Isogashi

Sorry for the slow down in posts. Lately I've been using my evenings to socialize rather then do computer work. Just spent some time looking over the 480- something pictures I've taken in the last week. So I'll probably have a fun photo filled post in the next day or two. (I make no promises though.) I will however leave you with this photo that was taken for the short amount of time when we had 10 WWOOFers. (The most we've had so far. This number was only maintained for about 4 hours.)

(Click to embiggen)

P.S. The title of this entry is the Japanese word for busy.

Grapes

So I've been working on grapes for the past couple days. Mostly taking the vines that are growing and taping them down to the wire grid that they rest on. The work isn't hard, but the height of the grid changes sometimes. Most of the time its the perfect height for me to stick my head through and work at roughly eye level. But sometimes it gets lower and I am forced to either crouch a bit, or adopt a very wide stance to lower my height a bit. The other problem that happens is sometimes the vines are too close together and I can't find a place to stick my head through and I have to work from underneath. But all in all, its pretty minor. At the end of the day I feel fine, so I'm happy. I feel kind of bad about the others though, If your shorter then me you have to look up all the time, and it must hurt their necks.

Anyway, Just wanted to do a quick update to prove that I'm still alive and well. But I'm tired, so I'm off.

~Daniel

KITTENS!

Because I know people want to see these guys, here are a couple photos of the the kittens.
They haven't been officaly named, but I have names that I call each of them. Meet: Domino, Geo (Or 'Terra' if its a girl, I'm not sure), Shamisen, and Spot (Or 'Dot' if its a girl, I'm not sure).

Fresh Work.

I've had an interesting couple of days in the best possible way. I got to do several different kinds of work that kept me busy but weren't exhausting. The first of which was spraying the grapes like in the photo on my last post. Although that jug of the chemical was fairly heavy and that strap wasn't exactly great for distributing the weight on one shoulder. After a few minutes I fastened it around my waist instead (It was far more comfortable that way). Kenichi saw what I did and asked me how I did it. Apparently his shoulder was hurting from it too. (He'd been at it longer then me so I can only imagine. It seems my improvisation brought about a small change in how this activity will be carried out in the future)

The next job I got to do was hanging nets up inside the greenhouses. (they aren't really meant for temperature control, they are for keeping out the rain and birds) Even with the netting all around the outside of these houses, sometimes birds still get in, so we hang nets from the ceiling so that they can be caught and put outside the net again. (Its hard for them to get out if the manage to find a way in.

The last and most interesting job I got to do was helping to fix the roll down plastic covering on the roofs of the houses. It Involved climbing around on the roof of a structure that could have been modeled using k'nex, and a lot of tape for covering up small holes. This job took a while because you can't move very fast on the roof due to footing. It was fun though and it allowed me to find a good vantage point for some pictures (I'll upload those later).

Oh yeah, I also got to drive on of the trucks on the city streets for a while. Kenichi had to return a rented tractor so I followed him to the rental place and we carpooled back. It was fun, I took a video too. Unfortunately its too large to put on youtube. (perhaps I should look into reducing the recording quality on my camera temporarily)

We had today off and spent most of it relaxing. I introduced Akemi and Wing to Firefly. They said it was exciting. Unfortunately Akemi is leaving tomorrow so I won't get to show her any more. Wing still has a few days though. Other then Firefly, we went to an onsen for a short while. Because we went in the middle of the day it was virtually empty. I actually had the water to myself for a while.

We got 3 girls from Singapore this evening. They all speak good English, and one speaks some Japanese. Didn't really get a chance to talk to them much though. They're only gonna be here for 3 days it sounds like. Sounds like I won't be working with them tomorrow during the day either. Guess I'll have to talk to them at breakfast and find out what their story is. Also their names would be a good thing to learn as well. (I'm so horrible with names)

Anyway, time for sleep.

Oh yeah, since people keep asking me, I will be returning to the US on June 15th.

~Daniel Hattem

Photo dump

I just wanted to put up some pictures that I've taken in the last few days. So here they are in no particular order. As always, Click the image to embiggen.

Got to do some work on the grapes. This stuff is the chemical that makes grapes seedless.

Yet another unidentified Insect. Let me know if you have any idea what it is.


Putting the 'Dan' in bandanna. I bought myself some new head wraps.


This is the last picture I have of Brandy and Mini Mike together. curled up on Kazu's Jacket at lunch.
My weed whacking get up after a morning of work. If you look closely you can barely tell that the pants I'm wearing are in fact Camouflage.


Sunset in the clouds over the mountain range that translates into 'Eight Peaks'. Taken from Yoko's porch.


One of our delicious dinners cooked up by Yoko.


Wing looking out at Mt. Fuji. I really like how this turned out.


Well that's it for now. Sorry I don't have any kitten photos. They generally require both my hands in order to feed one and keep the others from escaping at the same time. So I haven't gotten a chance to photograph them. But they are getting bigger every day and drinking plenty of kitten formula.

~Daniel

Going Good, Considering....

The kittens are doing fine. Kazu picked up some kitten formula and is feeding them regularly via syringe. They are strong enough to suck the milk right out of it, rather then needing to push down the plunger to expel the milk into their mouths. They are currently sound asleep and have been so for a few hours.

In other news, We got to try some grapes that were grown here and kept in refrigeration storage or something like that. The were enormous and delicious. We also found out today that they are incredibly expensive. After finding that out, just eating them made me feel rich. I took a short video illustrating my point. It's not even 2 minutes long but due to the connection its going to take like 3 hours to upload to youtube. And due to the unstable connection I keep getting "The upload failed due to an unknown error." So who knows when I'll actually be able to get it online and viewable. But as soon as I do, I'll let ya know.

Just a brief update for now. Once again its past bed time so I'm out.

~Daniel

Bad news

So we have some bad news from the orchard today. Brandy, the mother of the kittens was killed last night. Judging by the marks, my guess is that it was a dog. As unfortunate as this is, we now have the larger problem of four motherless kittens. we've moved them into the house and have been feeding them milk from a spoon and a straw. (So far only one of them can actually lap it up out of the spoon, the rest still chew on the end as if nursing) Seeing as how I have no idea how to take care of kittens that are this young, (and I doubt Kazu does either) I could use some advice. I'm going to suggest that we take them to a shelter or animal rescue center or something so that they can be properly taken care of, but in the mean time we're still responsible for them.

Currently they are in a crate filled with straw, a hand towel, and a sweater. I put a towel over the top to keep it dark since the cat house where they have been so far was pretty much comepltley dark. It doesn't seem like they are used to opening their eyes yet. There is a bit of light coming in from the sides of the milk crate so they can adjust a bit more slowly then being right out in the open.