A long process

One of my dreams is to be as self sufficient as possible... within reason anyway! I make a lot of bread, cakes etc. and therefore one thing I would love to have is my own wheat to make my own flour. Today we finally moved one step closer to this dream... on a very small scale! At the end of November some of the junior high school students randomly planted some wheat for me and my children stood on it occasionally, I weeded it very occasionally and somehow it managed to grow big and strong. My mother helped me harvest it when she was here and it stayed drying in the tunnel house until today when we finally decided to do something with it. Unfortunately I only planted a small amount so it wasn't worth going to borrow my friend's machine to separate it all out and therefore the traditional style of beating it with a bottle and then trying to separate the husks from the actual wheat began. We did resort to throwing it through a separating machine at one stage, but basically it was all done by hand.

Many hours later and we finally had our first ever wheat. I think we have to dry it again one more time and then work out how to make it into actual flour.... or perhaps I'll just keep it all and use it for planting more for next year - when we will definitely be using a machine to harvest it!

Holiday homework

It is summer holidays here in Japan which means the battle is on every day to get my children to do their homework. My memories of New Zealand schooling is that when school was out for the summer holidays, school was really out and the pencil cases were put away till the start of the new term. Therefore I have a huge problem with the amount of homework my daughter has been given this year (she is 9 years old...) and feel like telling the teachers to stuff off and let the children play in the holidays, but at the same time she goes to a Japanese school and therefore has to do what is expected of her. Tonight she finally finished her big project. I can remember doing projects at primary school and actually enjoying them. I can also remember that we were given a basic theme and a basic overview of what was expected of us. Title page, contents page, introduction, habitat etc. etc. My favorite project was one about a toe-biter. The theme was rock pools (if I remember correctly).

My daughter came home with a big piece of white paper, no expectations from the teacher and was told to research something during the holidays, present it on the big piece of paper and hand it in on September 1st. I personally think it is a little difficult for children of this age to do this without a bit more direction, so I helped her to do some basic brainstorming and worked through how she might present it etc. She decided to do it on our solar electricity system and the sun etc. and in the end it was all her own work and she is very proud of actually getting it done with some time to spare. Now she only has about 15 pages of maths homework, 20 pages of kanji homework, 3 pages of diary and a whole book of experiments etc. to do before we leave for Hong Kong on the 26th.... it could be a painful few days!

Chicken Update

Gina's great frog comment yesterday reminded me that she had also asked about our chicks earlier. So I guess it is time for a chick update.








When we first decided to get chicks we presumed that our old chickens would stop laying soon and therefore when the new chicks started laying it would be a case of "out with the old and in with the new". We also presumed that our chicken breeding skills wouldn't be quite up to it and that we would lose a couple of chicks in the process so ordered a couple of extra chicks just in case.
Theory is a great thing, but in practice... the ten old chickens are still laying pretty well (not one egg per chicken everyday, but at least 6 or 7 a day) and none of the baby chicks succumbed to disease, fright or heat exhaustion. So we now have a total of 22 chickens. The baby chicks are now almost as big in size as the older ones (you can tell them apart in the pictures by looking at their combs - the older ones have the bright red combs and the smaller ones have the smaller, pink combs) and eat almost as much. They are only 3 months old so it will be another couple of months before they actually start laying, but we have now combined them all into one chicken range and they seem to be living together in harmony - well the small chickens take over the big chicken's house during the day, the big chickens spend all day outside and lay their eggs in the little chicken's house, they all eat and drink from the same feeders - just at different times. or from different sides, at night the big chicken's go into their house, the little chickens go into their house and the whole cycle starts all over again in the morning! Confused? Basically all is going well in chicken land - and we are grateful that it is summer when the amount of food they eat goes down a lot!

The joys of being a mother in Japan

Every year the parents at our school are given a 30 minute lesson in CPR and rostered on for pool duty once during the summer holidays. I don't mind it really - a chance to sit in the boiling sun continually counting bobbing heads to make sure that no one has been sucked under. A chance to gossip with the other mother also rostered on that day (and this year I could sit and chat with Megan too!) and of course the chance to scoop out the floaties in the pool before the children get in. This year this job was especially fun as there were zillions of baby frogs in the pool! Every where you looked there seemed to be another couple just hanging about learning how to swim. I did my best to scoop them out with the net, but those I missed were keenly scooped up by the children as they were swimming. Gotta love country kids!

