- Hmm the weather forecast was off – it was supposed to rain on Sunday, but was nice and clear most of the day, and we could have dinner outside again. The crickets started up a little chorus around sundown, but nothing compared with what we should be getting in a couple of weeks when the cicadas join in. Saw a couple of fireflies, but it looks as if we missed the peak two weeks ago when we didn’t come up.
- More leeches! T. got bitten (if that’s the word) on her ankle; it didn’t stop bleeding for a couple of hours and was still itchy a three of days later. They seem to have increased in recent years, maybe due to the rising wild animal population and this is really the peak season for them.
- A few more hours of weedcutting, but there’s lots more to do. I’d like actually to be able to see the little stream that runs just past our house for example.
- A big moon, but not quite full
- Minimum temp 19°C, Maximum 26°C.
Farmlog 6th July 2009 8 July, 2009
Farmlog 29th June 2009 5 July, 2009
There was no farm report last week because I stayed in town – the band had a gig on Sunday afternoon. T. went up with a couple of friends and picked plums (ume actually) and tea.
- This time we got to the house, opened the front door and were greeted by a blast of mould smell. Yes the Rainy Season has set in and mould has exuberantly infested the tatami matting, wooden beams and just about any surface available. At this time of year you can’t leave a bottle of soy sauce in the kitchen without coming back the next week to find it covered in mould. Ugh. It can get bad enough to give me headaches; anyway house dust and, yes, mould, can trigger an allergy which brings on sneezing and endlessly running nose, though generally the humidity helps me, compared with the dry Autumn. This time of year the moisture rises up from the ground too – or is it the moist air hitting the cool ground surface – but anyway on a bad day the kitchen and entrance floors can be wet. No wonder we prefer to have dinner outside under the stars ( or clouds ) if it’s not raining.
- Came into the house that evening and saw a brown blob on my big toe. got a tissue to wipe it off and found it was a leech. Hmm, maybe you didn’t know Japan had leeches too. Add that to the list of nasties.
- Still, there are compensations – late June/early July is when the fireflies come out. The season is very short, just a week or so, and the conditions have to be right: a cloudy, warm, humid evening with little wind and no rain from about 8:00 to 9:00 pm. We saw just one or two, so maybe we were a week late, or, hopefully, a week early so we can look forward to more this weekend. We’ll see, but if you’re lucky enough to hit the right time and see a whole load of them, it’s absolutely magic. A couple of years ago a friend told us about a good place just up the road, and, sure enough, there was a rice field by a stream where hundreds of fireflies filled the sky with a molten milky way of stars, accompanied by an orchestra of frogs. One of those unforgettable moments…
- A spider has made its web in our outside urinal. The stream of urine hitting the web when I used it must have seemed like a caught insect at first, but that spider soon discovered this was something totally beyond its concept of reality. A paranormal experience, repeated two or three times that day.
- Out with the weed cutter, and try to get the upper hand on the jungle that’s trying to establish itself around the house but it’s almost a hopeless task. You’ve heard the story of the team of men whose job it is to paint the Forth Bridge? As soon as they get to the end it’s time to start again.
- Minimum temp. 16°C, maximum 25°C.
“Warm moist air from the South” 19 June, 2009
This is an example of the warm-moist/cold-dry air thing I mentioned in the last post, though it goes back to early May. We drove up to “the farm” in a typical Spring drizzle, the breeze warm and moist. Opened the door of the house and inside it was still Winter, with the cold dry air of the previous week intact. After a while it got so cold I had to put a sweater on.
An hour or two later, out to the toilet (it’s a meiji-era outside job) and I was sweating. Outside, the sweater was quite ridiculous. The contrast was amazing!
Farmlog 15th June 2009 17 June, 2009
- Swelter to shiver to scorch to swelter was how it went; the Rainy Season is officially under way, but the rain front is still a bit off to the south and the warm moist air that it brings up from southeast Asia has been alternating with cool dry stuff from Siberia. Sunday was typically close and muggy, but that evening the wind changed and it was cold. Monday started scorching hot but with a beautiful cool breeze, but by the evening we were back to the sticky heat that’s going to be the norm for a while.
- The habanero chilli seedlings got planted – except for two that were still too small. The habanero (the name means “from Havana” but they’re really from central America) is quite special. A freshly cut one has a wonderful aroma, like apricots or strawberries, but don’t be fooled: the habanero chili is one of the hottest in the world. They’re really hot.
- As the humidity goes up the weeds just take off. Every week the general greenery is a foot higher than it was last visit. lushness Out with the rotary cutter and try and at least have the house visible, but it’s pretty much a hopeless task. You’ve heard about the team of men who are aupposed to be continually painting the Forth Bridge? By the time they get to the end it’s time to start again. Last Saturday a Mongolian friend was in Raffles telling us that Mongolians hate to pull up a plant because you’ll end up with desert. Here in Japan it’s the jungle.
- Minimum temp. 13 °C, maximum 28 °C. That minimum was really a bit cold for chilli seedlings, who’d prefer 15 or 16, but they seemed OK.
Farmlog 8th June 2009 10 June, 2009
I’m going to drop a few things about the weekend at “the farm” when I get back on Tuesday or (in this case) Wednesday. As much for my own future reference as anything.
- Scorching hot weather, but a nice cool breeze – wonderful weather but the Rainy Season officially started the next day!
