One Life Japan

Just a bit of a jump back in time to a few weeks ago…

These are some photos of our trip to the Naeba opening cermony, and a climb of Naeba with customers, and the camera crew that followed. The TV crew was just here again today, and we had to make sure to wear the same clothes we wore two weeks ago so as not to disturb the time space continueum. At the end of a day’s worth of interviews and watching us eat luch, however, we were asked to change into something different for the parting interview.

We were worried about our customers being able to make it up Naeba, but in the end the people we really had to worry about were the TV crew. They had two young ladies who had never hiked before, and the camera men had to carry all that gear to the summit - believe me, this is no easy matter.

Maybe I will have more time to write about it later.

As I was turning the compost pile today, I accidentally impaled an aoudaisho snake on my pitch fork. I thought about eating him myself, but they do have a bit of a scent, and Tomoe is especially sensitive to bad smells these days, so I decided to eat him later on in the form of eggs. (chicken eggs)

A little funeral ceremony, some firewood, a grill, a lot of chopping, and it was done. The chickens loved it. Tomoe did not, however, love the way the head and body kept moving for five minutes after being severed.

While this time I killed the snake by accident (actually impaled it by accident and then cut its head off to spare it the long death), I am on the lookout for this kind of snake, as they love chicken eggs. They also eat mice, which we would love to have them help with, but we can’t have them hanging around. If they eat some eggs it is no big deal, but last year we found one in our house and we fear for our cockatiels.

Lucy’s in the sky now - in chiken heaven. I had a minute before rushing off to search for the lost man in the mountains again, so decided to let the chickens out. I found the door open and only five playing in the yard. Tomoe had forgotten to close the dor the night before while I was out, and so I angrily called her to tell her that we now have only five, assuming that one of the Lucies was taken by a fox or raccoon.

As it turns out, the missing chicken was floating in the pond. She had fallen in at some time (no knowing when) and was unable to get out. Tomoe called our neighbor to do the honors of chopping Lucy up. She was delicious.

In the photo you can see all the would-be eggs of various sizes.

I repeat…

She was delicious.

The most important take-away you can get from today’s post is: don’t get lost in our village while searching for wild vegetables.

Just after the customers left from the most exhauting one-week trip we have ever had yesterday (I ran up a 2,000 mter mountain in 1.5 hours that usually takes 3+ hours to hike - but that is a story for another time.) (And the story about the TV crew that followed us everywhere is also for another time but even more exhausting).

So, anyway, I thought I would have a day of rest (means working in the rice field or cleaning up around the house), but just before I passed our from exhaustion that night, there was an announcement on the intercom that someone has been reported missing in the mountains. As a volunteer fireman I was on call to go and search. At first I was thinking to beg out (I did have *some* real work and appointments that day), but the whole point of volunteering is to be there when someones life is in danger.

To make a long and fascinating story short (you will have to come visit us to hear the whole story) I spent the day bushwhacking through mountains with 200+ volunteers and professionals.

The highlight of the day was when about 100 of us were lost in a river valley with an injured volunteer fireman who needed an ankle sprint. I was kicking myself for that instant in the morning when I was throwing on my uniform and grabbing my bag filled with camera, lunch, and water. I almost took a moment to search for my topo-map of the area, but, as I was late, figured that they *must* have maps of the area.

I COULD have been a hero if I had brought that map, because I would have been the only one there with one! There were two instances where it would have saved huge amounts of time, and one was as night was closing in and 100 of us were treading down a river wondering if we were going in the wrong direction. In the end it all worked out, and we were in the right direction, but I will have daydreams about if *I* had been the one that saved us from the forty minute discussion about where we “might” be.

We did not find the lost person, so the search continues tomorrow. My section is off duty for that day (although I would go if I didn’t have another appointment). If they don’t find him again, I get to go climb more mountains the day after.

I leave you with a photo from nearby Yudanaka, taken early in the morning nearby our tent, as I waited for our customers to awake at their nearby inn.

I had hoped to write an in-depth description of the the rice planting process, but for now you will just have to live with these photos of our neighbor planting her rice.

I started planting the rice today. It was just an hour this evening, and I only planted seven rows, but it feels great to have finally started. I’ve been working on a little write-up illustrating the process of rice planting as I know it, but for now enjoy these photos of the friends who stopped by last week to help spread the manure.

One of them was a fireman back home and so really wanted to get a photo of himself wearing my volunteer fire brigade uniform, standing next to the fire truck.

