投稿者: liangzhilaoshi

She never learns how to start an automatic washing machine.

Four days ago, I wrote that my mother “is eighty-six years old, still can wash and clean”. But in fact, she cannot do those chores completely herself. Cleaning is almost okay. Although she cannot change a trash collecting bag inside vacuum cleaner, that bag is not a thing that needs to be changed so frequently.

Washing is not okay. Every time she uses washing machine, she calls me from the first floor, and I need to go down from the second floor. Then I teach her how to start the washing machine. The washing machine is a product of Toshiba, which has a function to save amount of laundry detergent. Because of this function, the procedure to start washing is a little different from ordinary “automatic washing machine”.

The procedure is as follows; Close the lid. Push the power button. If the program for washing, rinsing, and dehydrating is okay, push the start button. And then, the machine rotates a little, measures the weight of clothes, and displays necessary amount of detergent. Open the lid, pour detergent of the amount indicated, and close the lid. After this, do not touch any button.

But my mother never learns this procedure. She says “Why do I close the lid before pouring detergent?”.

Actually, I also needed a little bit of time to get used to this washing machine when I started using it ten years ago. I am not sure whether or not this function and procedure are common to washing machines of other manufacturers. Since she cannot understand why such a procedure is required, she can’t memorize the way to start the machine. Therefore, every day or at least once in two days, I hear she tells me to come down saying with loud voice “Tell me how to start the washing machine!”.

Until several months ago, she uses another washing machine of old type. I mean the old type is the two-tub washing machine in which washing tub and spin-drying tub are separated. One day, the spin-drying tub became slow and eventually stopped spinning. I checked and found that ELEVEN socks were clinging to the shaft under the tub. Probably she put a lot of clothes into the spin-drying tub and rotated it without the inner cap to prevent clothes popping out. Since socks were light, they could get out of the tub by the centrifugal force, and fell under the tub. Even though I removed all the socks clinging to shaft, the spin-drying tub was broken. That was the reason for us to have changed from a two-tub washing machine to a fully automatic washing machine.

I guess that my mother exhibits early symptom of dementia. She cannot remember things that are new. I have the similar experience with my deceased father. He also got dementia in his last years. From that experience, I could say the progression of dementia is slow, takes many years. At this moment, I am not sure how her symptom is getting worse in coming years. But I have to take care of her and prepare for the things to come. Since I have already retired, I think it will be less tough for me when comparing with other people in their 50’s who still work, probably.

I made two small bottles of lemon jam yesterday

Today was a cold day. Temperature was barely plus in Celsius. But I have been working in my garden most of the day.

I have done two tasks; making the support of persimmon “KOYO(tm)” more rigid, and pruning of several plum trees. The support for the persimmon tree is of course a measure for snow so that the branches will not break by the weight of snow. But not only for that, I aimed at growing each branch longer as I intended. This autumn, I could get only 29 of persimmons. I want more. So, I added longer support bars along branches, trimming short unnecessary branches, and buried fertilizer around the trunk.

As for the plum trees, they have grown too much high such that I cannot reach by my hand. I cut the long and tall branches. There are four plum trees and two prune trees in my garden. What I want most with those trees is to harvest from the tree of “Soldum”. For me, other three plums are just pollination trees so that the Soldum can have fruits. The plum Soldum was introduced from North America to Japan in early twenties century. Its appearance is actually not so great; sometimes it looks green. But inside is very beautiful red violet color. Since I planted the Soldum tree ten years ago, I have wanted to get fruits. But so far, I have got almost none. It is kind like: every year it gets less flower and less fruits, falling onto the ground before ripening, and then I get none. I think I need to learn better pruning, better fertilizer, and how to pollinate properly.

Although I worked outside today, I didn’t take a picture. The photo below is bottles of lemon jam and red-radish pickles. I made the lemon jam yesterday.

Worked in my Field in the Morning, went buying Food in the Afternoon, and cooked in the Evening

As the title indicates, today was just a normal day. The weather was fine in day time, but now strong wind and rain are making sound around my house.

This evening, I cooked a fish of sea-bream by cutting the whole one fish into slices and bones. Since I haven’t cut a sea-bream for so long, I couldn’t cut it well. Certain amount of meat remains on bone, and the slices became thin. I thought I need to cook a sea-bream often for learning a good skill to cut the fish. From today, my miso-soup will get taste of head and bones of the sea-bream that I cooked today. I will boil them two or three days.

Once I upload this post, I am going to arrange a song of “Sand Mountain（砂山）” using the software “Sibelius” (not a Finnish composer) for one hour or so. And then I will fall asleep in Futon which is now warmed up by Kotatsu. I feel that now my life is a kind of tranquil. Weather forecast says the temperature is going down tomorrow. I would like to stay at home in such a cold winter day.

Something on the top of the building of Japan Agricultural Association was hiding snow-covered Iide Mountains.

