- Gets hotter and stickier all the time. This week the theme was damp. Sticky, squelchy, slippery, slimy, squishy… You get the idea. Water somehow naturally appears on surfaces, just out of the air. Mould everywhere – anyway, as long as it’s not actually raining you can see why we prefer to have dinner outside.
- The Snake Incident!
- The uguisu was singing away all weekend.
- Minimum temp. 20°C, mavimum 26°C.
Farmlog 13th July 2009 18 July, 2009
Snakes! 17 July, 2009
Snakes making love?
There are quite a lot of snakes in Japan; mostly they keep to themselves, to our mutual relief, and only a couple are poisonous: the deadly Habu in Okinawa, and here in mainland Japan we’ve got the Mamushi, a kind of adder, which is only dangerous if you don’t go straight to a hospital after being bitten, and the Yamakakashi which was thought non-poisonous but turns out to have venom in its back teeth… The only time you might run into one is in the Spring, when they’re warming themselves in some sunny spot and still too drowsy from hibernation to get away.
A few weeks ago I lifted up the shutter of our garage in Nagoya to see a big snake was sitting on that ledge at the bottom, so had been raised right to eye level… I think (hope) it was a harmless Aodaisho. Then last week out in the country there were the two snakes in the photo coiled up in front of our back door. One larger one with dark patches, and a smaller smooth brown one. I’m presuming the larger one was a female. but they might just have been two different species. It looked as if they were having Snake Sex, with lots of writhing, biting and coiling – very passionate. When they noticed we were looking the female grabbed the male by the head, dragged him to a slightly more secluded spot and ate him. Just swallowed him whole, from the head. I was so surprised that by the time I thought of going back to get the camera again there was just an inch or so of tail sticking out of her mouth. She then raised her head, gave us a defiant look and slid off into the bushes to sleep for a few days I suppose.
Pretty kinky eh?
End of the road? 12 July, 2009
The “Jiminto” (LDP) ie the party that has ruled Japan pretty much since the war, barring a brief break with Hosokawa’s cabinet, may be looking with horror at the end of their monopoly on power. Under the pathetic Aso, whose grinning face was seen among the high and mighty at the G8 summit, their support in opinion polls just drags along at a low 20something%, and a general election must be called soon, as the current Diet’s mandate expires in September.
After losing the Shizuoka governor’s position to the opposition Minshuto (DPJ) last weekend, the LDP look set to lose their majority in the Tokyo council in the election tomorrow. The Tokyo governor Shintaro Ishihara, a raving right-wing nationalist, richly deserves a slap in the face with a wet fish anyway, so although his seat is not at stake at this time he should find it harder to throw his weight around from next week on. 24 hours will tell, and I’ve got my fingers crossed…
The LDP are starting to look desperate, and if they get the drubbing tomorrow that they seem in for then the voices to drop Aso and replace him with someone slightly more electorally appetising will rise even higher than they already are. Overtures to the popular former comedian Higashi Kokubaru, governor of Miyazaki, to be an LDP candidate in the upcoming general election got the resposnse “OK if i can stand for prime minister”… which didn’t go down too well in certain LDP circles, and the more sensible, young and also popular Hashimoto of Osaka is wisely keeping them at more of an arm’s length.
Should be an interesting month or two, anyway.
Farmlog 6th July 2009 8 July, 2009
- 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 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.
Season of the Itch 19 June, 2009
“There’s a mosquito in the room” says T, throwing me an accusing look. (If she gets bitten it’s generally my fault in some way.) It’s true that the humid Japanese Spring and Summer seems ideal for insects, and there are some biters and stingers among them. For example:
- mosquitoes The city ones come out at the end of May or so and they’re small, fast and hard to squash. The itch only lasts an hour or so, but they can certainly get to you, and our lush jungly garden in front of Raffles has a fair supply. Mosquito coils help, and there’s some stuff in a spray can which doesn’t do a bad job of keeping them away for a while.
- buyo These are a small black fly – looks almost like a tiny beetle – and are nasty. They hang about in the grass by a stream in the countryside on a muggy , overcast day and draw blood. Really. Much worse than mosquitoes in spite of their tiny size, and the bite stays with you for a week or so. Fortunately I’ve never seen one in Nagoya.
- dani or mites, live in the tatami mats and bite you when you’re asleep. Just have to fumigate the tatami sometimes, or lift it out of the room to dry in the hot Summer sun. (This is such a pain no-one does it these days.)
- nasty green caterpillars I don’t know the proper name for these, but you see them on trees sometimes. (One year they chewed all the leaves off our persimmon tree.) They’re a nasty yellow-green colour, have no legs and move about like slugs, and are covered with hairy spines. If you touch one the microscopic spine will stick in your skin, which will swell up for days and itch horribly. Imagine a poisonous cactus…
- centipedes: fortunately not so common – they live in rotting wood and the like – but the big ones can give you a very nasty bite indeed.
- There’s more – jellyfish, adders, poisonous lacquer plants, the deadly Okinawan “habu” …
but I’ve probably put you right off ever coming here. If you actually live here of course you know it’s not really that bad. Still the insecticide and itch ointment makers probably do OK at this time of year.
“Warm moist air from the South”
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.
Another one bites the dust 11 June, 2009
Last October the guy who owns this building just behind us decided to have it knocked down and replaced with an 8-storey one-room-mansion building. I like to sleep till about 10:00 but since then it’s been a bit hard. The demolition part was the worst – our whole place shook at times – but the ensuing construction has been noisy enough. Now they’re up to about the 5th floor I think.
Now, on Tuesday evening’s TV news we heard that the real estate company that was overseeing the whole thing had gone bankrupt. On Wednesday morning it was so quiet I couldn’t sleep.
All the real work was being done by sub-contractors, who don’t like to work for nothing of course, so they must have packed it in as soon as they heard the news…
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
asazuke 