asazuke

Life in Japan, food, music, whatever…

Farmlog 28th November ~ 20th December 2010 10 January, 2011

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 6:58 pm
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(btw Happy New Year everyone!)

Another catchup post I’m afraid, to try and get back somewhere close to Real Time while it’s still January.

28th~29th November

  • Dropped in at Kimble on the way out of town. This time we got a little plastic egg that speaks Thai for ¥70.
  • It’s cold.
  • A big grey heron in one of the roadside rice paddies.
  • Arrived to find big holes in the ground everywhere. Obviously a visit from the Pigs – the wild “inoshishi” that sometimes come round looking for roots to dig up. They’re strong animals that toss up these big rocks about the place and generally make a mess.
  • We had to empty the water system before leaving for the first time this season. It’s pumped up from our well by electricity and comes out of taps just like mains water, but if you leave it in the pipes in winter it will freeze and burst them.
  • Minimum temp. -1°C max. 9°C

5th~6th December

  • Two beautiful sunny days this week.
  • While we were gone some surveyors came round and left little red flags around marking the boundaries with the adjacent forestry plantation. I wonder who sent them? Are they planning to cut trees or something? That would be OK for us, improving sunlight and airflow round the buildings. Or maybe the land’s going to be sold?
  • Some weed cutting on Monday. Left with nothing to do, the mind gets fidgety so it’s an opportunity for a sort of meditation…
  • min. 0°C max 14°C

19th~20th December

  • Another beautiful Sunday – mild and sunny.
  • Our communicative VW Polo likes to send us little messages now and then. This time it was something about “check cooling system maintenance” or something. It was not the first time to appear, so we dropped in at a VW garage ouside Nagoya and they soon put it down to the coolant fluid being a bit low, topped it up and sent us on our way in 5 minutes or so – free! They’d never seen us before and had no way of knowing we’d ever be back again, but that’s what you have to call service.
  • Later on it was another meaasge about petrol getting low, but by then all the local garages were closed on Sunday so fingers crossed it would last till the way home on Monday…
  • Arrive to find the house freezing cold inside after being empty for a week. Everything is icy cold – the tatami floor, walls, plates in the cupboard… so we crank up the oil fan heater and sit in the kotatsu.
  • On Monday morning it’s rainy but somewhat milder. Later on it clears up and as soon as the sun goes behind the trees it gets cold again.
  • The deer had broken through the net round the Green Zone again and left lots of fresh droppings inside. Now the chillies are finished there’s nothing to eat in there though. They just do it to annoy.
  • min -3°C max 12°C
 

Enkoji 30 December, 2010

Filed under: countryside,places — johnraff @ 3:00 pm
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It’s already a good month ago, but towards the end of November we had to stay in Nagoya one weekend, so that Sunday made a little local excursion. The late Autumn weather was perfect – an almost cloudless sky and no wind to detract from the warm sunshine. The Japanese railway company, JR, promote a series of “refreshing walks” where they meet you at a station, put up signs on the way, provide maps and generally look after you. We didn’t really feel like doing any of that, and sharing our walk with a whole party of other middle-aged hikers, but checked out the information they put out and chose one of their recommended routes on a different week from the organised outing, so had it to ourselves – in Gifu prefecture about an hour from Nagoya, just past Ogaki.

Beware of bears!

There was a bit too much asphalt for our tastes, but it was a nice day out anyway, and the Enkoji temple about half-way along was perfect for the Autumn red maple and yellow gingko leaves. Beautiful.

A classic empty Autumn sky.

 

Farmlog 15th November 2010 10 December, 2010

Filed under: countryside,seasons — johnraff @ 1:15 am
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A cricket in November.

An overcast but mild Sunday; groups of migrating birds getting ready to head out of here somewhere warmer. Later on the sun started to come out – you need a bit of blue sky to show off the red Autumn leaves that are reaching their peak around now. When we arrived at the house a pheasant was standing in front of the garage. It strolled off into the bushes in its own time… A cricket outside the house: the last one of the year?

Wild boar dropping.

Wild boar dropping.

There were big holes under the tea bushes where the wild boar had been digging for fern roots or something. They left a memento on our drive too. They’re big strong animals and can toss quite large rocks around in their search for something succulent in the ground.

deer droppings

Deer droppings.

