Living in harmony

 

Just  behind our house there is a rambling set of stairs that goes up to a tiny shrine (?).  It usually houses a few statues, a mask, some plastic flowers and the occasional offering of sake.  This year it is also home to our bees.  Apparently my husband decided that it was the perfect place to put our hives - out of the wind and rain and facing in the right direction.  

I think it is an improvement on having them in our garage (like last year), I'm just not sure that the Gods or the few people who make it up the hill to pray each year will agree..... so far the bees are loving their new home though so hopefully we will be able to leave an offering of honey and leave them there for many years to come!

New Toy

Every year I spend a lot of time harvesting vegetables from the garden and trying to use them all, but I am never very successful.  I have a pretty big garden and there is always a glut of something or other and anything I can't give away I tend to put into the fridge and then wait till it goes rotten before throwing it out.   There is a limit to how many times a week you can eat huge bowls of peas, beans etc.....  

This year I invested in a new toy to help me to freeze as much produce as I can and therefore be able to use it throughout the year rather than just for a few months.  It is a vacuum pack machine and so far I have managed to keep on top of the peas, beans and broad beans by freezing any that I can't use within one day. I'm hoping that I will actually use the produce throughout the year and not find it in the bottom of the freezer 3 years later.... something that my mother is very good at!  I'm also hoping Santa has heard my pleas for a bigger freezer that I might actually be able to organise so things don't just disappear into the abyss...

Still waiting....

I've tried growing a few different things up this arch, but they all seem to give up in the end.  My latest attempt to get some greenery and shade is kiwifruit vines.  After a few years they are growing really well and this year are covered in flowers.  Unfortunately on closer examination the flowers are all coming from the male plant and therefore there won't be any kiwifruit produced this year, but there is hope for the future.  I wonder how many years we have to wait until we get to sample some of our own homegrown kiwifruit... and if the vines will survive that long!

Wild strawberries

There are times when I think it is really sad that there are less and less people living in our area.  Other times I am grateful that there are not enough people to keep all the weeds under control.... today was one of those days when I went on my first wild strawberry hunt for the season.  I only had about an hour between taxi runs, but managed to pick almost 1.5kg from one overgrown area.  I'm thinking I need to ask Santa for a bigger freezer!

Taxi service

When I am having a really bad day I can be found screaming insane things like "I didn't go to university so I could become a taxi driver"....... but sometimes it really feels that way.  

Living in the countryside we are surrounded by nature, meaning other things are further away.  We chose to send our children to a school that is too far away to walk to and therefore I need to pick them up after school every day.  I agreed to let my son become involved in an athletics club that it is a long drive away in order for him to become an Olympic champion in the future (cough, cough).  My daughter continues to play the piano and her volleyball club at school requires transportation to all different parts of the prefecture for tournaments and practice games. We have a lot of visitors who I really enjoy taking to different parts of our prefecture.  My work is scattered around the place, none within walking distance.

I don't regret any of these decisions, but I do sometimes feel like we should invest in a petrol company.... yesterday this need was confirmed as my car ticked over to 100,000 kms.  I traded my old car in for a new one in February 2010 which means that I have driven an average of 64 kms every single day since I got it.  The last year or so has been much, much more so I'm guessing the 200,000 mark will arrive even sooner.... look forward to an update in about 2016!

Slug traps

There are a lot of strawberries grown in our area. 

Unfortunately they are grown in tunnel houses and sprayed with enormous quantities of chemicals to keep them in perfect condition for the consumer.  I know that most commercial growers here have a separate patch for their own consumption that they do not use excessive sprays on.......it must mean something when the growers are not even willing to eat their own product!

Anyway, I started off with a few strawberry plants which have multiplied each year and this year I am harvesting about 1kg a day of strawberries in this season.  Not too bad considering I use no sprays, very little fertilizer and some old net that was lying around to keep the birds out.   I was having a fantastic run this year with very little insect damage - mainly because we had a really, really dry spell.  Unfortunately that dry spell has turned into what it beginning to feel like the rainy season, so the slugs have started to come out and enjoy my wonderful strawberries.  