- The hot little chillis I use in Tom Yam Kung were planted. The big red “Malaysians” went in a couple of weeks ago and are looking quite healthy
chilli seedling
. Three metre high nets are supposed to keep the deer out.
3m net to stop the deer
We’ll see.
- T was busy picking tea. We’ve got a load of tea bushes that are more or less ignored, except for being pruned every now and then, but T’s just discovered it’s not that hard to make your own tea, and hers tastes quite good actually!
- We had “hobazushi” – rice and fish wrapped in “hoba” leaves. We’ve got a tree nearby and this is the season apparently.
- Lots of fruit on our “ume” trees. They’re related to the plum, but too sour to eat. You soak them in alcohol to make something like sloe gin, or add sugar to make ume syrup (good on a Summer afternoon) or make “umeboshi” pickles.
- Minimum 13deg C, maximum 26
- Full Moon
animals 13 September, 2008
Out in the wilds of Gifu it’s really the animals’ territory not ours; we’re a sort of Last Outpost of Civilization and as soon as we let up our guard for a moment the jungle tries to take over. The plants and the animals are both cooperating in this and it’s all we can do to try to keep even. Meanwhile, in a pitifully small way, we try not to destroy the environment more than our laziness demands and one example is that we keep most of the organic refuse from Raffles’ over the week, take it out to the country in a Compost Bucket and try to make compost instead of throwing it out for Nagoya City to dispose of. Making compost itself has turned out to be harder than you might think – it seems to be important not to let it get too wet – but before that can even start some of the local animals would rather go over it, pick out some of the choicer titbits for their lunch, and spread the rest in a smelly mess around our garage, where the bucket’s contents mature for a week before joining the main compost heap.
The garage shutter doesn’t come quite down to the ground and there’s about 10cm clearance at the bottom; room for a small animal to get in and mess with the compost bucket inside, which is exactly what’s been happening recently. The other week we discovered the probable culprits. While we were having breakfast outside T. suddenly went “EEEK!! A wild boar!!!”. Wild boars can be dangerous and I jumped up in a hurry but it had already gone. “Look under the house!” – so I had a look (Japanese houses are raised up a bit) and saw three little tanuki sneaking away. (not wild boar fortunately) Apparently they had put their heads out from under the house – must have looked cute, but T. didn’t appreciate it.
Anyway, they were probably the ones opening the rubbish (the bucket has a lid) and making a mess in our garage. I tried putting a biggish stone on top, but the next week they’d still managed between the three of them (or maybe with help from their mum if she was able to get under the shutter) to knock over the bucket. OK, this time a really big stone – even three tanuki together won’t be able to knock this down or get the stone off:
big stone on bucket.
Ah, but…
The following week:
lid off, stone still in place
How they did it beats me.
Anyway, I’ve now got a big barrel over the bucket with the stone on that, which seems to be doing the job so far.
Autumn already? 27 August, 2008
We drive out to our country place every weekend, pretty much. I’m feeling increasingly guilty about this for the CO2 we’re contributing and thinking we should have got a hybrid instead of the otherwise nice VW. However there’s no way to get there by public transport so the only option would be to sell up. Maybe some day we’ll live out there all the time…
Meanwhile it’s a much-needed antidote to city life. The air tastes good, about one car an hour passes by and every week you can see the seasons have moved on a little bit. The insect voices are different, the wild flowers are different, the angle and colour of the sun are different; what a difference a week makes! Two weeks ago there were hordes of small red dragonflies over a nearby rice paddy- a sign of Autumn even in the sweltering heat of mid-August. Last week the rice had turned golden – pretty much ready for harvest – and, as if someone had turned a switch, this delicious cool breeze began to blow, followed a couple of days later by rain, cloud and last Sunday evening out in the hills was quite chilly. Around 7:00 I heard a deer cry, which is something you usually get in October or November. (The mating call of the deer round here is quite eerie – more like the screech of a banshee than anything you would expect.)
Meanwhile, back in Nagoya a cricket is chirping softly outside, among the rubbish bins.
Bamboo shoots 16 May, 2008
We had a good rain last Saturday, and the next day out in our country place (where we escape from the city at weekends) lots of bamboo shoots were coming up. With a little bit of altitude we’re later than low-lying areas, but generally get some in early May. Unfortunately the wild boar (inoshishi) like them too, and usually chew up the tender tips, leaving us a few scraps. This year, though, I don’t know what they were up to, but they must have found somewhere else to eat because there were lots of beautiful shoots, just appearing from the ground.
You dig them up – most is below the ground, and they can be a bit big – and boil them with the skin still on till they’re tender. Like sweet corn, which loses its sweetness soon after it’s picked as the sugar gets turned to starch or something, bamboo shoots freshly picked and cooked right away are quite special. There’s a unique aroma and a certain bitterness or astringency (aku) which you just can’t get from the canned ones, or even the plastic packs in the supermarkets. T cooks them with soy sauce and fish flakes, topped with those special sansho leaves, which is very nice; we make an Indonesian style curry from it at Raffles – only at this time of year.
PS (3rd June) Last week the inoshishi discovered those bamboo shoots and tore into the later emerging ones, making a right mess. Luckily we got ours first, and some survived to grow up into new plants. Bamboo grows incredibly fast.
asazuke 