Kayakety-yak

 I was starting to give up hope of finding a kayak that wouldn't break the bank. The shops near here have very few used ones, and while I thought the internet would be helpful, I haven't found anything that would solve my problem. I contacted K-san, a friend who lives down the coast and someone who seems to have connections everywhere and told him my dilemma. He called me back two days later and said he had a friend who might be willing to sell one of his old kayaks. Yesterday we went over to the friend's house, loaded it on to his van and brought it back to Akiya. We stopped at the local kayak center and asked the shop owner to give us his opinion and see if he could help me come up with a good price to offer without screwing myself. He looked at it and right away said it was a Mariner kayak made by the British company Northshore, and it was a very good fiberglass kayak in spite of being a bit banged up and missing the hatch covers.

By the time I brought it home to try it out, the sea, which had been very calm in the morning had gotten very choppy, and it's stayed that way the rest of yesterday and all day today. I've got a life vest but I'd like to get used to it in calmer waters, so I've been trying to stay patient. . . .  but this is getting seriously frustrating. Spent a day doing chores, including shopping at the newly opened farmers' market, which is very decent, making some Spanish marinated sardines, and getting an old motorbike tire for the rope swing I've made for m. 

Tomorrow's supposed to be better; rainy but with little wind so I've got my hopes up. If I like it after trying it out, I have to find a way to talk the owner into a decent price for letting it go. K-san said the owner seems to be living in Tokyo and doesn't come down much anymore, so we'll see.

Undokai

 Last weekend, m's schools' undokai athletic meet was cancelled due to the typhoon passing through, so it was rescheduled for Tuesday. Thanks to my present unemployed state, I was able to make it anyway. Compared to last years event, there were much fewer parents attending, so it was not quite such a competition for good seats around the school ground. m appeared in several events: the class dance (above) which had something to do with eating rice and the words "rock'n'roll." I never figured it out because she refused to practice in front of us because it would ruin the surprise.

 She didn't get picked for the special relay event which mixes kids from all the grades this year. But she did well in the 40 meter dash, and came in second in her heat (above) against four boys.

And her red team came in first in this event, which I don't know the name of, but it involves having relays of four kids run a slalom course while hanging on to this pole.

The school is split between a red team and a blue team and unfortunately, the blue team won the games 412 to 395, which left m in a disappointed funk for about 30 minutes.

I didn't get a picture of it because I had only brought the telephoto lens, but there was the oddest sky: a circular rainbow surrounded the sun, and then there was just a straight band of rainbow (rainbar?) across the eastern sky. The wind was strong all day, kicking up the dust from the field, but the sun was out strong and we got a bit sunburned.

Chiruchinbito

 Our house is featured in this months edition of Chiruchinbito, a magazine about traditional Japanese house building methods. The article is all about how we worked with the contractor and their own architect to design the house so that we could use all the various interior parts of the old traditional house that we tore down in order to build this. It was exciting to have them come and do the shoot, because the magazine was our bible when we were planning this place.

 M's mom had at least 20 or so back issues of the magazine, and we'd pore over them looking for things we liked (or disliked), and ways that we could incorporate them into the design. They also had lots of articles about the various types of wall plasters, natural wood stains, wood stove use, etc., etc., and it helped a lot to be able to turn to the magazine when we needed more information on something.

Our good friend who is the salesman for the contractor often brings people by who want to see something that the contractor has done. Yesterday was pouring rain but after they checked out the house we sat down for tea and the cat Mario leaped up on the woman's lap and went to sleep and we sat around chatting for a long time. It's what we like about the house: people seem to find it very comfortable and are never in a hurry to leave. And the more time we spend down here, the slower our lives become and we can find no reason why they shouldn't hang out.

ever seen a purple rose?

