Count the carrots . . . I mean, blessings

Here's a better picture of the altar from the jichinsai, though it was taken after the kannushi had already started removing things. I forgot to mention in the last post that he had given us an omamori to put in a high part of the house, and had given the izumemono (which is translated on the Shinto site as "an article of enshrinement") to the contractor to bury under the house. It was a little wooden box that we weren't allowed to open. The contractor said that there are usually a few representative items inside, like a small iron sword. I learned later that it varies, sometimes an iron figurine, spear, jewel or mirror.

And another before and after view, this time from the beach side, though the angle of "before" is much lower, and doesn't show the hills behind.

I ripped the picture below from the komuten website. They put updates up every once in a while from the site, and this shows the first step of preparing for the foundation. It was raining most of last week, so the real work started just last Monday.