Finally, I’m a bit confused. I almost didn’t post this photo (below) because I didn’t like it that much, I thought it was “dirty” looking. I ended up posting it simply because it showed the snow at the top of Nonomi. I was surprised to get a few comments on Flickr, and even more surprised to see it on Dave Pollard’s How To Save the World when I checked my feeds this afternoon. The biggest surprise, however, came when I saw it on Tomoe’s blog! She is the toughest critic of my photos, but somehow thought this one was worthy of posting on her own blog…

Tomoe has been down with a “broken” back for the past few days. Yesterday was the worst so far and she could not even get up to go to the bathroom by herself. The neighbors stop by to bring food because, apparently, men don’t know how to cook in this village.

Since she was not able to enjoy the new chickens (other than savor the endless stream of eggs), I brought Lucy into the house to visit. I think Lucy enjoys being outside a bit more though.

We’re getting six eggs a day now, and it feels great to have something to give to neighbors that drop by to visit Tomoe on her death-bed, or when I have to borrow a tool from someone, or when the local tofu maker gives us a huge bag of soy pulp to feed the chickens. They will also come in handy when I go appologize to one of the neighbors today because the chickens escaped into her garden. Luckily no damage was done other than a broken nozawana stalk.

They’re getting much smarter (or rather braver). I think I will have to get around to building the real fence, rather than this makeshift net that has worked pretty well for the past few days. No telling when they learn to fly!

The chickens are young and we didn’t expect it so soon, so yesterday morning I was surprised to find our first egg out in the chicken coop! A few hours later there were three more.

The inaugural egg went right into my tummy, and the other three went to a neighbor who seemed as happy to get them as we are to finally have some kind of gift that few people in the village make themselves.

In addition to an emergency trip to a neighbor who gave me a big bucket full of shells to help replenish the calcium lost each time a chicken lays an egg, I also got the net up around the yard so the chickens are now free to roam, and much to our surprise (and probably theirs too), roam they did. They spent the entire day outdoors scratching and pecking away at the weeds and bugs and worms. Tomorrow’s task is to get some soil to cover up all the concrete in our yard, making a place to grow more weeds for them, as well as to utilize their big juicy poops.

Currently they spend the nights in our basement. The floor is covered with wood chips and sawdust form the local geta (wooden sandal) maker.

We can’t tell the chickens apart, so until we get some colored leg bands, they are all named Lucy.

The main reason I don’t blog much recently is that I only have small windows to write, and so much has happened in between writing that I can’t figure out what to focus on. I guess this time though, the obvious story to highlight is the re-thatching of a traditional roof that we were lucky enough to be involved with.

Even as I write that, though, I feel that it was just as great having guests from Tokyo help us to shovel sh*t on our rice field - a task that would have taken me a week if I did it alone!

So, in the interest of fairness, this is what has happened since I last wrote…

• We had twenty volunteers come to help fix the thatch roof on a local house/museum. Tomoe did most of the hard work - coordinating schedules and accommodations. I only really joined in for the fun part - working on the roof. There is a lot to write about in terms of the process and techniques, but I am fairly certain that I will not find time to write about it, because…
• We checked out the state of the mizubasho plants in the mountains (thanks to our neighbor for picking up a few hitchhikers, saving a long up-hill bike ride.)
• Tomoe hurt her back a few weeks ago, and she is out of commission in terms of working on the fields this spring. That means that I finally get to take charge! Yeah!
• Some of the volunteers stayed behind to help us work on our rice field. With their help we finished what would have been a seven day job in just a day.
• I broke out the scythe and finished weeding the aze (the edge of the rice field) in just four hours - a job that took many days for two of us without the scythe.
• Climbed to the top of Mt. Nonomi, where there is still a half-meter of snow.
• The chickens came! We now have six clucky little beasts that we can not keep our eyes off of. We still have to make the fence so that they can roam freely out of the basement where we keep them at night, but for now they seem happy.

Paul, if you are reading this, the customers that left us yesterday are both designers, and big fans of TAB and could not have made it around Tokyo without it! What’s more, the instant I met them I thought he was French just because he looked so much like you! (yes I am a prejudiced redneck who thinks that anyone with fashionable glasses is French!)

Anyway, I also have a few photos. I think it is obvious which ones are from the re-thatch project.

Its hard to believe that less than a month ago, when I was snapping these photos, there was not a bud to be seen on the trees. I had great ambitions to get out there and document their progress and the subtle changes in green. I wanted to photograph the young leaves of some of the trees this area is known for - tochi, buna, kiri - the namesakes of our (no longer very) baby birds.

Imagine how surprised and saddened I was this morning when I took a moment to look up from my work only to find that the tender birth of spring had passed me by. (Photo below)

sigh…

Above are a few photos taken in the beginning of April of a daikon tsugura - a large basket made of rice straw used for storing vegetables (usually daikon radish) through the winter. As you can see, this one housed some carrots, cabbage, and gobo (burdock) as well.

Below is a semi-aerial view of the village and our rice fields in the first week of April Click them for a larger view.