Tag Archives: tsuchida cottage

Improving Campsite, Personal Musings

Diary: apropos of nothing (sleeping masks, hockey, mosquito net, laundry)

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Really nothing to the usual days except for the brilliance of usual days, appros of really nothing, i annotate for amusement. Carry on in a disinter-mediated manner:

new kamidana house shrine for ancestors – made in Tottori from a slab of gingko wood

Okayama memo: The thing I really like most about is its very “usualness” {aside from being famous for the Momotaro peach boy story and being a “place you pass through to get to other places”} is also almost always sunny but not today (this Cascadian doesn’t mind the rain though).

My 1st era in Japan in the early 90s, was in Tottori (remote w/ kei-truck), later hiding out near Miasa, Nagano. When came back few years ago, found Okayama was just right / Not a hectic sensory overload city but has big hospital, Immigration etc.

Yes, we “lean heavily” into Momotaro folktale here and the image of a peach is scattered all over from statues to utility pole covers and gosh, peaches with a boy coming out of them can look really funny! And apparently it’s the sunniest prefecture in Japan. 

By post: Three pack of organic oatmeal arrived. {always mean to scribble down “tasting notes“ with all the different kinds but never do and never remember which ones were “great“ but all are, you know, good enough} ~ Eat each morning with variety of nuts, berries and sometimes yogurt.

Today by post: hori hori garden tool (this one is artisan made, previously ordered for wife and mother-in-law from off-the-shelf made-in-Japan company) / this one needs sharpened up and it didn’t come with a case/holster :( feels good in the hand though.

can dig, cut, scoop and thwack and wathever else in the garden with this tool

Day in the life:

  • ate salad with smoked salmon for lunch
  • loaded our new tiny dishwasher
  • sent a telegram, really
  • attempting to remove chewing gum from a pocket of a favorite shirt with ice packs #pending

now a rest before finishing laundry

Next day: One oatmeal, three coffees, two baskets of laundry, two hockey games… Now switching to loungewear and some tax paperwork. Then maybe repair a wicker stool after lunch.

Update: some arcane tax documents prepared, stamped, notarized, faxed, ready to mail in Duplicate etc. Indian curry and smoked salmon/avocado/lettuce salad lunch with darling. Next (going to try) to put a new seat on this wicker stool with hemp cloth and upholstery thumbtacks.

It’s not a masterpiece but it’s decent. Sturdy Polish hemp cloth, rugged long tacks & see how it goes. Hooray for hexagons!

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Personal Musings

Diary: April, tiny steps (are what you take)

April 月 4 / Tiny steps (are what you take)

Oh hello May: after I fold this laundry, going to flip over the nine calendars in the house. Then, make turmeric tea and catch up the dishes while darling wife and wonderful child are at tea ceremony.

So April, more “tiny steps” and otherwise in the last two weeks in the previous 3 1/2 months…ergo:

  • went out into the world and met some people and learned some things about traditional houses and permaculture, even some hugs
  • Ryoko’s birthday and our third wedding anniversary, and other erstwhile milestones (recaps available)
  • so many other birthdays of dear friends! Noting that seems most of my friends, like 85%, birthdays are in August (like me) or an April. I have some wonderful friends and made a lot of phone calls to send best wishes
  • sent a few postcards, this seems obvious but this year I’ve been on hiatus of sorts
  • caught-up-ish on a few “life administration” tasks, answered a whole load of email yet of course, as it goes, more just come in #ImTryingMyBest
  • attended a memorial service for a kind gentle sake master at a Buddhist temple, made friends with the Abbott, exchanged artwork, watched my adorable son nap in a room with 3000 wooden carved Buddhas representing those passed on and who are read sutras annually. Also came home with a necktie, kimono and sake cups.
  • received some very kind packages from near and far with thoughtful and practical treats.
  • news of friends getting married, others having babies, others losing loved ones. As Gary Snyder wrote to Lew Welsh, “teach the kids, it’s all about the cycles”. #Peace
  • continued small steps to improve the campsite (metaphorically, our home) and supporting wife who unflinchingly and constantly takes on increasingly complicated projects like it’s no big deal

As always, more to say, I’m always “behind” but really, far far ahead and eternally grateful for your kind words, positivity, hopes of peace ++ I see your hard work, I see your struggles and always cheering for you.

Fondly, dvo at Tsuchida Cottage

Ichiro heading out to tea ceremony

Happy Golden Week (to those who celebrate :)), otherwise, general happy days in good times to all – from us at Tsuchida Cottage.

