タグ: Japan

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.

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.

Cold Winter is Coming to Niigata in Northern JAPAN

I have been tiding up my room today. Since the weather forecast was saying that a cold wave is coming tonight, I was just making a space for a gas heater. And I brought four citrus seedlings from my garden, then put them on the bay window. They are trees that should be in warmer climate area than cold Niigata. I want them to survive the winter.

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.