- A small praying mantis in the kitchen as we’re getting ready to leave Nagoya. This “exotic” insect is quite common out in the country, but you don’t often see them in town.
- Stopped off at the bank ( a different one from the bad karma bank ) and there were little piles of salt on each side of the entry to the ATM. Salt is a purifier, like the sake at festivals, and you sometimes see it outside a bar or restaurant intended to ward off bad spirits – either to improve business or because of some incident they want to expunge. I wonder what happened at this bank?
- Lots of brown kids at the supermarket. It’s been a long hot Summer and Japanese have lots of melanin so they tan easily. T can get a tan in an afternoon that would take me a whole Summer! Being white is more cool these days but I’m old-fashioned and still a sucker for brown skin…
- On Sunday evening or so The Front passed through and we switched from the humid Summer air to cool dry Autumn in a few hours, with some rain in between.
- Now being very careful about what might be in clothes that are lying on the floor!
- Working on the chillies and heard a lot of excited bird chatter. Eventually in a nearby cedar I saw a couple of tits, a small mejiro and what looked like a finch, maybe others, flying around……a snake. Some kind of small snake had climbed up the tree, looking for eggs or chicks I suppose, and the birds were co-operating in trying to scare it away.
- Listened to the Sumo on the radio in the car driving back to Nagoya. Sumo’s been under a cloud lately with a whole succession of scandals: dope-smoking Russians, bad-behaving yokozuna Asashoryu, sadistic death of a young apprentice and yakuza connections… NHK punished them by not broadcasting live from the last tournament, which was in Nagoya as it happened.
- Min temp 19°C max 30°C
Farmlog 12th September 2010 16 September, 2010
Farmlog 5th September 2010 10 September, 2010
- The Heat Goes On. This is a long, hot, sticky, sweaty, sweltering Summer and the weather forecast people say we’re good for another week of it at least.
- The chilli plants enjoy heat though, and seem to be doing well although there’s been no rain for two weeks. The field they’re in this year is close to the stream that runs in front of our house, and you only have to dig down a metre or so to hit groundwater, so their roots seem to be finding water OK. Lots of hot sun makes the chillies hot too – the habaneros might be dangerous this year…
- You sometimes hear strange voices out here at night. About a month ago, T was already asleep and I was just paying a last visit to our outside toilet when I heard a single squawk/squeal/scream from the other side of the road. Just one, like a banshee trying her voice out, but loud enough to echo round our small valley. I didn’t like it much, but there was no more, so I went to bed. The deer’s scream in the mating season in Autumn can be eerie too, but usually lasts a bit longer. Then this Sunday earlier in the evening, again alone because T was in the bath, there was a strange hissy growling sort of sound, again from the other side of the road. Went out to the road and realized it was echoing from the slope and the real sound seemed to be behind the house. Sort of like a very large angry cat, or anextremely large snake or something. Again, loud enough to echo from the hills… Went in to grab a torch and see if I could find anything but by then it had stopped. The next day there were no suspicious droppings or clawmarks so I’ve no idea what it was.
- Min temp 20°C max 35°C
- A quick bath before heading back to Nagoya, and came out to dry off when there was a stabbing pain in my foot. Looked down to see a big centipede scuttling off to hide in my clothes. The pain gets worse and worse, and insect bit ointment has no effect at all. Meanwhile I need to get dressed, but my shorts still seem to have that centipede in, and there’s no easy way for it out of that little dressing room, so picked them up with a big pair of tongs and took them outside. Hung on a clothesline, beaten with the tongs (shorts that is) and then, get this, T puts her hand in the pockets to check there’s no centipede in there… No, she didn’t get bitten (she wouldn’t have liked it at all) and reported the shorts centipede-free. I was still in something approaching agony and had no intention of checking what a second bite might be like, so had a careful look myself. While I was doing that the thing fell out onto the road, so it was in there somewhere! I shudder to imagine if T had found it, and I’d just rather not imagine putting those shorts on with the centipede still inside… We called in at a local doctor’s on our way back to Nagoya and got an injection and some painkillers. All the way back to town my foot hurt, but after a few beers that evening the pain had subsided enough that I could sleep. The next day it was fine. 🙂 Just try not to get bitten by a centipede, especially the big ones with black bodies and red legs.