[Update] changed the calendars (only eight as didn’t go outside to change the one in the carport), tidied the house, dinner with my darlings and of course bathtime (best time!)

In bed at nine, read a book, zonked out (aside from midnight sleepwalking foraging for a snack) >> now it’s nine in the morning the next day and I feel like I ran a half marathon and drank at least eight beers and flew across 17 time zones. This illness #MECFS is a trickster. But I’m happy.

Oh, I made at least three phone calls yesterday just to shoot the breeze and catch up with friends and family.

Improving Campsite

Ryoko’s Charcoal Kiln, annotations

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Charcoal Kiln drum – improving the campsite

Ryoko has a notion to make charcoal using a 200 litre (50 g) drum as a kiln. She’ll cut in a chimney & stuff it with hardwood and/or bamboo and use charcoal for tea ceremony, grilling & whatnot.

Metalwork, concrete, power shovels, physics, arts and crafts… All in one

Ryoko’s charcoal making kiln project continues – includes ridable machines and metal work and bricks. I made her an iced chai. #Helping

Also: last week, she was singing on a live stream, this week she’s running a power shovel, she also performed tea ceremony and a dozen other specialty skills #AmazedDaily – and all of it is done like “it’s no big deal, I just figured out how to do this and think it will be interesting“ 

Question: Make charcoal? Why and is this for you or she has been hired?

Charcoal = yes

Why? = for experimenting in sustainability and general arts and crafts (i.e. use chopped down bamboo in a sensible manner + use the finished charcoal for tea ceremony brazier, barbecues and woodstove)So, no not for me specifically, nor for a client. Just “to do it”

PS This morning she transplanted a tree after moving a bunch of dirt at the end of day yesterday for her tea garden in the front of the house, she was up on the ladder pruning branches but I missed the chance to take a picture so you’ll just have to believe me

Improving Campsite, Personal Musings

Diary: “i much prefer the mundane” – campsite tasks and musings

Continuing to document the mundane / usual days >> like another “waiting for a bus (when i shoulda adjusted my flower) to go to seitai medical treatment”.

Really though, just an excuse to say “thanks for all the kindness of late” – its nice to be your friend + poetry, convos & snaps.

By the way, these are the glasses that were broken several weeks ago and now magically repaired… Serving me well since 1994 (on and off)

Bits and pieces or recent days included with minor annotations in captions and so on:

First: No tenants in the first birdhouse, though lots of birdies around, but made another one anyhow. Its like a housing development here (with no strata fees).

i might just put action figures in the houses instead – I make bird houses (even though no birds seem want to live in them). But I get to make them regardless. This has zero cost and minimal skill and maximum satisfaction. No conventions or preconceived notions of outcomes

unrelated: after building another birdhouse, i submitted 3 poems to one place and 2 to another, ergo:

* Barbed Wire Scars (approx 37 lines)
* Alchemists Confer with Hypnotists (approx 32 lines)
* Nowhere to Call (approx 21 lines)
++
* How Shall We Fill This Vessel
* Aye Carpathia

Ichiro Bench project: More scraps into action to make a workbench for Ichiro who digs playing with his tools & pounding nails. Ichiro loves playing with brooms, rakes, shovels and these kinds of things so… will drill some big holes in the right side of the bench to stash in his own tools
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Improving Campsite

DIY: Hemp curtain , part 2 (with tatami cloth)

Going to try to make the hemp curtain for the back door this afternoon. What do you think for the top curtain loops: the green or the peach?

You maybe caught the first iteration of hemp curtain project for the “old genkon” – this time to cover a rarely-used back door which gets a little bit drafty – still wanted to make sure to look nice with all the paintings I have around there. also had some of this same hemp fabric in black which would’ve been a little bit gloomy for that corner.

(this embroidered cloth is made to be the edges of tatami mats – purchased a highway rest area in the “local made products” section for 300¥ each)

Ok step by step, here we go (notes as captions)

Progress! 191cm L x 78cm W / top-stitched, sides have 14cm overlap.
Next up loops / also prepping 3pm ice coffees for landscape bamboo cutter “crew”
“Schematic” & tool
shockingly, I just double checked my measurements… Like you’re supposed to
Plan is “Approved” by Ichiro
cut the pieces for three loops. It’s really fantastic cloth and (oddly) bought at a local goods corner at a highway rest area for ¥300
Progress, 2 more to go, then bottom hem & tie up string
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Improving Campsite

DIY: (Vacant) Birdhouse improvements / welcome sign & thatch

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Nobody’s moved into the birdhouse yet so I followed some ideas/advice and made a bigger hole, added a welcome sign, and then thatched the roof just for aesthetics.