Yet another farewell

This year we have been lucky enough to have a lot of family members come and visit us. The only problem with visitors is that it usually involves farewells. Today we had to say a very tearful farewell to two very special visitors - my sister and her boyfriend. They came to Oita a year ago and it has been wonderful to have them close by for so long. It is going to be strange for my children to go to English classes at school and not have their aunty teach them. It is going to be sad to have no one just pop in for a good gossip after they finish classes early. It is going to be hard having no one around to play cards with the kids or joke with them. It is going to less entertaining to have no one call unexpectedly and pass their phone over to a random Japanese person for me to explain something to.
As expected we took it for granted that one year would last forever, but it didn't and we didn't see them as much as we hoped to, didn't eat with them as much as we wanted to and didn't go away on holiday with them as much as we would have liked to. But, we did have some great times with them and it really was special being able to spend a whole year in Japan with family living in the same area. Here's hoping they come back to visit again soon!
It was also nice to be able to spend a few days with Nathan's parents. I hope they enjoy their hike up Mt. Fuji later in the week!
Thanks Megan and Nathan for some great times over the last year. You never intruded or took anything for granted and we loved every minute of our time with you. You are welcome back any time!

Basil pesto

I am a big believer in enjoying food when it is in season rather than all year round. There are a few exceptions though - one of which is basil. Our whole family really likes pesto - even my son, who generally hates all vegetables etc. So every year I plant some basil and then the kitchen turns into a disaster zone as I make enough pesto to last us the whole year. Today I was inspired to do so after I made some pesto filled bread rolls with the last of last year's pesto. I can't remember which book I originally found the recipe in, but the recipe I use is great for freezing - a much more solid one than the really oily ones you can buy in jars here (for crazy prices....). I freeze it in glad-wrap filled muffin tins then put it into bags where it will last for well over a year.
For anyone with an excess of basil - try this recipe:
100g basil leaves (wiped if necessary, but not washed)
25 g pinenuts (I use walnuts.. much cheaper!)
2 cloves of garlic
125ml olive oil
Put into a blender and blend till smooth. It helps to put the basil leaves in in a few batches so the blender doesn't choke too much.
Freeze or use as soon as possible.
When you want to use it defrost and add about the same volume of Parmesan cheese as the pesto and additional olive oil if you want a runnier pesto.
You can also add a tomato to the pesto in the blender for a milder flavour.
For anyone who wants grow basil for pesto I really recommend the variety "lettuce leaf". It has much bigger leaves than Genovese etc. and therefore takes less time to prepare in the kitchen.

Summer break

It was my son's 8th birthday on Saturday and this year he chose to go camping rather than have a party. It turned out to be a great choice! We went to a tiny town South of Oita called Kamae and went to a beach which had basically nothing but sand, surf and free camping sites. We only stayed for 2 nights, but the children spent basically the whole time in the ocean or on their bikes and my husband and I spent most of the time sitting around reading books or going for bike rides, with the odd cold beer thrown in for good measure. The hammock was definitely my favorite spot to laze in - I could read my book while still keeping an eye on the swimmers. I must say it was great! What was even better was that the first night we headed down to the beach with our pathetic packet of free fireworks from the petrol station and discovered that all the other people staying at the campsite were there with huge bags of much bigger and more impressive fireworks. We sat and watched and didn't have to worry about who was about to be burned or of course pay for them! The second night we were the only ones staying at the beach which was wonderful. The whole beach to ourselves, all the cold showers to ourselves (no complaints when it is so hot outside!), the ex-neighbours charcoal to make a fire for our marshmallows and only the sound of the waves to put us to sleep. All in all a great (much needed) break away! I was so excited about the summer holidays actually feeling like a holiday that I came home and booked tickets for Hong Kong at the end of the month - Birgit, Paul, Peter and Rosa - we are looking forward to seeing you soon!

Taking the plunge

I have spent the last few weeks procrastinating over whether to catch up on all the blog entries that I haven't had time to write, or start fresh with what is happening that day. Then of course by the time I have procrastinated about it I am too tired to write about anything at all....

