Organizing my food pantry and decluttering my dish cabinet...

This stuff happened almost a month ago, not quite a month, but almost and I want to put it up. The week of May 9th-13th I decided to tackle 2 fairly big jobs in my kitchen. One being the food pantry and 2 being the built in dish cabinet. Of course I still had my regular weekly cleaning, food shopping, meal making and laundry, plus kid pick up and lunches to pack etc and stuff to do. But these 2 bigger tasks really needed addressing and I wanted to get them done. I did purchase some affordable liners for each shelf and stuff. I didn't buy enough, so I did have to run back to Besia/Cainz Home where I purchased them during that week and bought a few more.  

This food pantry took honestly most of my day one day that week and that's fine. I wanted it 100% done and not a half ass job. So, doing a quality job in one go, for me was worth it. Immediately after sending Noah to school, because Bran rides his bike. I came home grabbed a hot cup of coffee. Cranked up some music in the kitchen. And got right to business. I took absolutely everything out of every shelf. I brought the vacuum out because the bottom floor area in there had debris that needed vacuuming. I also got a hot soapy wash rag and scrubbed the heck out of the floor in the pantry and then dried it with a few paper towels. And then I set the liners down. Because well...if a can makes any rust marks I'd prefer it not be on my floor. So liners down. And of course checked dates on stuff too. because again, I'm not doing a half ass job, and I don't want to put anything old and expired in. So, a quick check and back to put things in place.  

Okay bottom floor area of the food pantry done. Very happy with it!

Next shelf! Again wiped everything down and dried it and a nice new liner is in this picture. 

Breakfast stuff for the bottom shelf. Cereal, Pop Tarts. Pancake mix, syrup, coffee, chocolate milk straws. I hate hot tea and only drink it if we're sick, but I do keep a small pack of tea bags on hand in case any of us gets sick. 

Coffee creamers. 

Old Ikea liners which I am replacing with the nicer Besia ones.  

Above the breakfast shelf is the food shelf. Like panko, croutons, spare Miracle Whip. Spare Lawry's garlic spread. Stuffing. Butter noodles. Roux (for curry and beef stew). Cook Do. Pot roast mix. Peach cups. That sort of thing.

You can sort of see 3 shelves at once in this pic.

Essentials row/shelf. Like grains and stuff. Rice, beans. 

Same shelf as the rice but this is on the other side. We have spices galore. Beef gravy, chicken bouillon, garlic salt, buffalo wing power, BBQ sauce and salad dressing and mustard and popcorn oil and popcorn salt for cooking/making popcorn and Lipton soup packets.

Sweets and baking shelf. Marshmallows for rice krispy treats. Reese's Peanut Butter cups. 

Giant Nutella... frosting, cupcake liners galore... baking paper for lining baking pans far right and Crisco for baking. 

I am sure you could splurge and buy very expensive containers made especially for food pantries. But, I buy my plastic containers from the Daiso for 100 yen. And like for me that's good enough. I lump all my sugars in 1 plastic box/container. That way I know where they are. They're all together. : ) Granulated sugar, brown sugar, Japanese white sugar that dissolves easier in cooking. Salt. I have a favorite salt here in Japan the one closest this camera. There is a pic of a stock pot on the front of my favorite salt. This salt doesn't get all wet and clumpy lumpy like the other salts do in Japan. This salt is always nice and dry. In the other plastic container I keep plastic disposable forks, plastic knives and plastic spoons and disposable chopsticks all this stuff was bought at the Daiso. And if we ever have an emergency say a family member in Osaka gets sick and we need to grab a quick meal and pack it up immediately. I don't have to go..."where did I put those plastic utensils?" This way they are all lumped together in one 100yen container. Again I am sure there is a fancier way. But this is my way and it works. : ) 

Paper plates on the right of the plastic forks and spoons etc. This right here is all the Thanksgiving plates and napkins. 

Here are the rest that aren't Thanksgiving. We have the 4th of July plates and napkins in various sizes. I see a green plate with a snowman on it. And other holidays in between.

Easter...

Birthday napkins, if ever I should need one, it would be easy to find.

And a better view and nicely stacked and stuff. That way any holiday I need something, I can quickly look to see if I have it? Do I need more? Do I need replacements? Etc. 

A very good view and idea of these 2 rows. Again nicely organized. Easy to see what's what and where something is. I like things nicely organized. 