My solution for now is cornmeal.  I read somewhere that you could put jars with a bit of cornmeal in them on their side and the slugs will be attracted by the smell and go in for a feast, but then be unable to get out again due to the coarseness of the cornmeal.  I was a little skeptical, but I tried it yesterday and it seems to work - and the chickens love the feast they get of the mixture of cornmeal and delicious slugs! 
The raspberries are now starting to flower like crazy and although they don't get bothered by slugs the rain tends to rot them before I can pick them so I'm thinking my next job may be to create a roof for the raspberry patch..... the jobs never end!

Tunnel house update for May

You may remember that this year I have tried to utilize our tunnel house a little more and built up some vegetable beds, filled them with horse poo and leaf mulch and planted some vegetables.  The first round of lettuces, radishes and spinach was fantastic.  Now I am into round two.... here are a few pictures of the produce that is coming on.....

Asparagus

Beans with cucumbers

Beans - picking every day

Eggplant

Melon

Onion harvest (from outside garden) - drying for a few days

Passionfruit vines

Peas, gherkins, eggplant and lettuce

Tomatoes in pots

Tomatoes in beds

Stress relief

Life has been pretty busy lately, but one thing I have enjoyed doing is wandering around the garden and picking random bunches of wild and not-so-wild flowers.  In the past I have always hated cutting flowers from the garden because it left the garden bare, but this year I think I have planted enough to enjoy them both inside and out.  There is something nice about wandering into the house and having some flowers to greet you.
We have had weeks without any rain at all, but today it really poured down so as long as the strong winds haven't blown everything to bits then I'm hoping to need some huge vases soon!  I may even get around to taking some photos of the garden too....although I'm making no promises!

Starting small

Today my nephew sent me a photo of himself asking where the blog entries were..... oops.... yet again they seem to have stopped, but with a photo like that I couldn't resist!  We had a great time in New Zealand, although it was far too short.  Back in Japan things have been ultra busy, mainly because I am trying to juggle getting the garden under control before the hot summer arrives as well as starting to play around with a few new business ideas.  And of course there are the endless trips ferrying children to and from sporting events. 

There has been a new produce shop open close to us so I have started taking cookies and muffins to sell a couple of times a week and have mostly been selling them all.  There was also a big festival in our town over Golden Week so I tried out a few ideas and managed to sell all 45 jars of jam and close to 100 bags of cookies.  It was a good chance to get some feedback as well as work out just how much work is involved in producing cookies etc.  I am starting small and enjoying the challenge at the moment.  Next stage... add a few more outlets..... 

Off in the morning

The problem with having family members who have all been to Japan at least once is that they know what we have to offer here and therefore what to order when we occasionally go back to New Zealand.  At least Singapore Air has a very generous baggage allowance and I guess it gives us an excuse to go shopping to fill up the boxes again for the return journey!  

We are off for a very short visit leaving at the crack of dawn tomorrow.  Can't wait!  Hopefully the blog will resume after our safe return....

Bugger off!

I have spent the last few nights sneaking into the tunnel house in the middle of the night with a torch trying to catch sight of the little buggers who have decided that tunneling in my beautiful lettuce patch is a fun thing to do.  Unfortunately I can't actually locate them, but I'm guessing they are moles and not gigantic stag beetles hatching and tunneling their way out.  In fact, I'm pretty sure they are moles who are feasting on the stag beetle larvae...

We often have mole tunnels in the lawn, but stomping on them seems to deal with them okay and they never really cause any damage.  Unfortunately the same can not be said for the tunnel house beds.  It is hard to tell from the photos, but they are pulling everything up from the roots and mixing it all about.  It is definitely time to look into some mole control methods.  Those of you who only know moles from the Wind in the Willows and think they are very cute, think again!

Unusual sight

This is what is left of a house just up the road from us.  There has been no one living in it for a few years now and it has slowly been deteriorating and starting to fall down.  Over the last week there have been trucks coming and going, carting parts of it away as diggers pull it down.  