To be honest I've found this year pretty tough. I have taken on quite a lot of extra teaching, which is great for the bank balance, but not so wonderful in terms of time out for me and also time with the children. We have had a lot of family visitors - which was again great, but very tiring and left little time to do the normal routine things. And then of course it is summer.... and we are living in Japan.... hot, humid and yuck!
From today though I have turned over a new leaf. I am determined to write about the daily happenings and gradually get older entries up as well. All this determination is fuelled by the fact that after 15 years in Japan I finally got around to going for my first ever annual health check up today. I'm not really sure why I have been avoiding them, but the timing was never right and I just hate hospitals in general. For anyone not living here (or who has been as lazy as me), Japan has a relatively thorough annual check up that you can get for free (or at least I can.... ) that covers all the basics - blood tests, blood pressure checks, urine tests, ultrasounds, mammograms, hearing and sight tests, heart monitors etc. etc. Our local hospital has a new center where you can do it all in the same place and they even give you lunch. The major problem is that I know half the nurses and therefore having to fling open my regulation hospital gown (they jokingly asked me if I wanted the medium or large....) every few seconds for them to examine different parts of me etc. is a little off putting - especially as they are usually making conversation about my husband at the same time (he used to work at the hospital). We were shuffled from department to department (where all the nurses were the same... just a different room...) in our lovely slippery slippers and all was relatively efficient. I left for 2 hours in the middle as the hospital lunch didn't look too wonderful and I'd opted out of drinking a cup full of barium (?) and swallowing a stomach camera. Back after lunch for some poking in parts I prefer not to be poked in and a meeting with the doctor to discuss the results (took about 1 minute). I survived the day and preliminary results show that despite having pretty low blood pressure and a low platelet count all bits are where they should be and even my BMI index didn't go off the charts enough for them to mention the need to lose a few kilograms. Just thought you might want to know - that not only have I not fallen off the edge of the world, I am still alive and relatively healthy!
PS - I would have to say that at times like this I am eternally grateful to my husband. Although I can hold my own in Japanese in general conversations, medical terms are usually way beyond me. He did a great job last night with the questionnaire.... only trying to throw in the towel about twice when the questions were about private places and what kind of state they were in!

Ode to Nan

Life has been what you could say a little busy lately. As usual I promise to update the goings on very soon, but in the meantime my daughter has started for me! As soon as we got home from taking my Mum to the train this morning she asked if she could write on her blog. The result is here. It is totally unedited and unprompted by me - there may be a bit of imagination needed with the spelling, but I'm sure you will get the message. We loved having you here Nan! I'll be back in the blogging world soon....

Fish and Chips

My mother arrived last night and we ate at a "family restaurant" on the way back from Fukuoka. Then tonight we had her first home-cooked meal at our house ..... fish and chips! My mother-in-law offered to give us some of the shark that they had filleted and I would have to say that it definitely tasted like good old Kiwi fish and chips - just what you want to feed your mother when she arrives in Japan from New Zealand! Perhaps I won't be saying no next time I am offered some - just trying to find someone who is willing to fillet it for us! I did go a little fancier than chips though with hedgehog potatoes and some fresh salad. Here's hoping the meals become a little more Japanese over the next 3 weeks.....

Best gift yet

I have been given some wonderful gifts in the past, but today's really takes the cake. One of the mothers from the kindergarten rang me all excited to say that her father had caught a shark and she had seen on TV that New Zealanders eat shark all the time in the form of fish and chips so she would bring it to me. I had visions of a tray of lovely white meat that I could put in a delicious beer batter and serve with some delicious oven baked chips. A taste of home - yippee! And then she opened her boot and ..... there were 3 large WHOLE hammerhead sharks (the pictures don't do them justice!) lying there. All for me. She was so excited - telling me that in Japan they usually just throw them away..... I can see why! Considering I have never even filleted a "normal" fish and considering my mother is arriving tomorrow and I haven't even gotten around to getting sheets onto her bed the thought of trying to fillet a whole, large hammerhead shark was too much for me so I have just spent the last hour trying to off-load them on the unsuspecting neighbours. The last one has been delivered and now all I need to do is get rid of the smell from the car. I guess the fish and chips will need to wait till we make it back to New Zealand next time!

Garden surprises

This year I am trying my best to keep the weeds under control mainly because last year I saw a few too many poisonous snakes in my garden under piles of weeds. Today I had a few spare hours so I attacked one area - making sure I jabbed the ground to check for any movement before pulling out the weeds. Fortunately no snakes jumped out, but I almost jumped out of my skin when this lovely BIG bullfrog that had been hibernating in the soil literally jumped out at me. I was glad there were no old ladies passing by at the time as I screamed a little too loudly considering it was just a frog! I really like the cute little green frogs that appear everywhere at this time of year, but am not so sure about these ones.....

Trip away

This weekend we had a date with Nathan and Megan to go camping. I had managed to convince the in-laws that they would be able to cope without us for the annual rice seed planting conveyor belt so we were all set... the only problem was that the weather forecast was for rain, rain and more rain. I was determined to go though so managed to find us a cabin to stay in on top of the biggest caves in Japan - Akiyoshido. We started the trip by walking underneath the ocean between Kyushu and Honshu islands - well actually Megan, Nathan and the kids did - I drove through a different tunnel and then met them on the other side! Next were the caves and then games, games and more games while we listened to the torrential rain all night. Thoughts of perhaps venturing to a castle town nearby, or even as far as Hiroshima were thrown out the window in the morning when the rain was still coming down and the thought of spending more time than absolutely necessary with the kids in the car meant we came home early and had a very lazy afternoon! Unfortunately my camera's batteries weren't charged so I don't have many photos... I'm sure if you check on Megan and Nathan's blog in the next few days they will have some good cave photos up. A good outing for a very rainy day!
The chickens seem to have grown a few more centimeters in the 2 days we were away and are now getting lots of their feathers, starting to perch and a few are even getting their combs. Of course they are also eating more, making more noise and making more poos! I can see yet another change of house will be necessary in the next few weeks.