T saw a mother and a couple of young a few years ago, but they hadn’t been around much until recently, having pretty much got everything that was going. The deer, on the other hand, have been regular visitors, as you’ll know if you’ve been reading this blog for a while, and this week there were plenty of fresh droppings around. Touch wood – they haven’t got inside the net round the chilli patch this year, except for one brief break-in, and now the season’s over. Fingers crossed for next year.

half-eaten chillies

Left by our furry friend.

Monday was much colder, and later on turned into drizzle. Last week didn’t freeze after all, though it came close, and there were still a lot of chillies intact on the bushes. We won’t be here next week, so a final picking session got another kilo or so of the hot, hot little “ishigaki” chillies. A small furry animal, probably a fieldmouse, had got some of the larger, milder ones and chomped on them in a corner of the field, leaving the seeds, and some half-eaten pods. Maybe they were a bit too hot after all. Anyway, he didn’t even touch the little hot ones.

Won’t be back for two weeks, and had a last look at the red maple leaves, which will be gone next time we’re here.

Min temp. 1°C, max. 13°C

 

maple leaves in November

A maple in front of the house.

 

 

 

Farmlog 24th October 2010 28 October, 2010

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 2:46 pm
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  • News on TV the night before of a bear being seen just a few minutes up the road from our place, on the Nagoya side too! Not to happy about this- there have been a lot of reports of bears this year and a number of people have been attacked, but up to now they’ve all been further North. They’re dangerous animals and I hope none start hanging round our house…
  • Smoke everywhere on Sunday. It’s the season for clearing up and everyone’s burning dead leaves and branches in the garden. The smoke lingers in the wet rainy air.
  • A “matsutake for sale” sign. Matsutake are a wild mushroom which the Japanese love, and when T was a child you could just go out and pick them, but they’re getting scarcer and these days you pay 3000yen or more for a pack of two or three in a supermarket! Now on top of that the “matsukuimushi” (pine-eating insect) is destroying pine trees something like the Dutch Elm Disease in Britain, and the matsutake, which grow under pine trees, are being hit too. Probably the guy with the sign was selling mushrooms from North Korea.
  • Min temp 9°C, max 21°C
 

Farmlog 17th October 2010 21 October, 2010

Filed under: city,countryside — johnraff @ 2:22 am
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  • A late start out of Nagoya because I took in a tap dance (!) performance in the afternoon. Came out into the last red glow of a city twilight – quite poetic with run-down showa-era bars and noodle shops, acres of neon lights taking over and lots of small bats harvesting the insects attracted to the street lights.
  • Sushi for dinner. Mackeral pickled in vinegar is good just now – in the Autumn as the sea gets colder the fish get oilier, and tastier. They used to be a real bargain at ¥100 each or so for a big fish; these days it’s more like ¥400 but still one is enough for two people.
  • Final trip out to the outhouse at 2am and the crickets are still going strong – a last fling before the cold sets in…
  • Next morning a nervous inspection of the deer net round our chillies, and this week it’s OK 🙂 Have they finally given up?
  • Picked a basketful of the hot “Ishigaki” chillies. They’ve done quite well in this year’s hot Summer although I should have planted them earlier. Growing’s not so hard, but it takes an hour or so to pick a kilo because they’re so small. Hardly a commercial proposition.
  • An endless procession of concrete mixers pass the house on their way to connect two small villages up the road with an 8-lane highway.
  • There’s something about the air on Autumn evenings that carries smells long distances so there always seems to be a hint of woodsmoke. The other day closing up Raffles I was sure I could smell the yeast of a brewery, though the local one closed up several years ago…
  • Min temp. 8°C max 23°C
 

Farmlog 10th October 2010 13 October, 2010

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 2:09 pm
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  • Three little kids carrying a lion-dance costume around a Nagoya street corner. A local festival I guess. Some Japanese “matsuri” are thriving, but many have deteriorated to this. No-one was watching. Maybe at the end they’ll get some sweets paid for by the local residents’ association. That’s about it.
  • Interspersed among the buildings on the outskirts of town some small rice paddies turning gold in the Autumn sun. I wonder what that rice tastes like, though, marinated in car exhaust fumes?
  • Arrived at 3 to be greeted by a chilly wind that didn’t suggest eating out that evening at all. By evening, though, the wind had dropped and the insect chorus had started up and the whole thing felt much more welcoming so we had probably our last dinner under the stars for 2010. Spectacular clear skyful of stars it was too.
  • The deer had knocked the net down again. They’ve made a home in the uncut grass just outside, so I got out the cutter and cleared it down a bit, went to the wood for a bit of bamboo and grimly patched up the deer-barrier yet again.
  • A lone bumble bee going round the chilli flowers, and a big hornet in the tea bushes. Both seemed quite peaceful though.
  • Min temp 10°C max 23°C
 

