I know I write about the same things every year, but this is Japan and things happen in
exactly the same way every year! Yesterday was the annual "weeding" of the school grounds. Despite the 7am start it was still too hot to cope with doing too much and yet another reminder that the school should plant grass rather than go through the pointless process of trying to pull out all the weeds that grow in the hard, dusty, horrible playing ground. Of course if everyone just got on with the weeding rather than sitting in the shade gossiping things would also go quicker, but I won't get into that here!
In chicken news - the old chickens and new chickens spend all day together in relative harmony - pretty much staying out of each other's way but not fighting (unlike my children....). You may remember that we have a
lovely chicken house that is predator safe and big enough for all the chickens to roost at night, but the new chickens are still a little weary of this (mainly because the big ones keep trying to peck them - similar to my children picking fights with each other....) and so they find all kinds of places in their run to roost for the night. I have left them out a few times, but then I can never sleep because I keep
envisaging them being mauled by wild boars or more likely ferrets. So we usually spend a few minutes getting them down each night and getting them into bed. They protest for a bit, but then seem happy enough to be all together. Sometimes I really think that chickens and children might be related!
I know I write about the same things every year, but this is Japan and things happen in exactly the same way every year! Yesterday was the annual "weeding" of the school grounds. Despite the 7am start it was still too hot to cope with doing too much and yet another reminder that the school should plant grass rather than go through the pointless process of trying to pull out all the weeds that grow in the hard, dusty, horrible playing ground. Of course if everyone just got on with the weeding rather than sitting in the shade gossiping things would also go quicker, but I won't get into that here!
In chicken news - the old chickens and new chickens spend all day together in relative harmony - pretty much staying out of each other's way but not fighting (unlike my children....). You may remember that we have a lovely chicken house that is predator safe and big enough for all the chickens to roost at night, but the new chickens are still a little weary of this (mainly because the big ones keep trying to peck them - similar to my children picking fights with each other....) and so they find all kinds of places in their run to roost for the night. I have left them out a few times, but then I can never sleep because I keep envisaging them being mauled by wild boars or more likely ferrets. So we usually spend a few minutes getting them down each night and getting them into bed. They protest for a bit, but then seem happy enough to be all together. Sometimes I really think that chickens and children might be related! 
I'm with ya Jo, you know I write the same stuff every year too. It just can't be helped, I think. ; )Next week in fact we will be at the sweet potato dig and I'll more then likely blog the sweet potato dig *again* ha ha ha. ; ) Oh dear.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the gossiping instead of weeding. I'm glad you brought that up. That sort of gets under my skin as well. A couple month's back when we did the one for Noah at the yochien. I went. And me and my 1 friend (the Jogo-san) and some granny elderly type (grandma of some yochien child) anyway us 3 worked our butts off! We picked weeds, a creepy bug even crawled up my leg. For which I shrieked. And we still kicked butt. We pulled 3 huge bags full of weeds. My nails are short anyway but were full of dirt and grit. I was sweating from all the work in the rainy season nonetheless. meanwhile 90% of the other ladies barely worked up a sweat at all. They had maybe 2% of their bags even full of weeds and basically spent the morning gossiping! I maybe shouldn't say this but it sorta pissed me off. But of course I'd never say anything that's just not the way here. So, we just worked hard. And we finished early. We 3 were now done since we worked so hard and fast. And then...get this. A gossiping didn't do any work mom. Came to us and said..."since you guys have NOTHING to do can you 3 sweep? Did I want to ring her neck? Yes. But again not the way it's done here. So we just smiled and swept. I went home and told my husband about it though. And then I took a shower.
You do have the lovliest chicken house, you really do. It's good the chickens spend the day together both the young and old. But like you said, it's a good idea to move them at night too. I'd be imagining all the same stuff myself.