asazuke

Life in Japan, food, music, whatever…

Farmlog 4th April 2010 7 April, 2010

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 2:43 pm
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  • This time the sakura were out in force. Every year it’s a surprise to see just how many cherry trees there are hiding around the country – both in gardens and growing wild in the mountains – waiting for their few days of glory. Everywhere you look it’s sakura, sakura, most of them in full bloom!
  • We stopped off in our usual supermarket and picked up a bottle of their house wine – a white made from the Chardonnay grape (imported juice I think) so might not be too bad, though you can get a fair Chilean white for the same price of ¥498. It turned out to be awful. Just not nice to drink at all. Even at this low price you can do much better with a something from Chile, Spain or Italy. I’m amazed they expect people to buy that stuff.
  • Spent an hour or so taking down the barbed wire round the chilli field. It wasn’t doing any good at all – just getting in my way, and tangling up in the net that turned out to be the only thing that would keep the deer out.
  • On the way back to Nagoya we took a different route, and saw even more sakura…
  • Coming into Nagoya at dusk, a lone bat flying around a crossroads. In the summer there’ll be lots of them – small creatures about the size of sparrows, picking up the insects drawn to the traffic lights.

Min temp -2°C. max 15°C

Cherry blossom in the Japanese countryside.

Riverbanks seem to be a popular place to plant cherries.

 

Farmlog 28th March 2010 6 April, 2010

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 12:06 pm
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  • The cherry blossom got off to an early start, but the last couple of weeks of chill slowed it right down and only now are trees starting to show themselves here and there.
  • A youngish couple we passed on our way out of Nagoya were obviously Walking. Not just enjoying a stroll, but striding along purposefully, elbows out, their whole bodies radiating “I am Walking”… Apparently you can take “walking” lessons in order to get the full health benefits or something. Later on we passed a whole crowd of mostly middle-aged people doing the same thing. It must have been a special Walking Day.
  • Spring means gardening and the shopping centre where we usually stop off on the way was piled with bags of potting compost, fertiliser, chicken manure, lime… Actually it’s time I sowed the chilli seeds to get some seedlings ready to plant in May or June.
  • The weather forecasts are quite often right these days! Sunday started warm, but as we were doing our shopping it clouded over, a cold wind got up and shortly after it started to rain – just as predicted.
  • We left buying “negi” (leeks) to the “¥100 stand” down the road, but there weren’t any… Luckily the lady who runs it had some in her field, so we went with her to dig a few up. The local deer had been in before us that morning and got a lot of the green part, but we still got a bundle of stalks, which turned out to be very good. I don’t think the deer had been such a problem there until recently (they’ve been plagueing us for years) so I think she’d better fix that high net that should have been keeping them out.
  • On Monday it snowed.

Min temp -2.5°C, max 16.5°C

 

Farmlog 15th March 2010 20 March, 2010

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 2:31 pm
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An absolutely beautiful Sunday – warm and sunny without a cloud in the sky, just a bit of that Spring haze creeping in. There’s a women’s marathon or something in town today, so we have to get off to an early start to miss the roadblocks. I really don’t see the appeal of running for 40-some kilometres, but there always seems to be one going on somewhere and the TV lap it up. It makes for cheap content I suppose.

The mountains are still covered with snow and on a day like this you get some great views on the way out. Out at the house the stream is softly chuckling under an “ume” with still only a few flowers, though others down the road are now in full bloom. A couple of lizards enjoying the sun in front of the house – just woken up I suppose. No birds to be heard though – are they taking the afternoon off?

Spring weather is changeable and Monday’s cloudy. The birds are back though: a flock of tits and an “uguisu” getting warmed up for its Summer warbling. Those migrants we saw in the Winter are gone I think. Now the digging’s done, it’s pruning – first the “tsuge” in front of the house into a vaguely Japanese shape, then the tea bushes somewhat rounder and less straggly. Tea if left to itself will grow huge and impossible to pick. We don’t pick more than a handful or two at the moment, but I still clip the bushes now and then just to keep them in some kind of usable condition. Just in case.

I don’t think there’ll be any more really hard frost, so no need to drain off the water system this time before leaving. It should be OK now till December, but in Winter if you leave the water in it’ll burst the pipes.

There’s rain coming this evening.

min temp -2°C max 14°C

 

Farmlog 8th March 2010

Filed under: countryside,food & drink — johnraff @ 2:19 pm
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Another cold, windy and cloudy weekend. Sunday evening we had “kasu jiru” – a warming stew, based on “saka gasu” which is what you have left over after fermenting rice and squeezing out the sake. I wonder if Marmite is something similar from yeast after making beer? Anyway the brewery whose sake we stock in Raffles, Takagi Shuzo, also sell sakagasu and it’s better than what you’d buy in the supermarket – comes in a firm but pliable lump and apart from using it in soups and stews you can make a sort of sweet dessert or flatten it out a bit, grill it and nibble it with sake (or beer, but maybe not wine?). I think it would go with cheese too but haven’t tried that yet. Kasu Jiru’s pretty good – apart from the sakagasu base, you put in chunks of salmon, carrot, leeks, “konnyaku”, soy sauce… a very nice winter dish.

