Kabochataro, or Little Squashling

Kabochataro and his Blue Hubbard Squash

I may not be much of a farmer, but that here is a big ol' squash. Big enough to fit a small kid into. It reminds me of the Japanese folk tale called Momotaro- or "Son of a Peach!" or "Little Peachling."

So here is the fairy tale from fairytales4u with a bit of word search and replace:

KABOCHATARO

 OR 

LITTLE SQUASHLING

A LONG long time ago in Japan there lived an old man and an old woman. One day the old man went to the mountains to cut grass; and the old woman went to the river to wash clothes. While she was washing a great thing came tumbling and splashing down the stream. When the old woman saw it she was very glad, and pulled it to her with a piece of bamboo that lay near by. When she took it up and looked at it she saw that it was a very large squash. She then quickly finished her washing and returned home intending to give the squash to her old man to eat. 

When she cut the squash in two, out came a child from the large kernel. Seeing this the old couple rejoiced, and named the child Kabochataro, or Little Squashling, because he came out of a squash. As both the old people took good care of him, he grew and became strong and enterprising. So the old couple had their expectations raised, and bestowed still more care on his education. 

Kabochataro finding that he excelled everybody in strength, determined to cross over to the island of the devils, take their riches, and come back. He at once consulted with the old man and the old woman about the matter, and got them to make him some dumplings. These he put in his pouch. Besides this he made every kind of preparation for his journey to the island of the devils and set out. 

Then first a dog came to the side of the way and said, "Kabochataro! What have you there hanging at your belt ?" He replied, "I have some of the very best Japanese millet dumplings." "Give me one and I will go with you," said the dog. So Kabochataro took a dumpling out of his pouch and gave it to the dog. Then a monkey came and got one the same way. A pheasant also came flying and said, "Give me a dumpling too, and I will go along with you." So all three went along with him. In no time they arrived at the island of the devils, and at once broke through the front gate; Momotaro first; then his three followers. Here they met a great multitude of the devils' retainers who showed fight, but they pressed still inwards, and at last encountered the chief of the devils, called Akandoji. Then came the tug of war. Akandoji hit at Kabochataro with an iron club, but Kabochataro was ready for him, and dodged him adroitly. At last they grappled each other, and without difficulty Kabochataro just crushed down Akandoji and tied him with a rope so tightly that he could not even move. All this was done in a fair fight.

After this Akandoji the chief of the devils said he would surrender all his riches. "Out with your riches then," said Kabochataro laughing. Having collected and ranged in order a great pile of precious things, Kabochataro took them, and set out for his home, rejoicing, as he marched bravely back, that, with the help of his three companions, to whom he attributed all his success, he had been able so easily to accomplish his end. 

Great was the joy of the old man and the old woman when Kabochataro came back. He feasted everybody bountifully, told many stories of his adventure, displayed his riches, and at last became a leading man, a man of influence, very rich and honorable; a man to be very much congratulated indeed!

And a word or two about the squash- it was delicious! But so big! I microwaved some and ate it with a dash of salt- delicious. I pressure cooked large cubes- two times! delicious. We made pumpkin soup. We put it into ton-jiru (Japanese pork soup). Delicious.
My only complaint was that it cooked to a mush too easily. Japanese kabocha squash are much firmer, and they don't lose their shape so easily. You can cook up cubes and serve them as cubes. This one was softer than tofu! Touch it and it just kind of melted. But that did make for very good soups and stews.
Maybe after a month or two of cool storage the other squash will be more firm. This one was pretty fresh from the garden.

Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle

Wow. I was pulling out some leaves for mulch from the pile I made last year. Then I noticed a circular hole in the densely packed leaves... What could it be?

Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle emerging

From My Corner of Japan

Why, a Rhino beetle coming out of its pupae skin.

Here in Japan, they are common pets among children and otaku.
The Japanese name- Kabutomushi. Kabuto means "helmet" and mushi means "insect." A helmet bug if you please. Samurai helmets looked a lot like the beetle, hence the name.
So anyway, I picked it up, put it in a flowerpot with some leaves for bedding, and brought it to my school for the little boys in my classes to look at.

