asazuke

Life in Japan, food, music, whatever…

Farmlog 15th March 2010 20 March, 2010

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 2:31 pm
Tags: , ,

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

 

Our Mayor

Filed under: city,news,politics — johnraff @ 2:27 pm
Tags: , , , ,

Takashi Kawamura‘s a bit of a character. He first crossed the radar when he was running as Diet member for a constituency round here – his trademarks were riding around on a bicycle and speaking with a broad Nagoya accent, the kind nobody except him actually uses these days. He got elected and bicycle canvassing caught on, but nobody else tries that Nagoya accent… It’s OK for a bit, but he does lay it on a bit thick. It’s all about the Common Touch no doubt, and he’s doing something right because now he’s the Mayor of Nagoya.

There are other reasons for that, though, a big one being his promise to cut Nagoya city tax by 10%. Of course 20% would have been even better, but you can see the appeal of that idea – for those on low incomes (like us) city tax can be quite heavy as it doesn’t have as many allowances as national income tax. Of course for those whose incomes are too low to be taxed at all the 10% reduction has no meaning. For them, more important might be the social services that would have to be cut to pay for that tax reduction.

Kawamura has laid on a distraction though – his plan to halve the number of city councillors from 75 to 38 or so, and halve their salaries too, as well as stopping their expense allowances! Here he has rather more support among the general Nagoya population than in the city council, where the overpaid leeches are fighting him tooth and nail, understandably. Even at half, they’d still get much more than I do so I’m with Kawamura on this one, and it has to be admitted he’s already halved his own salary. He’s going to try to dissolve the council if they don’t pass his motion, and I’m sure they won’t, but needs to collect a huge number of signatures in order to do a “recall”. He’ll probably succeed, but it will take some time, during which the councillors can continue drawing their inflated salaries and collecting their expenses…

So is he a genuine man of the people or a right-wing demagogue in disguise? We’ll see eventually…

 

Farmlog 8th March 2010

Filed under: countryside,food & drink — johnraff @ 2:19 pm
Tags: , , , ,

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
Tags: , , ,

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.

 

Crows nests 18 March, 2010

Filed under: city,Uncategorized — johnraff @ 2:18 am
Tags: , , , , ,

It’s nesting time for crows again, and the power-cut warnings have gone out. This time of year they’re caused by urban crows building their nests on top of electricity poles, using metal coat-hangers to supplement the meagre supply of twigs they’d otherwise use. You know, those hangers that come back from the dry-cleaners and people use to dry shirts on the balcony. Turn your back for a moment and the crows are off with them, and they make short-circuits on the power lines. The electricity company are kept busy clearing them out, and meanwhile we’re warned not to leave unused coat-hangers lying about.

The city crow population has been going up and up, so in Tokyo they’re becoming a major problem, but they’re fascinating birds actually – one of the few species to have free time after making a living just to play. Putting golf balls on railway lines just to see what happens, dropping things on people they don’t like… last year I saw a crow funeral for one who had maybe been electrocuted – lying on the ground under a pole anyway. I wish I could speak their language.

 

Toyota Shock, part two

Filed under: news — johnraff @ 2:12 am
Tags: , , ,

We don’t need this. Just as with GM, what’s good for Toyota is good for Japan, and, more specifically, good for Nagoya. The economy of Aichi prefecture and Nagoya revolves around Toyota – the network of suppliers and sub-suppliers, and all the people selling things to their workers all feel the pinch when Toyota take a hit, and the effect percolates through to the rest of us. Just as the Lehmann shock seemed to be wearing off, and the big T seemed to have got in ahead of the competition with the eco-car Prius, we get this quality-control, rip-off-the-customers thing, and all the bonuses due out this Spring have been cut.

I don’t want to say anybody’s just Japan-bashing, because there does seem to be some truth in some of the issues: the accelerator-floormat thing, and the half-second delay before the brakes kicked in under some circumstances that some people noticed here, for example, but clear evidence of fatally serious defects in the system is not plentiful. To some extent it’s been whipped up by the media, and I’m sure lots of people whose livelihood does not depend on Toyota’s prosperity were not particularly bothered to see them brought down a peg or two. Their response wasn’t that skillful either, PR-wise. Toyota are pretty good at customer service generally, at least here, so that came as a surprise.

Anyway, something we could have done without.

 

Farmlog 21st February 2010 1 March, 2010

Filed under: countryside,food & drink — johnraff @ 4:29 pm
Tags: , , , , , ,
  • 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
Tags: , , ,
  • 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
Tags: , , , , ,
  • 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
Tags: , , , ,

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