A bit nearer Nagoya the “ume” (plum?) blossoms are out already, but up here our trees only have one or two so far. One year our ume were so late they came out together with the cherry blossom, which is usually several weeks later. Even so, Spring is on its way, sort of.

Finished digging up the chilli field, which I should have done last Autumn of course, so the frost could break up the soil and kill the pests. Now it’s time to put the indoor greenhouse together in Nagoya so I can plant the seeds. Chillis need 25°C or so to germinate, which they wouldn’t get till the end of April normally, so to give them a long enough growing season they need some artificial heat to get them started.

Min temp -0.5°C, max 16°C (!)

 

The birds again.

Filed under: countryside,news — johnraff @ 2:00 pm
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Those birds were on TV yesterday, flying around in huge flocks in Gujo Hachiman – a town in Gifu, a bit north of our country place. According to the announcer they were bramblings (アトリ in Japanese), which seemed about right, except that I thought they had a crest on their heads… Anyway they were flying around in these huge flocks – some 900,000 said the local expert – making an amazing whooshing noise. Our flock might not have been quite that big but there were certainly enough of them. Migrants from the Asian continent apparently, so we won’t be seeing any more for a while once they head back for the summer.

 

Farmlog 21st February 2010 1 March, 2010

Filed under: countryside,food & drink — johnraff @ 4:29 pm
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  • When Spring comes the air will get hazy, but although it’s warmed up nicely, it’s still clear and we had more beautiful views of snowy mountains on the way out from Nagoya.
  • In the Summer the farmers’ stalls will be full of fresh vegetables, all for ¥100 a bag. Maybe the cucumbers aren’t of the regulation shape the supermarket buyers demand, but everything’s been picked that morning. Right now, however, there’s not all that much on offer – some dried “shiitake” mushrooms, and some greens called “wasabina” because they’re a little bit hot, like wasabi, or Japanese Horseradish. They can be stir-fried, but are also good in a salad, especially with beef.
  • That evening there was a sudden sort of thump, as if someone had hit the house from below, just once. An earthquake? Usually a bump is followed by some kind of shaking, but not this time…
  • Digging can be a kind of meditation maybe.
  • Next week we stay in Nagoya because there’s a Daihachi Ryodan concert, so maybe next time we come it’ll be Spring…

Min temp-3°C, max 8.5°C

 

Farmlog 15th February 2010

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 4:10 pm
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  • A cloudy Sunday, but not too cold.
  • In the evening while I was relieving myself at our outside facilities a medium-sized dog passed by just between me and the house. By the time I was able to go and have a look there was no trace of it.
  • Monday was chilly wet and miserable again. We had some snow in the morning which turned to rain.
  • Those tiny birds were back again.
  • Digging – getting the field ready for this year’s chilli crop. Chillis can’t be grown on the same ground for five years or so – I have to dig up a new patch each year, which is good for the garden I suppose.

Min temp -5°C, max 7°C

 

Farmlog 7th February 2010

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 4:00 pm
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  • For once it’s clear and sunny, but freezing cold. This is supposed to be a mild winter but there’ve certainly been some cold bits too.
  • Driving out from Nagoya we had spectacular views of white mountains in the distance. Ena on the right, Norikura (I think) on the left and the holy Mount Ontake right ahead. There is a whole Ontake religion, with some dedicated temples and annual ceremonies when hundreds of white-garbed devotees climb to the summit. It’s also an active volcano, which erupted not that long ago.
  • Kids playing in an interior car park – running between the cars: incredibly dangerous but parents, if they were around, not saying a word.
  • A yowling cat turned up from somewhere and stayed under our floorboards for the evening. Lost its way in the snow?
  • While filling the bath our well ran dry. There’s an electric pump which sends the water to our taps, so it’s just like a normal water system, until it runs out, which happens sometimes if there hasn’t been much rain lately.
  • At 2:00AM, visiting our outside toilet just before I went to bed, there was a strange whooping sound, just once. I’ve never heard that sound before and have no idea what it was – some kind of owl?
  • Monday was cloudy, but a bit warmer. Still wet, mushy and basically miserable. The well refilled overnight fortunately.
  • The cat was still around in the morning.

Min temp -7°C, max 5°C

 

Farmlog 1st February 2010

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 3:39 pm
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Overcast, wet, chilly, soggy, windy… just like the UK where I came from – forget all that stuff about how delightful the Japanese Winter is! Even the birds have gone away somewhere.

Even so, some shoots are coming up through the melting snow…

Min. temp -7°C, max. 5°C

 

Farmlog 18th January 2010 29 January, 2010

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 2:20 am
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It’s still cold. The climate septics (sic) must be having a field day with this Global Freezing we’ve been having lately, and two weeks after our snowbound New Year there’s still snow on the ground (maybe it melted once in between) and we had to leave the car at the top of our drive because the slope is too steep with snow on it.

Monday was beautifully clear, but at ten in the morning yesterday’s slush was crispy at minus 2 °C. Those migratory birds were still flying around like a swarm of bees.

NB From this year I’ll be recording the maximum and minimum temperatures for the week up to the day of the post, not for the previous 24 hours as was the case last year.
Min temp -7°C, max 4°C