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Yumbo!
One of my goals for 2024 is to get my excavator certification. It’s not a typical goal for a middle-aged lady, but read on for the why. Thanks to a lucky chain of events, I am helping to organise an English-friendly certification course in Kamogawa in November. We are currently hustling to get enough students…
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Moon Madness
Might as well blame the minor incidents of the last couple of days on something. It was the FULL MOON that gave me a migraine, caused me to search the house for a missing spoon at 2 am, and made Beryl play with a snake. There’s not much else to say about the “Respect for…
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Camera Roll
What have I been taking photos of this month? Most of them ended up in blog posts, but here are a few smaller moments that didn’t get their own write up. Things I made: Skies: Cats: If you want my ephemeral photos in realtime, my Instagram stories feature shots like these.
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1 year at 555
Today’s the anniversary of our move into the new house. It’s been a great 12 months and I wanted to mark it with a visual celebration. But instead, I have been distracted by cleaning and maintaining all of the things I ignored for a year. Lest you think I slacked for an entire year, here…
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Starting the storehouse
Work has begun on the fanciful toolshed. After getting quotes from Sasaki-san, I opted for a slightly less elaborate but still pretty fancy version of my traditional storehouse and wood deck design. The first step is to reinforce the cracked and bulging concrete walls. These walls form the retaining wall between the driveway and Blueberry…
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Rice shortage
Japan is facing a crisis of its main staple, rice. In terms of food self-sufficiency, rice is about the only thing that Japan produces in large enough quantities for everyone – about 7 million tons/year. But since summer, rice supplies have dwindled. Prices have jumped about 20%. Grocery shelves are empty and customers are limited…
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Blacklight
Earlier this summer, I found a small wasps’ nest in the Tractorport. I learned that the yellow bits might be fluorescent. Interesting. So when I noticed wasp activity around the house last week and found a new nest, I bought a UV flashlight to test if the yellow nests are fluorescent. Yes! So bright. It’s…
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Trivial Pursuit 日本版
Yesterday at a thrift store, Tod stumbled upon an old Trivial Pursuit game in a dusty original box wrapped in cling film with an oddly printed out import label on it. We both have fond memories of playing Trivial Pursuit around our family tables, so he snatched it up for 2000 yen. Upon unboxing, we…
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30 Days of Progress
Dear Complete-It Club members, The crisp air of autumn is still months away here in Japan, but it’s rice harvesting season and there are pumpkins at the farmer’s markets. I’ve seen Halloween decorations at Daiso. So let’s harness this seasonal shift to breathe fresh life into our projects. I’m excited to announce our September theme:…
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Shady skies
The past week has been full of photos on social media of extraordinary sunsets with intense colors, shadows, crepuscular and anti-crepuscular rays. This morning I caught crepuscular shadows in the sunrise as a typhoon heads our way and the clouds are big and billowing. Below are sunset photos from recent days by friends on Facebook.…
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