Considering the number of deserted houses around this area this is a very unusual sight, especially as I'm fairly certain there is no intention of the land being used or sold at any time in the future.  I think the cost of having them pulled down combined with the large amount of excess land in our area means that most people just leave old houses and wait for them to merge back in with nature.  It makes it a sad area to live in..... surrounded by deserted, falling down houses.  Hopefully others in the area will follow this family's lead and our area will become less like a ghost town in the future.  Even better, hopefully many people will see the potential of our beautiful area and come and build houses on all the deserted land - not too many though, I still like living in the countryside!

Small boy paradise

Considering we live in the countryside it has been very noisy around here lately.  For the past week or so there has been a constant beeping outside the kitchen window as concrete mixers come and go.  There is some work being done on an agricultural dam just up the road from us but as the roads are so narrow the big concrete mixers can't get to the construction site without falling into the river.  The car park behind our house has been transformed into a concrete loading zone where the big concrete mixers back up onto a ramp and transfer concrete into the smaller concrete mixers. 

Unfortunately, while they are waiting for the small mixers to come back, the big mixers continually beep... and I mean continually.  Fortunately the last of the concrete was poured yesterday and we are now back to our normal boring, but quiet view out the kitchen window!

The concept of exponents

At the moment my daughter is not particularly enjoying maths.  She is in the "why do I need to learn this, there is absolutely no need for it in the future" phase.  I can remember thinking something similar when we were studying exponents at school, but now I can see exactly how they work and that in fact they are very important in the real world.  It wasn't a textbook that taught me all about exponents, but my daffodils.  I think I probably started out with one small packet of daffodils about 10 years ago and have slowly divided them up around the garden and every year they grow exponentially until they now really brighten up the back garden at the start of spring.

I can remember thinking when I first bought the bulbs that they were slightly expensive, but hopefully would be worth the money.  Now I am convinced that they were a bargain!  It looks like they may need some more dividing next year.... I may need to start taking over a few more rice fields!

A couple more running videos for the family

On Sunday we spent most of the day in the sun at the last athletics competition for the year in Saiki City.  It is close to a 2 hour drive away and we had to be there by 8:15am so it was an early start.....again!

Despite having done athletics as a child, I would have to say I am still very much in the learning phase here.  At this meet I learned all about the effect of the wind on the races.  At Sunday's meet my son broke the meet record for the 5th grade boy's 100m... well he would have if the wind had been blowing 2m/second rather than the 2.2m/second that it was at the moment he ran.  He ran his personal best - 12.90 seconds.  But, because the wind was blowing that tiny bit too hard it isn't recognised as an actual record either.  Apparently it is almost impossible to break records at that particular track as they built it on the top of a hill where the wind whips in, giving everyone a tail wind push.  You would think they would think about that a little more before building it, but obviously not.  Anyway, despite not getting any official records he still came first and most importantly got another medal for his shrine.  At least the wind can't take that away from him!

Coming home to roost

It is a little hard to get a decent photo of this, but... every Monday evening on our way home from swimming my son and I encounter the crows coming home to roost.  There is a long stretch of straight road with huge power lines beside it which become completely full of hundreds, possibly thousands, of crows as the evening gets closer to night.  It is incredible to watch them all flying in in unison and settling on the wires, then all taking off as a silly twit stops their car and gets out to take a photo of them.  They then all fly back in in unison onto a slightly different part of the wires.  

I have no idea who makes the call as to which section of the power lines they will land on for the night, but somehow they manage to get all the birds coordinated and settled for the night.  All I can say is - I'm really glad it is not on the wires outside our house!  The cleanup could become a little repetitive every day!

Early Earthquake Warning System

Early Friday morning we were woken to the house shaking.  It was an earthquake that was centered pretty close to here and was about a magnitude 6.3 on the scale. It seemed to go on for ages - at least enough time for me to find my glasses and race upstairs to see if the kids were okay.  There was nothing broken and there have been zero aftershocks that we have felt, so here's hoping it was just a strange one off occurrence.  I ended up spending the night on the floor of my children's bedroom just in case there were any extra wobbles.  Usually I would just jump into bed with them, but as they are now bigger than me I tend to have all the blankets pulled from me and get pushed out as they try to turn over.