The Wrecker 4 September, 2010
Ichirō Ozawa got that nickname “こわしや” a long time ago, and I still remember him saying there was no way he could work with the Japanese Socialist Party, whom he was supposed to be in a coalition with, back in 1993, when a guy called Hosokawa (now a potter) led a historic non-LDP government for about half a year. The Socialists were shortly after visited by a beezebub from the LDP who whispered in leader Murayama’s ear asking how he’d like to be Prime Minister. The subsequent LDP-Socialist coalition got back power from the first successful attempt to break the LDP’s monopoly on power since the war, and the now completely discredited Socialist party dwindled away to their current irrelevance. Since leaving the LDP years ago Ozawa has been involved in the formation, and breakup, of numerous parties – hence his nickname.
He’s actually a rather conservative polititian with a somewhat nationalistic attitude to foreign policy – this is what caused the fallout with the Socialists. Even today he’s well to the right in the generally progressive Democratic Party of Japan, and a lot of people resent the power he weilds. Add to this that he’s under a cloud over some suspicious land dealings that he claims to be innocent in. Few people believe him and he is not popular at all in the country in general, compared with Prime Minister Kan who seems to have more popular support, if anything, than his DPJ party.
So what’s Ozawa up to, standing against Kan in the upcoming DPJ leadership election? If he won, the DPJ would almost certainly fall further in the opinion polls and quite possibly lose to the LDP in the next election. Unfortunately he still has a lot of support in the party behind the scenes, among the more conservative members. While poor at speaking in public he’s a brilliant “old school” politician who thrives in meetings and grass-roots work, and a lot of new DPJ Diet members, the “Ozawa children” owe their seats to him and will probably vote for him.
Moreover, rumour has it he wouldn’t care too much if his election as leader led to the breakup of the DPJ, because he’d be able to go on to form a coalition with fed-up LDP members with political views more to his taste.
The Wrecker strikes again.
Farmlog 29th August 2010 31 August, 2010
- This heat is getting to people. Tempers are getting short. We stopped off at the bank again on the way out because it’s a handy location and saves making a special trip. While I was inside there was an angry car horn – I looked out to see a car pulling out of the sideroad that ours was partially blocking. This guy had smashed our door mirror and snatched the ignition key. Found the key on the pavement but T was a bit upset as you can imagine. No, she shouldn’t have parked like that, and if the radio had been turned down a bit she’d have heard the horn, but still… It was a middle-aged guy apparently, not the young idiot you’d imagine. Maybe that bank just has bad karma, for our mirror anyway.
- It’s starting to look like Autumn. The angle of the sun is getting longer, and the insect chorus is getting more and more colourful. Different crickets and grasshoppers join in as the day moves from afternoon to evening. There’s a bit of a breeze sometimes, and at night it was almost cool. That doesn’t stop the daytime from being swelteringly hot though.
- Drove back on Monday on a beautiful late Summer afternoon, with hordes of little red dragonflies flying over the ricefields where the harvest is just starting to be taken in.
- min temp 19°C max 32°C
Fast Booze 29 August, 2010
In contrast with the binge-drinking youth of Britain I’ve been reading about, young Japanese have been leaving beer and cars behind lately, much to the dispair of Kirin and Toyota among others. I don’t know what they’re spending their money on – the fact is they haven’t really got any money these days, with only crummy dead-end type jobs on offer when they graduate… When Japanese youngsters do go out for a drink these days it’s often sweet alco-pop things they drink, not the bitter ice-cold golden nectar that goes so well with the Summer heat here, and they’ll be drinking it in the cheapest places they can find.
