At this point, it’s no longer an “secret hideout”… Rural Caprine (goat) Farm obviously my favourite place in Japan and where we go for a break to regroup, check in with my buddy Mac-san – who teases me endlessly and unrelentingly about me, showing up, broken down, obviously, needy, and basically useless in the summer of 2018 which changed my life.
Anyhow, in this case me and darling wife and adorable son, had finished our morning chores, hot and sweaty so we took a trip to the farm to cool off, have lunch and possibly pick-up some pallets for some projects.
Turns out, unbeknownst to us – although we should know such thing – it was “Marine day” which is a quasi- national holiday, so quite a few people coming through the farm and surprisingly, many kids younger than our wee bairn.
Anyhow, I took my ukulele, listened to Jerry Garcia band at Cape Cod Coliseum from 1982 while feeling a little melancholy about missing the Dead and Company shows, (although the thought of going to a big stadium with loads of people and light shows is completely and unrelentingly unappealing).
So played a little bit of music of my own for the goats, who remained unimpressed, took a look at the pallets, but found were all more beat-up than we really want to deal with, as well as quite dusty and dirty, too much so to put in the back of Agnes the van (which has a protective sheet). Also looked at a stack of old tatami mats which could possibly be used in a project in reclaiming/regenerating the Kinome land (which has some water retention and excess weed and leveling conundrums), chatted with some ladies who came all the way from Osaka to visit Mac-san’s impressive wine cave, and gave the various hellos from friends who have come by over the last months in years.
As you’ve no doubt heard before, goats love hearing music, so there’s an old time PA system streaming endless tunes to the animals (all day and all night) while inside, Mac-san’s much higher quality stereo system (though the Denon CD player is having troubles) is wedged in between all the artifacts, tchotchkes, memorabilia (including a whole section of items from us), and his ever-expanding record collection, plus variety of gourmet food goods for sale.
{noting that nephew Lee was off on a barbecue/hot spring adventure of his own with a youth group, so it’s not on this expedition}