Yamamomo

Today I planted a yamamomo (Myrica rubra) on the site where there compost used to be. This is an evergreen tree that grows quite large, and so hopefully it will screen off the garden from the footpath that passes further up the hill. It also produces strange red fruit. These aren't terribly pleasant to eat fresh, but my mother in law makes a very nice drink by soaking them in cheap brandy. Most medicinal it is. The fruit should also serve quite well as jam. For those who are interested in such things, the type is 'Moriguchi', whatever the hell difference that makes.

The missus has said that our (my) garden looks like a 'shizai okiba', that is, a scrap yard or lumber yard. The description is not without justice, and I've felt the same thing myself. But it hurts to hear it out loud. Today, though, with a small fruit tree where the compost used to sit, visible to one and all from the front gate, and with a naturalistic stone wall where there was originally a very scruffy agglomeration of lumber and bamboo, I can't help feeling that things have been tidied up considerably. One of these fine days I feel I might challenge the missus to look out the window and see if she can still say that it looks like builder's merchant's.

I'm hoping that the yamamomo feels blessed, sited as it is on a one-time compost enclosure.

What I did over New Year

The young master is studying hard for his junior high school entrance exams and so this New Year, we didn't go anywhere or 'do' anything. However, I was not idle.

Here's what I did.

I finished my bamboo fence, with two styles.

Since this involved visits to the bamboo grove, I felt compelled to tidy things up in there.

Before.
Dead wood everywhere, stifling new growth.

After.
Room for new shoots in the spring.
It's actually possible to see from one end of the grove to the other now.

I went to the local sake brewery, Yuki Suzume and bought a bottle of junmaishu of which I drank quantities, warmed in the microwave.

All full of sake, I photographed the moon on New Year's eve.

I built a stone wall to replace the untidy wooden rows I put up in a hurry to stabilize the soil when we first moved in.

I liquidated the compost piles as backfill in the new wall. The compost piles were also situated in haste when we moved in, and they weren't put in a very good place.

I built a new compost enclosure on an old raised bed and filled it up with the remains of the summer vegetables (tomatoes and eggplants).

All of this manual labour took a toll on my hands which are now as rough as sandpaper and covered in cuts and purple blotches. At these times I'm reminded of the film The Killing Fields where the horrible Khmer Rouge felt people's hands to see if they were labourers, killing those who weren't. I wonder if I'd pass, or have to claim that I was a taxi driver. Handling stones dries out the skin wonderfully, and touching bamboo cuts it to ribbons and implants little splinters that must be dug out. Still, the physical tiredness at the end of the day feels very good compared with intellectual labour. If only it were as remunerative...

Managing a bamboo grove

There are a couple of bamboo groves within a two minute walk of our house, one of moso, and the other of madake. Both of them are a real mess of half-fallen dead wood which forces all new growth to grow up at the same slant. As a new soft culm forces itself up through the tangle of dead wood, it suffers damage which is then subject to attack by insects and other rot. And although the grove persists, each bamboo fails to reach its fullest size, and none of it is usefully straight.

I've been wanting to do something about it for a while, and I've been gradually cutting out the dead wood from the moso grove to make charcoal with. Recently, having decided to complete my bamboo fence with the easily manageable madake, I began to tackle the dead wood. Hacking it into pieces with my bill-hook/machete thing is a very violent activity, and showers of rotten bamboo come crashing down from on high. Luckily, most of it is pretty light so it doesn't hurt much if it lands on your head.

By the time I've smashed up great swathes of dead wood and cut out the mature culms that I want for my fence, it's generally too dark to stack the cuttings tidily. But unless I do that, the new growth will no doubt be as twisted as ever. So I guess at least part of the New Year holidays will be spend sorting and stacking dead sticks.

It occurs to me that chickens could be kept in a well managed bamboo grove. The cuttings could be used for fencing all around parts of the grove, the trees would give the birds some protection from the weather and predators, the birds would be able to find quite a lot of insects to eat, and they would provide the trees with fertilizer. A few berry and seed-bearing plants around the edges would bring more insects and provide the birds with more nutrition. It seems like an interesting idea in theory.

