カテゴリー: Photograph

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.

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.

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.

Went to a Shop to buy Fertilizer containing Phosphorus Today

I wrote on yesterday’s post that I cannot get a single fruit from the apricot tree in my garden. But just lamenting it doesn’t help me at all. It is not only apricot but other plums that also don’t have fruits. Some don’t have even flowers. In order to make those apricot and plum trees have fruits, I decided using fertilizer. Of the three major ingredients of fertilizer (N, P, and K), phosphorus(P) is effective to facilitate fruits and flowers to grow. So, I went to DIY shop to buy fertilizer containing phosphorus afternoon today.

Rice has grown at the cut section. They are not going to be harvested.

There should have been someone who left it often.

I needed a fertilizer with phosphorus, but the fertilizer that I bought today also contains potassium.

Local train with only two cars on Shin’etsu Line.

White Iide Mountain

Still working on in my Field: Today’s post looks orange color

I was thinking about how to do with an apricot tree. Of course, there are many trees like plums and peaches that can be “pollination tree” for apricot. However, I know that it is so difficult to get apricot fruits on the tree. There was an apricot tree in my mother’s house in the past. Though the tree got so many flowers in spring, it had never got any fruits for thirty years. Now there is one apricot tree in my garden. It is planted at a good place where it can get much sunshine. But I want to replace it with a more “productive fruits tree”. The problem is where to move the apricot, because the space is limited. There are already many trees in my garden. This afternoon I was thinking about where to plant, or planting it in a pot. I couldn’t get any conclusion about it.

I had been hanging persimmons to make dried ones. They are now ready for eating. I ate one today. Although there are some seeds inside and I need to get them out from my mouth, the one I ate today was quite sweet.

If not rainy, I need to do many things in my garden.

Time is limited. Since Niigata gets a lot of rain, sleet, and eventually snow in the seasons of late autumn and early winter, time that I can work in my field decrease day by day.

Today, the weather has been fine. I worked in my field 2 hours in the morning, and 2 hours in the afternoon. What I did was to make places to plant a tree of fig. The fig fruit doesn’t last long. You need to eat a fig in the same day as you harvest it if you want to eat fresh. For this difficulty, it is very rare to see figs on the shelves of supermarket. So, if you want to eat fresh fig, you need to grow fig tree yourself. I have already planted some trees of Japanese native figs (though I still haven’t got fruits from those trees). Now I am going to plant fig trees of three different types. Probably it will take two to three years until I got fruits of figs from those trees.

It was just four hours that I worked in my field today, but I got exhausted. I started practicing piano at 4 p.m., and played Hanon No.1, but I felt sleepy, went to my room, and slept a little in “Kotatsu” by the time for cooking supper. Now today is going to end when I upload this post. Four months have already passed since I came back Japan. Any single day is precious for me. I have to make efforts for many things. And now I have to work in my field as much as I can before winter comes.

This photo is not of today but taken 9 days ago, though I don’t think there is someone who cares about such tiny thing.

It’s the First Time for me to grow Pea in my garden

This year, I have tried growing pea. This is the first time for me. I actually have some experiences to grow other type of beans, though most of the time I failed to grow them well. When I came back Japan in the summer, I was just looking for vegetable seeds that can be planted in August and September. Then I found seeds of pea on the shelves of DIY shop. I bought the seeds and planted them on my garden.

Beans like soils whose PH is slightly acidic to neutral soil. As for peas, they like more alkaline soil. So, I had mixed a lot of oyster shell lime with the soil in my garden.

When a pea has grown up this size, I pick and cook it. But I have a little problem with this pea. There is a fiber on upper edge of the shell. The fiber needs to be removed at cooking because it cannot be soft by chewing. Removing the fibers from the shell takes some minutes in cooking. Next time I plant pea in my garden, I want to get seeds that has been improved not to have fibers so that I can save the time for cooking.

I went to a Town next to my Village to see a Doctor for my skin problem

I have atopic dermatitis. And now my face is itchy. While I had been living in the foreign country until July, my symptoms were stable. But since I came back Japan at the end of July, my skin’s condition has gradually gotten worse. And now, ointments I have is almost running out. So today, I went to see a dermatologist who runs a clinic in a town next to my village. When I got to the clinic, few patients were there. I was called soon. And then I talked to the doctor, received ointment, paid money, and got out of the clinic. It was very quickly done.

When I was waiting for a local train for way back, I saw the advertisement board from the platform. The board introduces two schools for driver’s license. She is saying “Come to take (a driver’s license)” with smile and jumping. But I’d say, it might not be a pleasant experience to learn driving there, because there usually are some scary instructors. You may be shouted during driving training on the course or roads.

This train is not for me because it’s going to Niigata

This train is being operated by one driver without a conductor. So, no one is in the driver’s section at the end of trains.

Countermeasures against some passengers

Part of Iide Mountain was covered with cloud, but I could see the mountain has already become white.