Even Happy Easter napkins.

Platters. An Easter platter. And 1 Easter egg holder and some Easter coasters.

A 4th of July platter. 

When my grandma passed. All daughters and granddaughters got to get a nice sized stack of her recipes. And many of us gave copies of the recipes we didn't receive to each other, so we made copies for eachother so we tried to make sure all recipes were given to all of us. Of the recipes we specifically wanted. I am so thankful to have a container full of cherished family recipes as well as some recipes that can't even fit in there because they're a bit too big. But that's okay. They're in my Nana's handwriting and I cherish them and would never let them go. : ) 

That double chocolate cake recipe is out of this world. Bliss. And these are old school American recipes. And I will be giving copies to both Branden and Noah to have and pass down if they'd like too. : ) 

It is hard to see the top top shelf and the bottom of the pantry in 1 shot. See... you can only see to the breakfast row in this pic. 

Here is the bottom of the pantry but now the top shelf is missing...not in this frame/pic. Oh well it does give you an idea at least of what I did that day. I was super tired that day. But really happy with what I could accomplish in one day. : ) This is the day I made the beef stew. I remember because I was basically able to organize my pantry while the beef boiled all day long too. I was knocking 2 jobs out at the same time basically. Getting dinner nice and tender and boiled and an organized pantry all at the same time. 

The day after I finished my food pantry. I did my light house cleaning for that day and I ran to the Besia/Cainz store to pick up more liners. This is what I got that day. 2 extra liners and some napkins for the boys obento/lunches. These napkins seemed so fresh and so right for this season to me. : ) I also picked up a Starbucks drink along the way on my drive home. 

So 2 days after I cleaned my food pantry, I jumped in head first with getting the dish cabinet tackled. As soon as Noah was driven to school, I once again grabbed a cup of hot coffee and turned on some music and got right in on my pantry. I first took absolutely everything out of it and then vacuumed and wiped and scrubbed everything. Dried everything and then lined everything. Tippy top shelf all nicely lined. I placed my beloved all white Crock Pot up there because I want it out of reach from everyone and I really want to keep it safe so that's why it's there. And next to it...

Great big platter, cake cover, and inside that is my big wooden salad bowl (you see this on holidays), a container and my Ikea cheese graters which I seldom ever use anymore, since Costco has the best selection of cheeses (from America) and at the best prices for cheese in all of Japan! And the ones I use most come grated. However eh...I'll still keep my cheese graters around. You never know if it might come in handy. : )

Bowls on this shelf. And I'm not going to go and show you shelf by shelf like I did with the food pantry. It's tedious. But this just gives you an idea. And in this container...clear 100 yen container I keep all my measuring cups and spoons and I like them here... because it keeps things neat tidy and organized in 1 small space. I also keep the big wide soup type plastic spoons in here too besides measuring spoons too. Under that funnel far back right is toothpicks and everyone in the house knows. And they're not hiding it's just saving space keeping the funnel and toothpicks on top of the kakigori (shave ice) bowls, far back right)

Our dinner plates from Costco. And the 2 plates the boys use for breakfast, they have dividers for different types of foods.

Top 2 rows. On top of the crock pot is the popcorn containers for family movie night. 2nd top row is obento stuff/lunch box stuff far left... and plastic containers for storing food far right. I used to have so many plastic containers that I never used so I threw a whole bunch away. I just don't want excessive clutter or massive amounts of crap we don't use.

1 wide whole view of all rows and shelves. Again everything clean. Everything organized. No clutter. Everything has a spot where it belongs. Baking pans on the bottom floor area of my built in dish cabinet.

And lined.

Cutting boards and rolling pin, ceramic bowls next to plastic bowls and colanders. Pans one row/shelf... and baking stuff at the bottom. Again everything super easy to find. Nothing cluttered at all. Again it's just a nice feeling to know my kitchen is done. It's clutter free. It's a calm feeling knowing the house is in order. And not a disaster area. 

The New Mexico Big Jim Chili's have arrived...