Addendum:
I've finally found out who owns the grove. When I was in there tidying up the other day, a mikan farmer with storehouse next to the grove hailed me through the trees to offer me several sacks of mikan. I took the opportunity to ask if he knew whose land it was, and he told me that it belongs to a doctor who lives on the other side of Matsuyama. He never visits apparently. Absentee landlords, the old problem...

"Fungal Exuberance" by Mike O'Rizal

Put some charcoal in a bucket. Use the bucket as a urinal for a few days. Mix in some of the powder that you get after polishing rice (nuka*). Cover and leave to stand for a week or so. And enjoy the absolute riot of fungus that results.


I'm not sure if this is going to be beneficial for the soil or not, but I'm fondly hoping that this is going to be the start of a truly beautiful mycorrhiza. I chucked several spoonfuls of it on a few areas of the ground cover to see if it makes any difference.

* I can't seem to say the word "nuka" normally. Whenever I'm about to say it, some kind of primitive spirit takes over and forces me to say it in a really deep voice, and then repeat "nuka - nuka - nuka" in the same deep voice while rolling my eyes. It's hardly surprising that I attribute special powers to nuka.

More bamboo fencing

The fencing method using bundles of bamboo twigs was getting to be a real hassle. I began to think I'd be an old man before I got my fence finished. So I changed to a new method, with cross pieces of moso bamboo split into four, and uprights of madake bamboo cut into roughly similar lengths. This method is also time-consuming, but nothing in comparison to the twigs.

Twiggy

"Teppo-gaki" or "Gun Fence"

Hojo Matsuri

Saturday

On the first evening, it was looking a lot like rain. As the sun went down, it backlit the Takanawa Shrine flags. The flags creak like sails in the wind.

The activities of Saturday night were essentially the same as Sunday night, so I won't bother going into them in detail -- needless to say though, there was beer, noise, exertion and shouting.


Sunday

The morning started in Takanawa Shrine following a breakfast of beer and custard-filled bread. The dancing dragon-lion thing was finally tamed in the traditional method with a couple of shots to the head from a musket, whereupon it could be led about quietly.

An exceptionally heavy omikoshi was bounced around the shrine grounds. This monster is an old portable shrine from the days when our area had a bigger, younger population that could bear the weight.

View from the shrine gate

Looks like a question of too much beer too early

After the diabolical entertainments in the shrine, it's time to wheel the danjiri up and down the street. I'm wearing my new black koikuchi pyjamas which my neighbour kindly brought to my house from his workman's clothing shop.

Shortly after this picture was taken, I ducked aside to avoid the corner of a portable shrine that was making straight for my head. Whereupon I experienced an intense crushing, burning sensation that I couldn't quite place. Then I realized that the danjiri had run right over my foot. No harm done, but gosh, your fully laden danjiri is a very heavy thing.

Not that omikoshi are light either. The one that missed me was laden with a young father clutching his baby daughter who was dressed in full festival fig of course.

The sun rises over Takanawa-san in the background

A young lady in boots appeared to watch the danjiri, but she wasn't left in peace for long. A farmer promptly gave her his happi jacket and recruited her to grab a pole. Now as I understand it, for safety reasons, nobody is allowed to ride or manipulate the danjiri unless they're wearing tabi, but it seems exceptions can be made under special circumstances.

When I declared that the little girls looked like a herd of some species of animal, there was a strong and mutinous reaction, but when I showed them this photo, it turned to general agreement.

The morning bash ended and I went home to brush my teeth, weed my garden and gird my loins for the second evening's session.

Now the evening session is quite a business. All of the danjiri from the local districts gather on a wide stretch of road and are pushed together side-by-side in rows of six. While the young folk ride on the danjiri, hammering on bells, thrashing drums, blowing whistles and waving batons, their ageing parents push on the poles like galley slaves. Some of the older folk, myself included, like to yell 'Yoi-sa!" in time at the top of their lungs until they're hoarse. Then they like to croak impolitely at the womenfolk for beer.