 

I just spent the whole day . . . well, five hours, anyway . . . in a sea kayak plowing the waters between here and neighboring villages. It was my first time, and I'm now in great pain, (and expecting even more tomorrow), but elated by the experience. Never realized how much the sea changes at that surface level, and we had it all. It was almost lake-like when we started, but by the end of the day, we we fighting a wind from the east and a tide that was against us, and it was a real trip to try to find the right rhythm that would let you make any headway through the choppy waters. But we did, through rocks poking out of the water, past wind and wave-shaped islets, past schools of stand up paddlers. (The SUPs have become the hottest thing on the water this year.) Stupidly, I didn't take a camera, so all the great and unusual views of this area from the sea are all just in my head.

Oh yeah, the purple rose. It's officially a "blue" one, and was developed after many years of difficult research by a subsidiary of the sponsor of the radio show that I do. It was to commemorate the 1000th show--at one a week, that's 20 years--though I've only been doing it for about 8. It was a nice gesture, though I received it at 10:00am and had to carry it around all day before going home. So when I handed it to M, she noticed that it was a little frayed. What can I say? How often do you see a purple rose?

the lumberjacks

 

Last Wednesday, on the front range of Japan's northern Alps, we formed a small posse that was intent on supplying our beachside house with firewood next winter. A 10-minute drive from M's parents' place in Nagano was a mountain that the forestry preservation association was thinning to improve the health of the forest. Up a steep slope just off the road, the forest was full of just toppled trees. M's mom scrambled right up the mountainside and with another friend, was soon flipping the logs down the side of the mountain. (That's her in what I consider to be the classic "beekeeper" mode above.) M's dad and I (that's him in his classic "victory over the Japanese oak" pose above) had the chore of sawing the logs into pieces small enough for me to be able to haul them back to Akiya.

Over the course of a few hours, we had the van filled high enough that it was starting to squat down on its shocks, but I could still see out the rear-view mirror. I wouldn't have minded a larger truck: we ended up leaving quite a bit of sawed logs by the side of the road for a future pick-up.

Thursday morning I drove back to Akiya, a fairly nice drive until I hit an accident jam close to home and spent two hours going 28km. It felt very good to get out of the car and start chopping the logs stove-size. Lots of nara oak and soyogo, Longstalk Holly, both of which are very hard and burn well. As always with M's parents, I ate well and had a great time.

Running on empty

As you can see, one of my two woodsheds is running low; the other is equally bare. Though this last winter was a mild one, my physical condition kind of interfered with my usual gathering of local wood, so I'm going on an overnight run up to Nagano for a refill. I don't feel like making the trip in our tiny 360cc van, so I'm going to trade cars with the contractor who built our house. (He bought my old car and said I can use it anytime. Can you believe how cool these guys are?) I'll be going up to M's parents place.

M's dad said the forest behind them has to be thinned, so I'm taking my chain saw and hoping to get some good wood in time to chop it and dry it for next year. I'm also looking forward to the good company of M's mom and dad, and the good food that is always on the table. It's a weekday: m's in school and M has to stay with her, so they're totally jealous.

Monday

Unemployment kind of hit me hard today.

This was the first Monday that wasn't a holiday, or a day full of things I had to do for others, or rushing to get my taxes paid, or whatever. It was just an ordinary Monday, and I still wake up before 6am, with faint intrepidation at the long train commute before remembering that I DON'T HAVE TO. I know I should be thinking about my next job, and I do a little bit, but I'm not in a rush, considering this fine season for living on the beach. So I fill my days: I ran three laps of the beach (only 3km, but I'm feeling my lungs expand, and it's on sand) and plan to build up the distance, watched the Chicago Bulls take apart the Miami Heat, walked to the next village and the kayak shop, where I picked up a catalog.

Got back to the house and weeded in the garden, and planted some ruccola and halapeno peppers until m got home. Had her practice piano, and then went outside to continue our bicycle riding lessons. She made the big jump today, finally understanding the balancing idea and took off. I'd forgotten how instantaneous that moment is. But I think the photo below has got to be a metaphor (symbol?) of her growing up and . . .

We went back to the garden and made our first harvest for a salad--three kinds of lettuce, basil, Italian parsley, ruccola and some carrot greens.

What am I going to do tomorrow?