Monday, April 2, 2012

April is here!

4.1


It's April.
The flowers are stunning all over. Forsythia, daffodils, cherry, plum and peach trees and so many more that I don't know the names of. The sky has been a cloudless blue for nearly a week straight. Sun has been warm and just enough of a breeze to keep things from getting hot. The best weather. I love autumn the best out of the seasons, but spring is pretty amazing too.

We've been going to the mountain almost everyday to work on putting the shiitake mushroom bacteria into the logs we cut in November. I didn't realize what a process it was. For some reason I really thought of needle inserting some liquid into the trees like a flu vaccination. Of course, it's nothing like that. There is a drill with guard on the head to make sure you can only go so far and makes these perfect little holes about the same width as my pinky finger. In one log, they drill about 14 holes (more or less depending on the diameter of the log). After that there are these little cork-like plugs that are the bacteria. They fit into the holes pretty well, but you have to use a hammer to make it go in all the way. In one pack of the shiitake bacteria there about 1,000 pieces. In one afternoon if we are fast we can go through 3,000. Hitomi-san told me the people who are really fast go through 10 packs in one day, that's 10,000 pieces. Wow...

I tried drilling but it didn't work out so well. I have to hold the log up and spin it with one hand and then drill with my other hand. With small logs it's fine, but there a lot of big ones that I can hardly lift so I got tired just after one pile. I'm good with hammering.

The two grandboys, Fuma and Yuto (Muto-san's daughter's sons) came for most of the week. They stayed overnight at the main house and came with us to the mountains to work (and to play as well). They really seem to enjoy working here and are overjoyed when they find the many eggs to be collected and collecting weeds to feed to the goats.

Okay, now it's actuallly April 3rd since I neglected writing this for a little while.

The weather has been incredible, sunny and warm and blue skies for a week or more, then one day of rain, and another beautiful week - my kind of weather!

On Saturday it was Hitomi-san's birthday. I didn't realize it was kind of surprise, but we did a party for her. A "tako yaki" party. Tako  yaki is a cabbage pankcake EXCEPT in ball form, so you have to have a special grill for it. You can put anything in the middle so of course we had tako (octopus) but there was also mochi, weiner and cheese. I spent the afternoon shopping for food items with Muto-san then trying to make deviled eggs and fruit shish kabobs for the party. But when we had gone into town, the sakura trees were blooming all over the park/hill that leads to the city. Muto-san parked and walked me around the path. He said they were only in 80% bloom, and it will become even more beautiful. I'd never seen so many trees like - everything was white and pink and completely stunning against the blue sky. With a sight like that, you feel so at peace and so appreciative - there is such beauty in the world! People were sitting beneath the trees eating a drinking as is custom.

I had never made deviled eggs before, but I figured it was pretty American party food and I'd give it a try. Hiro and I mixed the batter and cut up things for the tako yaki while Hitomi-san made onigiri. Muto-san had bought a cake for her, strawberry cream:) There were two grills, an electric nonstick pan and a cast iron one that we used on a table top stove.  I was sitting near the cast iron one with Katsu and Hiro so worked that one - pouring in the batter so the cups were half full, putting in cabbage and a filling, then pouring more batter over it. Then your had turn the little balls with sticks earlier enough so that the batter was still liquidy enough to create an actual ball when you turned it over and late enough so that you could turn it without ripping it to shreds. Basically, we sucked in the beginning but by the end not only were they pretty but we could do very quickly. Hiro had made enough batter for 200 Tako Yaki:D Which was good because Katsu and his wife and Hana-chan were there, plus of course Hitomi and Muto-san, Hiro, Obaachan and then their daughter, Ayumi, came with two kids, Fuma and Aina-chan. It was really yummy and fun. Hiro said he used to have tako yaki parties with his friends during college - and that I should too! Ayumi gave me a small tako yaki grill, I think I'll mail it home with winter clothes...then I really cane make tako yaki.

We sang happy birthday and distributed cake while Hitomi-san opened presents. Last, she opened a gift from Muto-san. I'd been bugging him before about what he should do for her (flowers, card and a big diamond necklace!). But then he told me he had actually gotten her a necklace. I was really surprised (but really happy) and I told Hiro, who told Katsu and they said that they don't think he's done anything like that before - they thanked me for giving Muto-san advice...  (and I had just been joking around and being annoying!). Katsu told me later that after Hitomi-san opened the pearl necklace, it looked like she was about to cry. I had been watching Hana-chan and Aina-chan so I hadn't seen that...but just hearing Katsu say that made me melt a little inside. I'm glad...happy for her.