They are what I bought in the afternoon. The sea-bream was hidden under the bread. Two sweet cakes at the top left in the photo are to be offered to the alter of my father who passed away five years ago (I’ve already put them there).

Stayed inside, didn’t do much. It was less productive today.

I didn’t study English today. Since the weather was bad, I have been inside today. The only thing I did today was making a plan for planting some fruit trees from now to spring. My field is not so spacious. I have to think carefully about areas to plant vegetables and fruits trees. I am not a professional farmer, but just an early-retired person. Planting a fruit tree is a kind of hobby, and growing vegetable is for life. It is interesting for me to seek an optimization of proportions of areas for fruit trees and vegetables.

This photo was taken ten years ago.

Made Slices of Radish hang to Dry them

Only several radishes were still left on the ground in my field. I pulled all of them in the morning today. I chose two of six radishes, pared them off, cut in six slices, and hung those slices from the ceiling. I was not sure which was better to dry them outside or inside, but this time I hang them inside house, at the place where the air-conditioner’s warm air blows.

In the afternoon, my elder sister came to my house. She, the only sibling of mine, comes once a month to see my(her) mother. But she stays at my house only two to three hours only. Today, she came at two, left at four in the afternoon. So, no lunch together, not much conversation, she just brought some fruits and music CD. My mother always complains, saying “Why she comes? What she is going to do when coming here?”.

I guess that my sister wants to show that she is also taking a care of my mother. When it comes to taking care of old parents, how each sibling shares the care tends to be a cause of conflict between siblings. Since I am single, just living in my deceased father’s house. She is eighty-six years old, still can wash and clean, but no longer cooks herself. So, I cook all the meals for my mother (and me). I take much care of my mother more than my sister, but I don’t have any bad feeling about my sister. Coming here once a month, I think that is the best she can do. And spending 19,600JPY (approx.125USD) for high-speed trains to come here is not that cheap.

When my sister came, I was out. I went to a DIY shop to buy fertilizer for field and soils for pot. I recently bought a fertilizer of phosphorus and potassium. That one was okay, but I also needed another fertilizer having three ingredients of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium (N, P, K) balanced. And I bought two packages of soil for using in a pot; one was soil in which water can go through easily, the other was acidic soil for blueberries.

A day without rain is precious in late autumn in Niigata, northern JAPAN.

Have just started “Winter Feeding” for wild birds around

I think that wild birds like sparrows will have a hard time in winter because it is difficult for them to find food in cold and usually snow-covered season. When winter comes, I usually give them food every morning in order to avoid their starvation. Recently I bought two packages of feed that are several kinds of seeds from amazon.

I put one cup of feed onto the feeding table as in the photo, but birds hadn’t come today. I guess they will find it and come to eat in a few days.

Memory of a Korean Restaurant in Niigata, where I often visited in 2018.

Today, I spent most of hours to do a DIY thing. I was making three wooden frames with plastic screens on them. I was thinking to put those things on the bay window. I have recently shown on this blog with citrus seedlings at bay window. I was thinking that that bay window was making heating ineffective in winter. If I could have finished the “Insulation Screens” on bay window, I would upload the photo of them. But I couldn’t finish making them today. I am not going to show them today.

Other than that, I don’t have anything to write in tonight’s post. I just want to upload photos of seven years ago.

A Korean Restaurant in Niigata, JAPAN.
It was probably in November 27, 2018

Does it look tasty?

Photos in Campus, they were taken in 2019

I am a little busy tonight. The campus where I used to be is very far from here. Not only the distance, I feel that being there was a thing of long time ago in my memory.

It seems I had eaten a lot for lunches. Probably I was energetic and working hard at that time, because I was six years younger than what I am now.

Snow still remains in the evening because Today was colder than Yesterday

Since I bought enough food yesterday, and the weather was not so good, I had just been at home today. Studying English in the morning, I spent day time scanning Korean language textbook to make it digital form. I bought the book with my money, and I am going to use digitized one for my personal use. So, I don’t think this could be a breach of copyright. But if I have asked someone to scan a book and pay for it, it would violate the Copyright Act even in the case of personal use.

When I finished scanning, the sky had already become dark. Snow was still on the roofs of houses around because today was colder than yesterday.

Roofs and the Ground were covered with White Snow in the Morning

When I got up in the morning today, I saw that roofs of houses and the ground were white. I wanted to take pictures those snow-covered sceneries, but I just forgot to do that. Since the sun shone, most of snow had melted until noon.

I went shopping in the afternoon, but I took de-tour a little bit. I wanted to take a picture of “Gozu Mountains”. The mountains are not so high, their peaks are lower than 1000 meters. But the mountains got snow by the cold wave that came yesterday.

Unfortunately, Mountains are hidden by clouds.

I found two ducks in front of a fruits shop on the river bank

It seems that they are friends, or more.

A local train was crossing the river

What I bought in a supermarket today

Gas Heater is turned on in my room now.