Summer 22 September, 2010

Filed under: customs,seasons — johnraff @ 2:14 pm
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Finally it’s over – sort of. That sultry sticky sweltering sweaty squishy soggy humidity has dropped way down as the dry Autumn air from the continent takes over. Although we’re going over 30°C today and you wouldn’t call it cool exactly, the mornings and evenings are really pleasant and there’s a nice breeze even now, at 2 in the afternoon. It’s been a record-breaking long hot Summer this year – more than 500 people are reported to have died from heatstroke and the electricity companies are expecting to make record profits from all the carbon they burnt to keep our air conditioners running. (How are we going to escape this situation where the only way to make life tolerable is to contribute to making it worse? I’m reminded of the old, old Kevin Ayers song “Why are we sleeping?“) A lot of my friends teach at universities, get long Summer vacations and head right out of here for the month of August. Conversely, for old friends in Europe, August is the obvious holiday season and that is when they want to come over here to visit. I try to talk them out of it, explaining that they’ll likely find the heat intolerable, but they don’t really get it …till they arrive.

Even so, Summer in Japan is a special time. For a month or two we share the same air mass as Southeast Asia (apparently Hong Kong has Japan beaten for humidity) and it’s as if the whole country has taken off southwards. You don’t need more clothes than a T-shirt and pair of shorts, and even when working there’s a sort of holiday atmosphere. (I guess the suit-wearing salarymen might see it a bit differently…) The kids are all off school and along with the cicadas the heavy air carries the sounds of High School Baseball from a thousand open windows. And the evenings can be magical. The warmth just envelops you so that there’s no distinction between indoors and outdoors. Just take a walk around your neighbourhood, follow the smoke pouring out of a local yakitoriya for an ice-cold beer and some grilled chicken, or maybe even head to a beer garden… These are a different story really – while eating outside, maybe on the roof of a tall building, has an appeal, you’re usually obliged to go along with some kind of “all you can eat and drink” sort of deal, usually with a time limit. The foods not that great, there are hundreds of people and the effect is a bit like feeding time at the zoo.

Much better are the Summer festivals, especially out in the countryside. There’s dancing, more of that indispensible ice-cold beer and young people come back from the cities to revisit relatives. The young girls look really cute in their Summer kimonos and there are quite often fireworks too. Japanese fireworks are some of the best in the world, and the big displays draw millions of people. All this is really based on the “Obon” festival, when the spirits of dead ancestors return to their families and have to be entertained with Bon odori – traditional dancing. Fires are lit to help them find their way home, and later to send them off again. ( Could that be where the fireworks come from? )

This is also the time for ghost stories – some say it’s because they give you a delicious chill, but maybe it’s just that Obon connection again. There are some real ghosts too. Among the spirits who return for consolation are the nearly three million who died in World War 2. The anniversaries of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the end of the Pacific war come in quick succession at the beginning of August, and the ringing of temple bells joins the cicadas and baseball.

So it’s not all festivals and fun, and the Autumn just coming can be really beautiful, as can Spring, but I’d still say Summer is my favourite season.

 

Farmlog 19th September 2010

Filed under: countryside,seasons — johnraff @ 1:41 pm
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  • Almost full moon. “Jugoya”, the 15th night of the whatever month in the old lunar calendar is the harvest moon – it seems to be early this year.
  • Those pigeons back again eating the sansho – they were here last week too. Usually just two of them, but three this time. We never see them any other time of year.
  • The hydrangea plant behind the house gave us a lot of flowers this year, but this week the deer came and ate all the leaves off.
  • On the way back to Nagoya – some little kids kicking a ball around in a bit of empty ground. So what? Well, you never seem to see that in the city now. No kids? No parks? No footballs? No time? Or parent paranoia?
  • Min temp 15°C max 27°C (note the sudden drop)
 

Farmlog 12th September 2010 16 September, 2010

Filed under: countryside — johnraff @ 2:40 pm
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  • 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 5th September 2010 10 September, 2010

Filed under: countryside,incidents — johnraff @ 2:23 pm
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  • 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.