Just lately there’s been an outbreak of chain establishments where everything is ¥280. Food, drinks, everything. Maybe with the yen at the ridiculous current rate of 85 or so to the US dollar that doesn’t sound too cheap to you but usually a beer is around ¥500 ( ¥550 at Raffles’ ) so ¥280 for a jug of draught beer (not happoshu ) is pretty good for a start. The food’s not disgusting either – food processing technology has been got down to a fine art – though nothing to write home about and not huge portions. With profit margins cut right down, they have to sell a lot of stuff to make the business viable so need to keep people coming in at a fast rate. The branch near us is usually pretty full, and pretty noisy.
More recently a rival has started up where everything is ¥250 – they cut their costs even further by having customers come to the counter to collect everything. The overall effect is pretty much like McDonalds, but if that’s your idea of an evening out…
Fast Booze – you saw it here first OK?
Farmlog 20th June ~ 23rd August 2010 27 August, 2010
Whew – a monster update to try and get back in line with the real date, so I can post other stuff without feeling guilty about not doing the farm stuff. Just for the record anyway:
20th June
- HUMIDITY is the theme now. Dark clouds hang overhead and water just seems to exude from the air in big drops every so often. In fact when it’s like this a bit of rain can be quite a relief.
- It’s the Longest Day and even in Japan, with no Summer Time, the evening is light till after 7:00. I wonder when they’ll get it about the electricity savings, to name just one thing…
- There’s a Toyota subcontractor’s factory we drive past, and usually even though it’s Sunday a bunch of guys are gathered round the forklifts having some kind of Important Meeting. Meaningless ritual, unpaid overtime, or an important social bonding?
- No police at their favourite speed trap when the weather’s as bad as this.
- Planted out the last of the chilli seedlings – some habaneros. Too late really, but we’ll see how they get on in the Summer. Habaneros like heat…
- Weeds just grow and grow, and managed to get in a bit of cutting, sweat filling my eyes, before heading back to Nagoya to meet a friend at a favourite izakaya.
- Min temp 15°C max 29°C
27th June
- This is the kind of day that gives the Rainy Season a bad name. Even just after taking a shower your eyelids are stuck together with sweat. A bit of rain would be nice…
- Stopped off in Kimble on the way out. A fascinating place with second-hand goods, factory surplus stock and the like where you can pick up a china candlestick or Christmas tree decorations for 10 yen… Sometimes they have imported Korean beer-surrogate at 70yen a can which isn’t too bad.
- The house out in Gifu was still quite cool inside as the hot sticky air hadn’t yet got in. Opening a cupboard door was like opening the fridge!
- Monday was even hotter, with some big drops of rain for 10 min or so.
- The first dragonflies showed up – several different kinds. Maybe we’ll see some fireflies next week?
- Min temp 12°C max 28°C
4th July
- Funny weather. Half-cloudy, slightly less humid at first, slightly cool breeze, scorching hot sun later…
- Swollen rivers from the recent rain.
- The lady at the ￥100 stand heard monkeys nearby, and said the fruit harvest wasn’t looking good this year.
- Stars and a few fireflies.
- Unexpected blue skies on Monday.
- Mostly weed-cutting. Who was it that said about sculpture the secret was to remove the undesirable part, and leave the desirable part? That’s my weeding policy. If you just cut down everything it’ll all just grow back, so I try to leave some plants that I think are preferable in the hope that they’ll prosper and suppress the baddies. Well it sort of works to some limited extent. There are so many kinds of grass growing out here, including “susuki” the pampas grass that people grow in parks and gardens in Europe. Here it’s a virulent weed – a member of the bamboo family so it’s really tough.
- Min temp 18°C max 31°C
12th July
- Drizzley start to the day, torrential rain later.
- Tiny field mice are trying to take over the house.
- No fireflies… 😦
- Min temp 18°C max 29°C
18th July
The Rainy Season is officially over!
- Beautiful cotton-wool summer clouds.
- When we opened the door there was a pool of water in the entrance. Not a roof leak, but condensation! The floor surface is kept cold by groundwater a couple of metres below.
- A nice cool Sunday evening – Monday was hot though with an occasional cool breeze.
- We drove back to Nagoya in the golden light of a late summer afternoon. There were anglers in the river – after ayu maybe.