At long last the chili we ordered over a month ago have arrived! Totally worth the wait for sure. There is this Japanese farming family who sells and grows over like 100 plus... types of varieties of chili from all over the world. Thai chili. Chili from Mexico. And all sorts of different chili from the USA. The prices for them are quite affordable. And we ordered from him last year. And have ordered from him this year as well. The chili called Big Jim originates from New Mexico, these are wildly popular in Colorado too. They grow to about 10-12 inches long. Which is gigantic in size hence the name...Big Jim. These will be great used in chili rellenos. : )  When ordering these, he said they were too tiny at that time and to wait about a month... and we said absolutely no problem. They then sold out, lucky for us he sold out *after*.... we placed our order. Phew. Again we only need 10 plants, we're not like professional farmers or anything. Just growing as much as our 1 family will use and need. : ) We will be roasting them and freezing them. This is what they looked like when they arrived.

Hi 10 Big Jim's. Well they're not big yet. LOL. Baby Big Jim's. : ) Seedlings. But they will be. Update? The jalapenos snapped out of their funk so thankful about that and have been on the mend. They were transplanted to soil as I said in my last jalapeno update. And these Big Jim's have been transplanted into soil already as well, in fact they look a bit bigger than this picture. I will be keeping you all updated with pictures with how their growing as things progress. So in a nutshell. The jalapenos are doing A-okay. And the Big Jim's are doing okay too. They're all in our backyard thriving in the sunshine and getting watered daily. : ) 

It's been warmer here lately. Not Japanese middle of summer type sauna weather. But definitely the days are like in the 70's. The nights are still cool (not cold). The day time around where we live still has a nice cool breeze. Which in middle of summer there is no cool breeze at all. LOL. So the weather right now for me is the best...most ideal. Warm but nice and breezy too. Mosquitoes are starting to be in season. At most stores now here in Japan... you see anti-mosquito sprays and coils, like what is pictured right here at my front door step. There are mosquitoes about here and there. However not in droves or anything. I think because our housing community is elevated from the rice field. We're pretty high from the water level. Yeah sure a few here and there. But nothing compared to... if our house was at water level of a rice field. However...we do keep this coil burning every day. Usually around 3pm-ish we'll light it. It burns nice and slow and the smell of the original one, is the scent I love the most. They do have newer scents like misc. different types of flowers and stuff but I prefer the original scent. It reminds me of ..."Japanese summer" and I love that smell. : ) It does keep 98-99% of all mosquitoes at bay from hanging around our front porch. On weekends if we are home, I will light it in the morning around 8am-or so because I know Noah's friends will be by to ride bikes and or their RipStik's or to go play tennis (Noah has been playing a lot of tennis lately and has his own racket, so does Branden, sicne our housing community has really nice tennis courts) so I keep one lit all day that way no mosquitoes will be near our front yard while Noah or his friends come by. : ) And of course we'll light a new coil in the evening if the morning coil ends. If you buy one like in the picture... can you get a ton of coils inside and these are pretty cheap to buy and repurchase. : ) I am pretty sure most households in Japan use these. : )

Anyway it's Saturday here in Japan! It's baked chicken parmesan on top of that homemade pasta from Costco for our dinner tonight. We'll have salads and garlic bread too. Last weekend we were so busy with school and housing community obligation stuff. Last weekend was crazy! @_@ It felt like an almost "no weekend type of weekend" last weekend. But this weekend is nice...just hanging at home. Relaxing. It's nice to have a nice leisurely weekend doing nothing. Especially considering last weekend was so crazy busy. : ) Anyway, off to bake a batch of brownies with Noah right now. Bran is studying his ever loving brains out in the kitchen... but he's about to call it a day soon. Anyway have a great weekend everyone. : ) 

Emergency disaster drill at our local elementary school for Noah. And 2 fun days out with my good friends (2 lunches, 1 trip to Starbucks and 1 movie, we’ve been hanging out a lot lately)

Once a year our local elementary school has an "emergency disaster drill" for all grades 1st-6th. And each child is supposed to be picked up by a parent or grandparent. And every child is supposed to know how to walk home from the school. Japan as you know has lots earthquakes and they want the kids prepared. Basically if disaster should strike while the kids are at school. They are taught and have practiced to all file down out of the school ASAP and go and stand in rows, a row for 1st grade, 2nd grade and so on. Stand someplace not near any building or structures. Which is quite easy for our town kids... considering we live in rural Japan, lol. And given since our school is built in a spot where no other buildings are near. So the spot is easy. Anyways...that day May 19th was the set "practice drill" and all the kids would be getting out at 2pm because the sirens and alarms would start at our school at 2pm. Us parents were already standing outside in the field waiting for the sirens to start. I snapped this pic around 1:40pm-ish. The kids at our elementary school have a whole bunch of nice raised garden beds and the kids at our school tend to the veggie patch inside those raised garden beds. Noah along with about 6 other classmates tend the veggie patch on Wednesdays. This pic was taken on a Thursday so this was a different bunch of kids tending the garden that day (a different bunch tends the garden on different days of the week). They pull weeds surrounding the veggies, water the veggies. Pick them when they're ready. Our school also has a huge amount of rice fields too. Noah and his grade/class and a couple other grades planted the rice a few weeks back too. I love that our school teaches the kids about the importance of growing your own vegetables and rice. 