Might add some seeds and nuts after I rehang it to really entice someone to move it to move in (I thought about putting up a real estate sign with a headshot of the agent, scheduling an open house, and waiting for offers to roll in 20% over asking price… but then I remembered I wasn’t in Vancouver anymore :))

[update] added seeds on frontporch & changed hanging location

Improving Campsite

DIY: 2 trees, 2 flowers, 4 bins

Continuing to “improve the campsite”, ergo:

Two small peach trees, both gifts from Okayama city – the first for getting married, the second for welcoming Ichiro – growing well at Tsuchida Cottage.

Just think, we could get another tree just for having another baby #Idea (get a choice of 6 tree varieties).

Two pots of flowers, planted, sprouting, hanging in baskets on the small bamboo fence in front of the barn studio.

Moved 2 compost bins from the backyard to join the 2 others in the side yard, plus put some of the almost-finished-ish compost under a decommissioned truck tarp.

Note the flagstone rocks previously moved & stacked on a palette.

It’s all quite magnificent. {I’d hope to do more with garden this year but having a really hard time getting energy to do anything but folding laundry. Maybe I’ll try to put new strings on my ukulele (and keep collecting stories like Frederick).}

Improving Campsite

DIY: Birdhouse (vacancy, no application needed)

Made a birdhouse from some scraps of wood, noting birds don’t care about “perfection“ (and fun to make while they’re tweeting all around around me.)

Added on a little bit of an “front porch“ so the little birdies can hang out and enjoy the view and have an easy landing spot.

Note: scraps from poncho stashed inside for nesting – decades ago we would watch the Good the Bad and the Ugly in my VW bus in Orem high school parking lot with Bob Olson & Cory DeMille et al

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Personal Musings

Diary: (trying) to bounce up with various pleasing tasks

Various notes before heading off on a lil roadie to Shimane prefecture (across-ish on Sea of Japan side). Ichiro’s 1st time outta Okayama-ken. Packing light, hitting a children’s museum & aquarium, staying at a ryokan (pyjamas provided). Minimal dispatches, maybe. (by car but saw this train last time)

– carry on

March 24: Trying to bounce up. Did some shoes maintenance, a bit of creative stuff in the barn, bath with the kiddo, eating healthy and taking my supplements but still… dragging :( just saying this out loud to get it out of my head before sleep. No big deal, should be used to it.

Just trying to be 32% as cool as these guys. You know who they are right?

Plan to do some shoes maintenance today. At least one pair anyway, to get ready for our little road trip this weekend. But really, still foggy and in bed.

Or I might sew another curtain. Possibly test some microphones and a little mini PA we got.

Curious if anyone’s moved into the birdhouse. None of this will happen unless I can get out of bed.

OK, general updates

* doesn’t seem anyone’s moved in to the birdhouse yet

* set up mini PA and tested (& taped) 3 diff dynamic microphones

* gonna try fixing up some shoes but do it outside

[update to update: Of course I did a little photo essay of doing shoes maintenance but it may have crossed the street threshold into “completely trivial matters” which means of course, I’ll get to it eventually. Anyhow, my shoes are ready for a road trip tomorrow.]

My brain is so fogged

Photo: family band vibes, impending

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Improving Campsite

Signpost: new planks for Atemi Kougen, Misasa onsen, Dubai, Olympia x2…

New signs on the pole…

Olympia x2 – 1 of which spent 9 years, 1 of which spent 1 day
Atema Kougen, Niigata – where Ryoko worked one summer in University and we visited on honeymoon

{I had to deviate *somewhat* from my usual obsessiveness about the compass directions due to aesthetic and space concerns}.

Dubai (for Cedra)
Misasa onsen – made me fall in love with Japan and then Ryoko

I’m noticing that some of them aren’t *really straight* but well, it’s all an exercise and releasing my perfectionist tendencies.

Khabarovsk – where Ryoko did arborist education exchange with Hongo Sensei

Of course stories behind each place but well I have laundry to fold and dishes to wash. So will hit you up another time with that but if you can’t wait, feel free to ask. Of course tools, methodology and other annotations about how this project came to be are elsewhere in this archive.