- min temp 18°C max 30°C
25th July
- ATSU~I! must be the first word foreign summer visitors to Japan learn. It means hot. Sometimes being outside in the sun feels just like standing a few centimetres away from one of those heat lamps.
- The mint growing outside always seems to get a kind of disease in the summer – the leaves turn black and wither away. It recovers in the autumn fortunately, and meanwhile we can use the stuff growing on the veranda in Nagoya, which is OK for some reason.
- A cool evening – almost cold in fact! Nearly full moon.
- A clear Monday morning: the kind of day which gets hot later, and this one did.
- The 15th July is a special day on the old calendar (doyou no ushi) when you’re supposed to eat eel to maintain your strength to cope with the heat. Maybe it would work… grilled eel tastes good anyway, a bit rich perhaps.
- min temp 20°C max 33°C
1st August
- Hot and humid again. 😐
- This hot weather has been hitting the vegetables, especially leafy things like lettuce and cabbage which have been going up in the supermarkets. At the 100 yen stand too there aren’t the huge piles of cucumbers and eggplants we usually find at this time of year. What there is, though, is good. Tomatoes, chillies, eggplants, cucumber and the mysterious myoga have been soaking up all this sun and have a wonderful Summer fragrance!
- An amazing bumper crop of mini tomatoes. They’re really easy to grow – just put a couple of plants in the ground and they’ll spread out all over the place. The skin can be a little tough, but they taste good – the crows and various small rodents enjoy them too, but so far don’t seem to have found these, maybe because they’re almost hidden among the weeds.
- Some beautiful big black butterflies visiting the nozenkazura flowers.
- I’ve learnt the purpose of eyebrows. They’re to keep the sweat from dripping down into your eyes. Not quite up to the sort of sweat generated by this heat though…
- min temp 20°C max 32°C
8th August
This was just a quick drop in with our friends visiting from the Netherlands, before going on to Shirakawa village.
The plants seem to be doing OK, but I forgot to check the temperature. Sorry.
15th August
- Drove out in the continuing intolerable sticky heat past an undertakers advertising discounts for advance bookings…
- There’s something wrong with the Pacific high pressure area this year. Usually it sits right on top of the country and brings a month or so of hot, but clear and somewhat less humid weather. This year it’s more off to the east, and moist, no wet air is coming round the edge from the south. Something to do with a La Niña effect in Peru apparently, but the humidity is extreme – the floors are wet with condensation, we get attacked by leeches each week…
- This week some small animal found the mini tomatoes and ate the red ones. Just made a hole in the side and ate the contents, so it was quite a small animal.
- A bumper crop of myoga this year – maybe it likes the rain.
- min temp 22°C max 30°C
22nd August
- Yes, more heat and humidity, even at this altitude of some 430m.
- Sato imo (taro) plants growing everywhere on the way here, looking well in spite of the heat. I wonder why they’re so expensive in the shops?
- Maybe we can live on myoga instead?
A mysterious hole just in front of the house, started a couple of centimetres across but seems to have got bigger this year. I wonder what lives there?- First red chillies of the season!
- min temp 20°C max 33°C
The first red chillies of the season.
It’s started 7 August, 2010
Along with the cicadas, baseball from a radio somewhere is one of the sounds of Summer here; it started today and there’s nothing else on the TV or radio all afternoon, for the next couple of weeks. I really don’t remember anyone paying the slightest attention to a rugby or cricket match between a couple of schools back in the UK (maybe you could compare the University Boat Race?) but here it’s a big event with elimination rounds all round the country and everyone avidly follows the later matches and gets quite emotional. The losing team (and sometimes the winners too) usually burst into tears at the end. T loves it.
