カテゴリー: Niigata

It was a cold day. I was making a trellis for an apple tree

Today’s lowest temperature was -1 and highest was +2 Celsius degree (30 to 36 in Fahrenheit). Although the outside was cold, I had been out of my house, but in a tiny hut. The hut was built about twenty years ago when my father was still alive. It is made of polycarbonate corrugated sheet for the roof and wall, and of steel pipes for its frames. Even the inside is almost like outside because there are a lot of gaps, but no wind blows inside, I can feel a little warm in the hut.

The inside of the hut has long been a mess. Since I came back my home, I keep to try tidying up the hut. And the hut is now going to be a fun place to be, not to say it’s a secret base. Today I was staying there for three hours in the morning to make a trellis using steel pipes. I am going to set up a trellis for an apple tree. It is common that grapes grow on trellis. And in my area, farmers use trellis for growing pear trees. But I don’t think it is usual to use trellis to grow an apple tree.

There are six apple trees in my garden. Two were planted by my father who passed away five years ago. So, I don’t know the names of those two. Four are planted by me; Ohrin, Kougyoku, Alpus-Otome, and Shinano-Gold. Ohrin and Kougyoku are old varieties, Alpus-Otome is almost exclusively for pollination. Shinano-Gold is a variety that is new and very delicious. What I want to do is to make that Shinano-Gold tree bigger so that I will be able to harvest many apples from that tree. In order to do so, there must be an area such that leaves can extend wide. This is the reason I want to set up a trellis for the apple tree. Since the branches of apple tree are soft and flexible, I expect that it is possible to grow the apple on trellis. I hope that the result is coming in two years.

Japanese remove all the Christmas decorations soon after December 25th.

I think it would be better if those trees and illumination things continue to be there until the new year, we Japanese surely remove everything. This time, I have put five color bulbs on my window and lit up them like from seven to nine p.m. Time was not so exact, but I turned them on after supper and off before going to bed. Since I bought them about twenty years ago, they are not LED lights but conventional bulbs. Those bulbs consume 20 Watt, not much, but use more electricity than LED, I guess.

Other Japanese remove all the Christmas decorations, so I thought that I also need to do something with my five color bulbs. What I did was not removing them, but changing from five color to mono color bulbs. Does it make any sense? I am not sure.

I am living in a residential area in small village surrounded by vast rice field. Population is not much. I am sure that my illumination is not seen by many people because very few people walk or drive on the road by my house in the night. But I would like to say that here is a lonely place with less people, I want some lights be there.

Before changing the bulbs

After; Upper half and lower half are blinking in turn. At that moment, the lower half were being turned off

The only citrus in this year is still hanging on a “Beni-Hassaku” tree

Since the tree is by the road that many junior high school students come and go in the morning and evening, I am expecting that a student may be stealing it without my permission. That happened last year. But this year, it’s still hanging on the tree.

If it happened, am I going to make a phone call to the teachers’ office in the junior high school? No, I won’t do it. I don’t mind, it’s okay by me.

I went to Kanto region three days ago. I came back Niigata today.

I wanted to get on local trains to go to Kanto region. Because using local trains costs only a half of bullet trains (Shinkan-sen). But influenza is now prevailing these days. If I got on local trains for many hours, it could increase the chance to be exposed to flu virus. Perhaps I may transmit influenza to my mother after I get back to my house. This is the reason why I got on Shinkansen to go to Kanto Region near Tokyo.

Tickets of Shinkansen are expensive. In order to save money, I usually get on a car for non-reserved seats. Such a non-reserved seats are on the several cars on Tokyo side. Of those non-reserved cars, I like to get on the top car.

Since the Jo’etsu Shinkansen runs thorough snowy areas, there are water sprinklers all along the railways in Niigata area. By melting snow on the rails by water, Shinkansen doesn’t get delayed even in winter.

This time of year, almost of the time the sky is cloudy and dark in Niigata side.

While Niigata is under dark clouds, people in Kanto region enjoy clear sky.

And I saw Mountain Fuji through the window in the following morning.

I went to an Indian/Nepali Restaurant in Furumachi, Niigata yesterday

The last time I visited there was seven years ago. Yesterday I went to Niigata and took a lunch in an Indian/Nepali Restaurant in Furumachi. I ate “A lunch set” that was curry, naan, salad, and plain lassi.

The curry was a little much. As I was eating, I came to think that dipping wouldn’t consume all of it. So, I used chop-sticks and ate a piece of Naan by submerging it entirely into curry. I thought, if you would eat two Naans, the amount of curry fit them. It was 1080JPY, but my stomach became quite full.

All the Shops had left, the Underground Mall was Closed

I went to the town of Niigata today. Getting off a local train at JR Niigata station, and then I got on a bus to go to Furumachi, where used to be the center of commercial area of Niigata. What I found in Furumachi was that the underground shopping street had already closed. In 2018 to 2019, I was living closed to there and visited and walked there every day. It seemed to me that closure was a matter of time because few people were going there and obviously shops couldn’t make much money.

All the stores and shops were closed, but the street is still being used as an underground passage

The place is lower than the groundwater table. There must be a lot of water leakage.

Niigata is an area where motorization is developed thoroughly. Almost of all people move by vehicles. They don’t want to go to the city center, rather like to drive to suburban shopping malls.

I took my mother to a dermatologist today.

We left home at 10a.m. and went to see a dermatologist. My mother has a skin problem on her both ankles to lower knee. She had already finished using medicine of the last time. So I took her to there because she cannot go there herself. When she bought new medicine at pharmacy, it was almost noon. We went to Rahmen restaurant to have a lunch. I ate a “Hot Miso Rahmen” as shown in the photo.

I won’t write a long post tonight, because I am going to write a music score using “Sibelius” from now. I need to learn how to use that software.

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).