The note says every year. Parents stand in the basketball court and wait for the sirens. Which I did. I then watched each grade file out quickly... with their randoseru  (backpack) and belongings to take home for that day. 

Hey! I recognize that Mr. Mustacho shirt! It's you! Hi Noah! And hi fellow 5th graders.

Good kids good kids, seems these kids have got this emergency drill stuff...down to a science! 

You can see long rectangular flags in the distance and all grades in their rows separated by grade. The flags just have numbers on them. Like the #5 for the 5th grade obviously. : ) And 2 for the 2nd grade. You know what I mean. That way god forbid...another huge earthquake rocks around here. The kids will know the drill. Know the routine and know how to quickly file out of the school. Stand in a safe spot... not near any buildings or structures with again...living in rural Japan that's super easy. And just kids wait for your parents to come. Meanwhile... back to the drill. The person on the loud speaker said, "all parents go stand next to your child, but stand on the right side of your child" And if you should have more than 1 child at this school stand with your youngest child and then go and collect your other children" Okay heard that message. No I do not have any other children attending elementary school. I used to... but now only 1 attends elementary school. But okay heard the message loud and clear. So, I went and stood next to Noah on the right side of Noah. : ) Meanwhile the teacher starts from the head of the line. It's all alphabetical order. Noah is 10th in line. And the line moved quickly. The teacher walked to each parent and child duo to make sure we were actually their parent. The teacher just visually checks, the school is small so every teacher knows all us parents anyways... and he also verbally just says/asks... "you are his mom right?" and you just say...yes I am. It's just the rule they have to ask everybody... even though they already know. And yes... It is pretty obvious...that I am his mom. Everyone else at the school is 100% Japanese except 2 kids are half Japanese and half Filipino but they look totally 100% Japanese/Asian and that's not a bad thing, that's okay. Nothing wrong with looking Asian or Japanese, I married a Japanese man, I find some Japanese men, super hot. : ) Meanwhile there is only 1 western mom/American mom there and that's me...and given... there is only one extremely looking western/white hafu child (Noah) at our school. It's pretty much a no brainer...who is his mom and who is my kid, lol.  So clearly we are together. They know that and by our faces it's clear we're together. Plus everyone knows us. So it's pretty quick. And soon enough we were on our way home. Emergency disaster drill done for another year. Yay! : )  

I have recently met up with my 2 really good friends lately. I met them at yochien years ago. Our first get together was just 1 day after the emergency drill at the elementary school. We met Friday May 20th. We met at our fave Indian restaurant. 2 of us had pumpkin curry and 1 of us had the butter chicken. We each had a combo/set. Our curry came with salad and drinks and a huge naan. We sat for at least an hour and a half at the restaurant enjoying the excellent food. And after that we 3 went to Starbucks. Clearly this all happened in the small city nearest my town. Because my town doesn't have stuff like that hahaha. : ) We 3 sat at Starbucks for ages. We talked and talked and talked. We laughed. I had the best time. We actually stayed until 3pm. I live farthest away. They live in that small city. But I live way over in my town and it is a bit of a drive and given Noah gets out at 3:45pm most days now. I had to leave Starbucks at 3pm to make the drive back to my town. This was the day we had pizza for dinner. I am pretty smart with time management and stuff like that. And I know I'd be out of my home all day long. And knew I'd be home around 4pm and frankly that is a pretty late time... to start and begin supper. So...I made the pizza dough that Friday morning. We weren't meeting up for lunch until 11am. So, after dropping off Noah at school that Friday morning, at 7:15am. I went home, jumped in the shower, washed my hair and face and body. Blow dried my hair put my makeup on in 10 minutes or less. By 8:45am I was totally dressed hair done makeup on. And so, that's when I made my pizza dough. After I had it resting. I quickly vacuumed the downstairs swooshed the downstairs toilet. And by 9:30am. I had done tons already. had dinner basically in the bag. Was dressed. And I basically chilled at home until I left at 10:30am.  Oh while at Starbucks, we had made another meet up and we decided to go to the movies the following week. This picture was snapped the 2nd time I met up with my friends when we 3 were at the movies in Narita at the Humax movie theater. We stopped to look at the display for the upcoming movie and as we were looking and talking about it, I snapped a pic of it real quick of it.