I have no idea if any other countries have the same system, but I am always impressed about the early earthquake warning system they have here in Japan.  I know it is not always accurate, but a minute or so before the ground starts shaking there are big warnings splashed all over the TV that there is an earthquake on its way so please take cover.  All the cellphones in the area also start bleeping out warnings and then send messages to say how big the earthquake was, where it was centered etc. almost immediately after it has occurred.  

The day after the earthquake I was taking a break at lunch time and watching TV when another one of these warnings flashed across the screen.  I diligently rushed under the table and sat there alone waiting for the big one to strike, images of the kids schools falling down, no one being able to get to anyone else etc.  After a couple of minutes of no movement I decided to come out from my safe spot and saw that the TV was showing that an earthquake of approximately 6.3 had just occurred very close to where we live.  I was a little confused as this time I hadn't felt a thing.  Of course it was then that I remembered that the TV program I was watching was one that I had taped and that it was on at the time of the original earthquake.... I guess at least there was no one there to laugh at me and it gave me a little practice of hiding under the table!

Umbrella Factory

I'm stealing Dad's photos yet again to update from October - thanks Dad for still wanting to get the camera out during your stays!

Many, many years ago I can remember being taken to a fantastic old umbrella factory in Nakatsu City.  My memories of it were that it was run by very old people who were working really hard to keep an amazing craft alive - paper umbrellas.  The process involved in completing one umbrella was so intricate and intense and of course the finished products were amazing works of art.  I can remember thinking at the time that it was sad that it was likely that eventually the crafting of these umbrellas would die out in this area as there were no young people learning the art.

From what I can tell the factory did eventually close, but I was really happy when I heard that it had relocated and was now open in another part of town.  We went to check it out and discovered that it hadn't actually relocated, but a completely different person was operating it.  It was a man who had decided to start learning the craft to give him something to do in his retirement.  He was very open about the fact that he didn't know the traditional method of making the umbrellas, but that he had developed his own style.  I got the feeling that he had tried to get some of the knowledge from the old factory owners, but they weren't very happy to share.... that could have just been the way I interpreted his Japanese though.  

Where the old factory used to make all the parts necessary, the new factory gets some parts sent from other parts of Japan.  While creating traditional designs he also has ones with popular Japanese beer pictures on them.  He may not be following the traditional methods, but he is keeping the art alive as best he can and seems to be getting better every year.  Here's hoping there will be more generations that can continue on this art for many, many years to come.

Goodbye Alien Status

Japan has recently changed a few of its immigration rules and requirements for permanent residents etc.  For the past 17 years I have been considered an "Alien" and have had an Alien Registration card to carry around to prove my Alien status.  However, I recently renewed my New Zealand passport and was informed that I had to get a new Residence Card before I could transfer my visa stamps etc. over to my new passport.  

For anyone who doesn't know, Japan has a history of being the most frustrating country when it comes to paperwork and trying to do anything official.  I had to make a special trip to the immigration department in Oita City to get my new card and I set aside the whole morning, took a book and resigned myself to the fact that even though I had taken the correct sized photo etc. it would be a long, frustrating process.  I arrived just after they opened at 9am and was out of there by about 9:20am... it was almost disappointing!  I didn't even need to have my passport stamps transferred over.  They didn't ask any questions, they didn't require any more than for me to write my name and very limited information on a piece of paper, they didn't require me to go outside to some tiny shop and buy some stamps to pay for the new card - in fact they didn't require any money.  It was almost disappointing.... all finished within less than 20 minutes and out of the office 40 minutes before any shops opened!  Perhaps things are slowly getting easier for those of us living here permanently.  Now if they would just recognize duel citizenship for our children after they turn 20, I might be even happier.....