On Sunday there was a picnic for just this neighborhood - I think the day for honoring their ancestors. Hitomi-san made an incredible display of obento and we drove up to a hill where the local shrine is and set up a tarp and food. We were the first ones there (they said that that was a first and they were almost always last in previous years) but soon more and more people came. Then there was a little speech, a toast and we started eating and drinking under the blue sky, bright sun and blooming sakura trees. Hitomi-san had made onigiri, inari sushi, karage chicken, fish, shrimp, noodles, seasoned spring vegetables and a lot more. Plus there was sushi, sashimi and basashi (raw horse). Three years ago I tried basashi... but I hadn't really been able to stomach it... but Hiro kept taunting me, "It's really good, you should try it again, I'll even let you use my soy sauce!" So I tried one more time. This time, it tasted pretty good, but those beautiful horse eyes and that soft nose still floated guiltily in my mind. It's not really my kind of food. Many of the men were drinking quite a bit and people started mingling and there was a lot of laughing... Hiro and Katsu told me I can take the afternoon off and they'll do the chickens since it was Sunday anyway. But I said it's fine because I don't really have anything to do...then Hiro reminded me that I can work on my scholarship essay! I told him he sounded like mom:p But now that I had that hanging over my head, I cleared off the tree deck back at the farm and brought tea and some snacks and sat down to write. And, I finished it... just some editing and what not left to do.

Monday was especially warm. T-shirt weather and not too windy so I opened up the windows all over to air out the house and even hung my blankets out on the line. I then decided I would clean out the goat pen... the rice shells (that they used like we use straw) were basically all gone and it was just dirt and poop so I shoveled some out. It stunk like crazy and I remembered when I went to farm school all those years ago... for some reason I always seemed to get the worst jobs (probably because I was too shy to raise my hand for the better jobs or something). One bad job was watering the apple trees. The apple trees were on a hill (which in my memory is more like a steep cliff) and there was a pond down below. We had to fill 5 gallon buckets and carry them up to the trees, one bucket for one tree, and me and some other kids had 4 trees each. One kid took one bucket and split it between the four and declared to be finished. Another kid started freaking out and crying and saying she felt to sick to do the work so she left after one bucket. So then me and this other kid had to make up for them... that was tough. But the real bad job was cleaning out the goat pen. We shoved tons of tissues up our noses, but it didn't block out the smell one bit. So there was...yesterday doing it of my own accord, just because I like how the clean rice shells look and because I thought the goats would appreciate it. It only took me maybe 45 minutes to do it all... but everything stunk.

In the afternoon we went into the mountains and did about 2,500 shiitake corks by 5 PM. After that, since it was Monday - badminton!
Before badminton, Hiro took me to see the night time sakura. The sakura are lit by lamps and a string of lanterns, winding around the walking path all over the hill. It had a completely different feel from the day... a softer, more mystical feel. They glowed in the lantern light, and in the black of the night, it looked like a pink shimmery powder had been sprinkled around in the dark. There were food stands, we got "Sasebo Burgers" so we could eat and walk. I believe Hiro said that Sasebo is a place in Nagasaki famous for this burger - and it was tasty! Tomato, lettuce, onion, egg, meat, salt and pepper, some kind of other sauce and ketchup. It was about as big as my full flexed hand and took me basically the whole time we walked to eat it (mostly because I was busy taking photos and video). Mom had told me I had to see the night time sakura...and ya-ta! I hadn't seen anything like that before...and when the petals fall it is like twinkling little snow fall. So many trees...

Badminton was great like last week. There are the young guys who are really good (and fun to watch) that play, but I am now being included in the "Okay" people. I think they are mostly just being really nice to me. At first Eriguchu-sensei (who runs the open badminton) helps me by teaching/warming me up. My favorite is being close to the net and hitting it back and forth really lightly, it's the most fun. My arm was SO SORE last week, and it seemed that when I started playing yesterday all that pain woke up again, but soon it went away and left only fun behind! They are really nice to me (even though I suck) and everyone seems to have fun so it is quite enjoyable. When I first came, I just watched, but now I am included in the games! I told them I'll practice during college and when I come back I'll be stellar:p We'll see how it goes!

Today is a rainy day...but this morning there were more eggs than usual. 91 just in the morning! And they were also cleaner than normal, so it didn't take too long to wash them. Though it is rainy and windy, it's also pretty warm. Spring.







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