Local teenage girls who normally drift by unnoticed in school uniforms suddenly appear in full make-up with earrings and big smiles.

After the evening bash, there was a solemn ceremony in Takanawa Shrine to invite the god down into the portable god-box. However the solemnity was broken by a series of loud farting noises from the assembled kneeling children. It was hard to tell if the noises were real or feigned, but nevertheless they produced uncontrollable giggles. The adults did their best to suppress the hilarity by saying things like "If you keep that up you'll really shit yourself" and "Cor, that was a nasty one". It seems as though the Shinto aspect of the festival is not treated with great respect by all parties, and at one point I noticed that the younger kaminushi or 'god master' was getting seriously riled by his parishioner's lack of piety.

The little ones were not still for long

The next morning, Monday, we were up at a leisurely 7:30 for a breakfast of beer, sake, and horrible little dried fish at the shrine. The sake tasted pretty good as a change after all the beer. We set off from the shrine singing the shrine-carrying song, a nice call and response ditty which extols the virtues of our region. I have the melody down better than most of my neighbours and received some joshing about stealing the limelight -- "Roddo bakkashi yan".

The region is certainly worthy of songs of praise

We carried the shrine here and there to different people's houses and were treated to more beer and some rather good snacks.

Farmers, men of industry, and salesmen

The view from the roof of the wedding hall

More stops, more beer

Of course, after three days of drinking beer from dawn till dark, hauling danjiri and omikoshi along flag adorned streets, these heavy articles have to be disassembled and put away carefully in storage for next year. This can seem a bit of a fag. A pleasant meal and more beer is served after the work is done.

The last picture is one I took on my way home on Monday evening. Like the strips of land, I felt like I was suspended in space, and my thoughts, such as they were, mirrored the wispy clouds. Home, to an early bed.


Tuesday

It appears that the shock of getting up on Tuesday and not drinking several bottles of beer before 7 am has undermined my constitution. I have a terrible cold and my hips don't seem to be functioning properly at all.

Festival preparations

Next week we have our festival, Insh'Allah. And so today, in spite of it being Sunday, I rose at 7:30 to join my neighbours at 8 for the 'michizukuri' or 'roadmaking'. This is a jolly business of going along all the roads pulling up weeds, trimming the verges with weedwhackers, and setting fire to the banks of dams. It's also a good chance to shoot the breeze with one's neighbours, most of whom have lived here all their lives and offer some interesting descriptions of how things used to be. Now that most pathways are paved with poured concrete, the literal meaning of 'michizukuri' has largely vanished, and the petrol-driven weedwhacker has also made things a lot easier, if a lot more noisy.

Women sheltering in the shade of a shed. It was hot.
I wonder what they talk about together.

One bloke who farms was showing me where a wild boar had entered a rice paddy and knocked down a lot of stalks. As we walked, I failed to notice the dip by which the farm equipment enters the paddy, twisted my ankle, and nearly ended up in the paddy myself. It didn't hurt at the time, but now it does. I obviously haven't been here long enough, because nobody laughed at me.

Moonlit shrine on Friday night.
The boys were practising their Drum n' Bell while the girls
were pasting 3,000 little flags on bamboo twigs to decorate the
danjiri

In the afternoon, it was time to put together the 'danjiri', or what might I suppose be called a 'juggernaut'. This involves getting enormous wooden poles from inconspicuous storage next to the shrine, and various parts from the storeroom adjoining the village hall. Also, bamboo is cut from the mountain to make fenders for the main unit. These bits and pieces are all tied together with ropes which are pulled and hammered tight until they feel like steel.

Roping up the poles to the body of the danjiri.
Lots of headscratching about the method of winding.

Putting the cross-braces on. Everything wound and hammered.

Putting on the bamboo fenders.

All wrapped up against the typhoon expected tomorrow

The Japanese passion for 'monozukuri', or 'making things' is apparent in the collective care that goes into making a good, safe danjiri (English monozukuri also made itself apparent in a rather fanatical zeal to take the sharp edges off the cut bamboo with a lathe, since this alone is something one knows how to do...).