Longevity
Japan has one of the longest life expectancies in the world, ranked up with those yoghurt-eating Bulgarians and clean-living Scandinavians (socialism is good for your health). It can’t be the laid-back lifestyle, except maybe in Okinawa which does indeed come at the top in Japan, so a lot of people put it down to the healthy Japanese diet, which is low in animal fat, high in fish, fibre, grains, vegetables… all that stuff that’s supposed to be good for you. The main thing wrong with traditional Japanese food is that it’s a bit salty, causing a lot of stomach cancer, especially in the north where a lot of pickles get them through the cold winter. Or, rather, got them through. Now there’s a Macdonalds on every street corner (ugh! I’ll tell you how much I hate that stuff some other time), young Japanese are raised on all kinds of prepackaged junk and no-one expects the next generation to live to 100 like the current lot.
Even so, you don’t yet see the kind of obesity problem here that’s hit the US and northern Europe in the last 20 years or so, and there are now some 40,000 centenarians here. Of course, carrying on an active lifestyle into old age has its limits and a lot of these old folk tend to live quietly, not going out so much… One such in Tokyo last week reached 110 I think it was, and some people from the local ward office went round to offer their congratulations, and a small present. Apart from his old age pension, this old guy had also got a little something on turning 100 but at that time his family said he didn’t want to talk to anyone, so the officials had just left it with them. This time however they were let in to Granddad’s room and there he was, but obviously not in a talkative mood.
He’d been dead for thirty years.
Bulbuls 22 July, 2010
Yesterday was a big day in our Nagoya garden, excited bulbuls flying around chirping, or screeching, at some bemused chicks. Yes, it was Nest Leaving Day. I think they’re bulbuls of some kind – a kind of scraggly-looking bird that reminds me of the starlings that used to hang around our garden in England, with a long tail and sort of curved beak, and a somewhat untuneful call. T says they’re called “hiyodori” which translates as “Brown-eared Bulbul”.
The garden in front of Raffles isn’t that big, but there’s a tree just in front of our second-floor living room window that’s grown almost as high as the house. A couple of years ago the same – well, maybe not the exact same birds, but the same kind of birds – did it the honour of building a nest just outside our window where we had a view of the construction process. They made good use of locally-available materials: twigs, leaves, discarded plastic twine, shopping bags… laid some eggs but maybe they finally decided the position was just too overlooked or something and abandoned the nest. Later that Autumn it fell out of the tree with three eggs still inside.
This year’s bulbuls had a bigger tree to work on though, and the nest they built was above the window, not below, and things seemed to go better. We tried not to be too obtrusive and the birds ( did they take turns? ) spent several weeks incubating the eggs till an excited mother bird told us they’d hatched a week or two ago. Then the hardest part must have been scouring the neighbourhood for insects to keep them fed, but suddenly yesterday the nest was empty, and the birds were being really noisy.
I wondered if they’d been got by a crow, but that night when I collected the blackboard from outside Raffles to close up, there was a dazed-looking chick clinging to it! Not knowing what to do I just left it at the bottom of the tree, but the next morning it had made its way out to the road. This was no good, so using a plastic bowl a stick and some sticky tape I made a sort of scoop and managed to drop it off back in the nest from our 2nd floor window. No, in an hour or so it was gone again, and the parent birds were flying around this creature on the ground below, trying to persuade it to fly. Didn’t seem to be working, but today that chick is gone. The bulbuls still come back to the garden, and the parents are still feeding insects to the other two, bigger, chicks, but I don’t know what happened to the little one. Hope the cats didn’t get it…
Farmlog 13th June 2010 10 July, 2010
A grey day this time – the weather people announced that “it appears that” we have “entered” the Rainy Season. They used to make official announcements of the beginning of Japan’s monsoon, and when it had “opened” again, till one year it just went on raining all Summer and they were forced to take it back and say there had been no “opening” after all. Since then all you get is “it looks as if…” or “it might be said that…”.
A grey heron in a rice field by the road to match the clouds, but no police at their speed trap – they prefer nice weather. The drizzle started at 2:45, more or less as predicted. To be fair, the weather people usually get it something like right these days. Coming up to the house we ran into Shinobu, Yamada san’s cousin. Almost ran into him, that is – he fell off a mountain just in front of our car; a few seconds later and it might not have been funny.
That evening we drank that “taruzake” at Yamada san’s place, but that’s another story…
Min temp 11°C, max 29°C
asazuke 