May 25th, I think it was a Wednesday. We had a plan to go and see a movie that would only be showing for 2 weeks at the movies in Narita. Not even our local closest movie theater wasn't showing it. We went and saw a movie called "Spotlight" We 3 went to the morning showing of that. How was the movie? It was a good movie. It won 2 Oscars. It's a serious movie. Serious topic. It's basically about sexual abuse by Catholic priests. A huge cover up that happened in Boston. I'm glad I saw the movie. Would I buy the DVD? No. Would I watch it again if say...I were on a 14 hour long haul flight? No. It's a..."I'm glad I saw it. But wouldn't watch it again though." After the movie we walked across the street to the Narita mall. We went to Capricciosa for lunch if you show your movie ticket stub you get a 10 or 15% discount on lunch and given they have lunch specials for 1000 yen so... our lunches were like 850yen or something like that. We each had a lunch combo/set. Sorry in America we say combo for combination and in Japan we say "set" so...I always just use both. We each had our own salad and pasta. We each had a drink and a dessert. I had the garden salad, the tomato and garlic pasta oh that is SO good. a peach tea and tiramisu for dessert. After that we left and went home. Lucky for me, Noboru was off work that day, so he was able to swing and get Noah. We knew I wouldn't be able to make it in time. I got home about 5 minutes after they got home. So, I didn't do too bad of timing, but I did okay. : ) What did we have for dinner that night? Again...I plan ahead... because I don't think it's fair that we miss dinner just because I go out with my friends. So, I always plan ahead and make sure dinner will never be a problem. Basically...I make sure we won't starve just because I go out. And that's fair. : ) So, what I did was....I made Japanese style curry with chicken and veggies the day before, I doubled the amount and made 2 boxes worth. And I did that so we would be having curry pasta the day I would go to the movies. So when I got home. I warmed up the cold curry...pulled it out of the fridge. Meanwhile, I boiled some water for some pasta. And plated up some salad. We actually had a pretty decent supper the night...and considering I was gone all day. We had curry spaghetti, this is so good and a perfect way to use leftover curry. We had salad and a buttered and sliced fresh bakery baguette... loaf of crusty bread. Noboru was kind enough to pick it up for me on his way home from fishing. Yep he spent his free day fishing. : ) 

Throwback Thursday. Country kids having fun looking for some crawdads...

