Though signs request the rivers be kept clean, they ain't.
When I came back, she said to go on another walk with Takki and the dog.
A neighbour's front yard.
Statues outside someone's house.
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A cheerful exhortation to pick up your dog's poo.
We made three dishes for breakfast - a hijiki seaweed hotpot, miso soup, and sauteed okara, the plant used to make tofu.
After breakfast, we put a steamer onto a fire in the garden for the miso rice, wrapped up inside in blue linen.
I "helped" Takki water fields of seedlings, then we extensively planted out basil seedlings.
Yohei pickled some carrots and onions in a light, sweet persimmon vinegar and salt. Takki and I strike a pose with them.
When the rice was steamed, we unwrapped the linen outers to cool it in a tub, before adding the rice yeast. Then the rice is put back into linen bags and kept warm under blankets with big hot water bottles for a few days to let the yeast develop. While adding the yeast, okaasan came out with the English word 'biohazard', which made me a little nervous.
Yohei is trying to grow pumpkin amid weeds in a nearby field, a natural farming method. We drove to the field to hack back some of the overgrown weeds with little scythes. It was long, hard work, but after a while, your back and brain stop complaining.
The post-hacked field.
On the way back, we popped into a hardware and garden store. There were some black tomato seedlings.
That night, there was a darned big spider inside, a handspan's worth. Yohei explained that spiders are considered gods in Japan, and encouraged it outside with a dustpan.
When she came home for dinner, okaasan told us that an old lady at the retirement village had 'retired' in front of her during mealtime tonight - her use of 'retired', humour intended.
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