Natural beauty, and lumber clearing in the valley - Thu 26 Apr

This morning, there was some drizzle during the eco tour. It created a heavenly vista out over the town Azumino and the mountain ranges fading into the distance.


The three women on the tour today were cluey with the answers to Usui san's questions, for once. One of them reminded me distinctly of Terri Gillespie from Coles Group. Sorry Terri, no picture, should have thought of that!

Usually, Thursday is the day off for everyone (or at least an easy day), as no reservations are accepted for guests for Thursday night. However, hands were needed at the lodge today. I was off for another day of lumber lugging and burning with Usui san and our new helper Ai.

I'm continuing my new frenzy of hand-written note taking about vocab and phrases, and during discussions in the car, I was rather surprised to uncover the fact that the vehicle doesn't use tempura oil in the engine, as I had previously thought and blogged - it uses tempura oil as a FUEL, instead of petrol! As the burning tempurature (sic, joke) of tempura oil is 180 degrees as compared to 45 degrees for petrol, there is a specialised fuel injection system. The oil needs to pass through a centrifuge to remove impurities. (Remember this conversation is in Japanese, so there was a fair bit of stopping to explain vocabulary. I was impressed when I finally grasped 'centrifuge', then less impressed to find I couldn't remember the English word to write down.) The centrifugal process happens in an inconspicous little refueling station next to the pension, onsite at Shalom Hutte.

On the way, we passed big bare dirt mallet golf course, novel. We also passed this beautiful peach grove in flower. The fields are rapidly being filled with water in readiness for rice planting, and this scene was particularly beautiful.


One of the peach trees in blossom.


Meet the two workmen, who chainsaw the logs and drive a digger. I had a fair bit of difficulty understanding them speaking. Here we're having morning tea - bottomless green tea, sticky rice balls with sweet beans on top, sliced pickled radish, and sweet-and-savoury black sesame biscuits. The morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea dished up at the lodge is delicious and gives my stomach something to smile about while the rest of me is busy lugging wood.


A narrow but deep valley runs beside the lodge, and a small stream runs over a concrete ledge down to a lower level on the property. The valley is choked along its length with fallen trees, and the group's task today was to clear it.


Although she was wearing a bandanna, a couple of bits of Ai's hair that escaped the bandanna took a turn for the worse at some stage during the day near the fire, taking on the air of a crimping iron disaster. Here, hair all tucked safely away, she meets a sapling.


In an unhappy plastic bag, really nowhere in the valley, we found someone's long forgotten stash of decomposing adult videos.


During lunch of unintentionally spicy Nepalese curry mix, the weather grumbled from occasional drizzle to raining quite heavily. This meant that Ai and I followed our lunch with an hour's nap on the rug in the lodge.

Toward the end of the day's work, the valley was mostly cleared of fallen trees. (Taken upstream from the previous picture, there's no good before-picture comparison. I'll learn.)


A good day's work done, we were off back to Shalom Hutte at 5pm.


We had apple pie folds for dessert tonight, and Usui san sat with the six experience workers during dinner. We all had a couple of glasses of draught beer each with dinner. Consequently, three of the girls were in bed by 8pm.

I spent a bit of time translating my vocab notes - I've managed 7 pages in a couple of days. The pen is mightier than the brain, so I'll be a while yet stuffing all the new permaculture and farming and fire-related vocab in there. I use an extensive, free online Japanese-English English-Japanese dictionary. If only I could have it in my pocket, it would make my conversations flow much more smoothly.

I noticed pile of the extremely professional cookbook the owners have put together among the items for sale. It's odd to see what are now such familiar meals, activities, scenery and people in a cookbook. It's like finding your bedroom and front garden in a book. If only it wouldn't be such a struggle with the language, I'd get one.. I may get one all the same as a memento. Something else to bring a ring of truth to 'luggage'.

Another day of being very grateful for hearty activity outdoors.