This week's TBT takes us back to June 2008. And our family was spending some fun time... with the boys collecting some crawdads (which are called zarigani, in Japanese) Collecting crawdads, frogs and various creatures is quite popular for country/rural kids in Japan. However our family rule is, we only let them stay for 1 night at our house and then we return them right back to nature. Because #1...we don't want a pet or the obligation of taking care of one full time, forever and ever and ever til the end of time. Also... the little crawdad could have a little crawdad family and we don't want to just "abduct" a little crawdad...like I said he could have a crawdad family, a crawdad wife or  some crawdad kids or friends, who knows. Plus hey...they do have a right to live their lives too. Right? On the other hand... again it's quite a popular thing to do here in the countryside. And we don't want to deprive our country kids their childhood either. So...a fair family rule was well established years years years ago... that they could stay 1 overnight and then we'd set them free back into the "wild" so to speak. So...what were we doing this day? We were collecting some crawdads to spend the night at our house on our front porch. See the cows on the right behind Noboru? Well, except for the 2 housing communities in our town. Which we happen to live in one of those. There are farms everywhere else...all over our tiny town. Dairy cows are everywhere! There are tons of "moo moo cow" farms around here. Quite a few places to buy farm fresh eggs. Vegetable stands with honor boxes (meaning nobody working said veggie stand so they trust you...on your honor you'll pay for whatever veggies are available that day) Cows chewing on cud. Bamboo forests all over the place. And our town also has a goat. I have mentioned that goat on here before. First time... I saw that goat I was driving to the plaza to pick up Branden and I saw an elderly man walking with an enormously tall (for a dog) dog....and I thought what an ugly dog! As I got and drove closer, I thought...holy crap...that's no dog, that's a goat! I picked up Bran, Noah was with me and saw the goat already, told Bran get inside the car... hurry hurry, there's a man with a goat. He wanted to see, so he hopped in the car and sure enough they both saw the goat too. I have since seen him a billion times. So the shock value has worn off. But yep...our town also has a man with a pet goat. This goat is more like his dog. Meaning he goes for daily walks etc. He is white and fluffy and well taken care of. It's quite cool actually. : ) Also sorry one more story...did I ever tell you the time...I was driving passed the dairy cows... and since my kids were teeny tiny I have always called them "moo moo cows" I would say...hello moo moo cows. And my kids would wave and say "hi moo moo cows" Anyways....one time I told the boys as I was driving Branden to Kumon, he was real little like about 2008. And Noah was too little for Kumon at that time. But anyways...they were the age of today's TBT. So anyways, as my 2 were in the car and I was driving passed the dairy cows...the boys were already waving..."hi moo moo cows" Anyway I said in passing all nonchalant like..."do you know if you give a cow lots of chocolate bars, the next day all her milk will be chocolate milk!" ...Both Branden and Noah being really little and innocent... and believed me..and went..."really?" I said really and truly! For a full month every time we passed those cows, my boys would tell me..."please mommy... let's buy lots of chocolate and give it to those cows mommy" ...they really truly believed that. Until I tucked them each in bed one night and told them each...it was a "tall tale" and not really true. They still remember me telling them that! Even now. Cows that make chocolate milk. @_@ Hahaha.  

Ready to catch some crawdads Noah? You look ready! I'm ready too! I had my rain boots on too.If you live in rural Japan... it's a given... you will more than likely have rain boots. I have a really cute pale blue pair with red cherries all over them and red trim, that I bought at Target. And a nicer pair of black rain boots with white polka dots on them that I wear to Tokyo Disney if it rains or when we went and pulled sweet potatoes with the yochien (they were cheap/affordable just like 3000 yen, US$30 and I bought them in Japan years ago but they're really pretty... very chic looking... just basic black with white polka dots.) But yep, living in the countryside you'll usually own at least 1 pair of rainboots. Noah was wearing his dinosaur rain boots. Branden wore Osh Kosh rain boots.  

Ready for some country fun...you country kids!

These nets are available at the Daiso, 100 yen store. So a cheap activity to do with your kiddos. 

Our housing community way way in the background. My town sure has rice fields for days huh? Hahaha. I absolutely love living in the town that we picked. It's a slow paced way of living and I like that. There's no BS people like..."look how fancy we are" none of that crap here in the countryside. It's common to see many mom's picking up their kids at the plaza wearing aprons. It's common to see many white flatbed K trucks. picking up grandkids. There are at least 3 farmer K trucks I see on a daily basis picking up classmates of Noah's. People wearing rainboots about town. Won't even raise an eyebrow in my town. Kind people. Hard working folks. Fresh clean air. Fresh veggies, fresh super sweet fruit, farm fresh eggs and farm fresh milk for days. Seriously for days. 

Father and son on the look out for some crawdads! Meanwhile...

Mommy and Noah were also on the hunt for some crawdad's too! : ) Yep, I get down and dirty right into the water too! I'm no princess! I'm a country mama after all! Dirt under my fingernails, splashing and catching some crawdad... type of a mommy. Good mommy. Fun mommy! : ) 

Looks like the river was deeper than we thought and looks like Noah's pants got wet by the river. No worries, we have a washer and also we have a dryer at home. And yep, I tossed everyone's clothes right into the washer, after we walked home. And Noboru jumped in the shower with the boys and washed them both right up. I went last. Because if they go first... they could get 3 people clean in 1 go. : ) 

Awesome...both Branden and Noah looking at the crawdad's we were to bring home to spend the night. The kids watched and observed and learned many things by watching them. The next day we returned them right back to nature. 

Bye crawdads! Thanks for staying the night! They went safely back into the same water/canal/ river, to enjoy their summer, just a bit at the start of the same river not too far from where we picked them up.