Conversations about the ‘the four seasons’ by foreigners in Japan often focus on that cliched and dreaded icebreaker question (“Does your country has four seasons?”).

But recent posts on Japundit by Marie Mockett got me thinking about how much more effort goes into marking the arrival and passing of the seasons in Japan than in, say, England, where it seems that only gardeners really notice what’s going on. You don’t see shops there decorated for the beginning of spring, for example.

Among family and friends, the seasons and all that they bring come up frequently in conversation, and seasonal gestures are common. I’ve never been sansai picking (I’d need an expert along to save from possibly poisoning myself), but twice family members have presented us with bags of the spring goodies. When my father-in-law thrust a bag of taranome into my hand, telling me they were good eating, I really thought he was having a laugh until I tasted them. Sublime.

And so I vowed to pay closer attention to the seasons. And we did all the usual stuff this spring, like getting blotto under cherry trees, and wading through fields of nanohana.

And around the middle of April, I noticed some action around the swallow nest outside my place of work. The more I paid attention, and the more time I spent watching the attentive parents, I noticed that most of the buildings along the road had at least one nest (the Post Office had two).

And so I’ve been watching ‘our’ swallows, seeing them grow up really fast. So when the 3 young ‘uns finally took their first flight about a week ago, it was a moment of almost surrogate parental joy! They haven’t left home yet. They’re still hanging around for the free grub and lodging, but as the sun begins to go down, and it gets a little cooler, all the swallow kids come out to play, and for about an hour, the sky’s full of gliding, swooping, noisy birds.

They’ll be gone soon, of course. And then the stultifying heat and humidity of summer will settle in and we won’t want to be hanging out outside too much. But until then, I’m going to make the most of it.

Photos after the jump!

2 weeks ago: Curly, Larry & Moe at three weeks old

They might have mastered flying, but catching insects on the wing will obviously take some more practice. Fortunately meals are still being delivered.