the first time. The taste is ok, but I think I could improve a little to match my taste. Sugar cookies are just fine. I'm so thankful to my mother-in-law for the recipe!

Oh, it's Christmas Time! I rarely do anything special but baking "Plätzchen" (Christmas cookies in German).



The colorful ones will travel to Japan for my niece and nephews, and the other ones are for everybody else including me! But it's just the beginning, I'll bake more and more and more...!

It was my first trial to bake with green tea powder. The color outside isn't very nice......

We went to Deer Creek Reservoir again, and saw a lot of kitesurfer on the North end of the lake.


Sometimes they flew up too...!


It was the place where we were standing while watching them.


It looks like paper...


This time we went there in the late afternoon. It was cold again, but the sky before sunset was really beautiful.

On the way home from Deer Creek Reservoir, we dropped by Jordanelle Reservoir too.

There was a yacht sailing on the lake...

It was a nice late fall day for going out a little.

In front of us, there was thick fog...!


It was actually our distination, Deer Creek Reservoir. When we arrived there, the fog was just clearing up...


It was right after Halloween, so a monster was reflecting too! (A silly couple...!)


It was a little chilly to sit besides water after a while, but I enjoyed the beautiful blue sky, a view on Mt. Timpanogos, birds on and above the lake, jumping fish, and so on.