Spring visitors

Spring has almost been and gone... unfortunately one of the joys of the countryside of Japan in this season is the appearance of these beautiful beasts. There are some years when we see virtually none, and then others when you come home and open the doors to let some fresh air inside and you discover a huge one like this on the INSIDE of the screen door.... yuck, yuck and more yuck! The children have been warned to check their shoes before putting them on each day and chances of me sleeping on the sofa in the very near future are very slim as this was discovered on the door by the sofa! For anyone unfamiliar with these beasts they are centipedes and their bite is not at all pleasant... as I found out one year when I pulled on my trousers that I had been drying outside and was unpleasantly surprised!

We may need to invest in some kind of repellent before various members of my family arrive at the start of next month....

Atari mae

There is a Japanese phrase that I have difficulty translating appropriately into English. It is "atari mae" and most dictionaries translate it loosely as "ordinary, reasonable or obvious". I think it is slightly different and the latest group of boys we had to stay had me thinking a lot about "atari mae". In general they were really nice, but some of their assumptions got me to thinking about what kind of family they have been brought up in. For example...

• they thought it was "atari mae" that I didn't eat. I am usually worried that there is not enough food so I generally wait till they have finished and then eat anything that is leftover. Most groups comment and ask if I want some, but this group never even noticed, let alone worried about it. I know that for a lot of Japanese families this is very normal - often the wife cooks at least twice a day to feed the children and then the husband whenever he gets home and often just "snacks" in between, but for us mealtimes are a family time.
  
• they thought it was "atari mae" that they could eat a meal fully prepared by me (usually they are meant to cook together, but I took pity on them one night) and not even think of saying thank you.
  
• they thought it was "atari mae" that if they chose to stay awake till 2am that they should be allowed to sleep till late and not have to work most of the day because they were too tired... unfortunately for them I am a little too strict to allow that!
• they thought it was "atari mae" that we would spend 3 days with them - thinking of things to do, feeding them, entertaining them (my husband even took the day off on Friday to help out) and that there was no real need to thank us. Yes, we are paid for them to come and stay, but it is still a lot of work.

I could go on a bit more, but I've been summoned to go and help put the first swarm of bees for the year into our new hive. Here's hoping they stay this year.
Having said all the above about the boys we did have some good times - more bamboo digging, fishing, planting sweet potatoes and of course wood cutting! Only one more group to go before my mother comes to visit..... here's hoping they have been taught the word "thank you" before they arrive.

New Classes

One of the reasons I haven't been updating my blog as much as I should be is that from April I started teaching 11 different English classes - some continuations from last year, but mostly completely new classes. I always seem to spend far too much time preparing and then doing something completely different during the classes....
The standard reaction from new children when I start teaching them is "why do you have blue eyes?". My standard response is "why do you have brown eyes?" - to which they look at me as if I am from Mars.
This year I have had two new reactions - the first was from a kindergarten child who stared at me with huge eyes and said "WOW - you have such a tiny face, and such a BIG body!". Honesty is great for the self esteem.... The second was from another kindergarten child who commented on my blue eyes and then proceeded to ask me if I could actually see out of blue eyes.... I guess internationalisation hasn't fully hit the countryside here!
On a completely different note, the chicks are all still growing at an amazing rate and my children are enjoying playing with them every day. We also just had a phone call asking if we want a goat.... can't wait to start a petting zoo!

New friend

Yet again I have fallen off the blogging wagon, and yet again I don't have time to catch up properly before I go to work this afternoon, but I do have some very valid excuses.... come back again soon and hopefully I will have gotten around to writing about them!
Just to give you a small taste though... today I went and picked up my new little friends. This is not a great photo as it was taken just as they were put into their new home, but we now have 12 tiny little chicks cheeping away in our living room (well that is where they are now, but I'm sure my husband will ask for them to be shifted after he gets home from work!). I'm not really a "cute" person, but these chicks are REALLY cute! They hatched this morning (not from our hens) and are slowly adapting to their new environment. I have absolutely no confidence in my ability to raise them till they are big enough to be put out in their outside hen house, but hopefully there will still be a few left when it is time to say goodbye to our older chickens. They seem to be eating okay - now I just need to get them drinking... and perhaps sleeping.