From My Corner of Japan

It's a real beauty! Not so large, but very nice indeed.

Check out those abs!

From My Corner of Japan

Once you get over the freakiness of holding large bugs, you can see they are beautiful.

From My Corner of Japan

Map of Recent Quakes

I looked up our area on the earthqake map at High Sensitivity Seismograph Network Japan, and found something interesting

The black arrow points to my house! Click to see it larger

That is a lot of quakes. Don't worry, the red doesn't mean big, it means shallow. Big quakes have big circles.

Japanese Maple Syrup

I love maple syrup. But the price of it gives me some serious sticker shock. We could buy artificial flavor, indeed, we have in the past. But I just feel safer with something natural.
When I was a boy, my Grandfather tapped some local sugar maple trees one year and made some syrup. I wished that I had planted some sugar maples years ago, and went on wishing for syrup.
Then it struck me- my house is surrounded by Momiji- Japanese maples. Some of them two feet in diameter... So I decided to give it a try this year. I cut some bamboo pipes, cut a small flap in the top of a large plastic soda bottle, and bored a hole near the base of a momiji. Sure enough, out came a steady drip drip drip of sap. I tapped in the pipe, fastened a screw above the hole to hold the bottle on, and let it flow. In about 2 hours, it had about 400ml of sap! How about that!?! It was clear as water, and smelled a bit like watermelons. I brought it back to the house, put it in a pot on the stove, and boiled it down. I ended up with about 10ml of momiji syrup. It was fantastic! Sweet, and nutty- kind of tasted like hazelnuts.
Then I took the baby upstairs to put him to bed. While I was upstairs, MY WIFE THREW OUT THE SYRUP IN THE MEASURING CUP!!!!!
To be fair, it didn't look like much, and she didn't know it was syrup. Was still a heck of a shock though.

Onsen = Hot Spring = Heavenly

A couple of weeks ago, our friend John came to visit, so we decided to go to the onsen near our house. "Shika-no-Yu." lit. "Hot Water of Deer." Hmm... maybe that explains the color.. just kidding. It is a nice little onsen in Kita-Ibaraki city.

The tile mural in the bath. Love those stained glass dormers

Tori Oi Matsuri

On Sunday, I headed off to Kimida with a truck bed full of tools and a truck cab full of me and the two oldest kids. The wife and baby stayed behind, since we would be outside the whole day.
Why did we go to Kimida? Well to build the Bird Chasing Festival Hut of course! Silly! What else would we be doing in January on a frozen rice paddy?
It was a blast though. I have loved bamboo since I was a kid, and I love to make things out of it. (Usually the things I make by myself just fall over though. Good thing some people who knew what they were doing were there!)
If you are interested in making your own Bird Chasing Festival Hut, here is how you do it.

1. In early December, cut about a zillion Moso bamboo poles. They should be at least 10 meters.
2. After cutting the zillion 'boo, then cut and bundle about 15-20 heaping truckloads of head high or more grasses. 
3. Dig postholes about a meter apart along the future walls of your hut (4x5 meter huts are a good size.) and drop in 5 meter long poles.
4. Attach horizontal members to the outside at about 90 cm intervals. 
5. Square the building and put in some diagonal stabilizers.
6. Lay the ceiling joists (flat) every meter or so, and cross them with rafters at 60cm intervals.
7. Split some very long bamboo into quarter strips, knock out the nodes.
8. Apply the bottom layer of grass thatching, securing it to the horizontal beams with the quarter strip bamboo withes. The bamboo will just bend right around the corners. Might crack the long way, but that won't hurt the strength any.
9. Apply a second layer the same way, slightly overlapping the first. This should go all the way to the rafters and a bit beyond.
10. Cover the roof with bundles of grass, and leftover bamboo branches.

Or you could just watch this video:



Now dig a firepit in the center, and this is important- DON'T USE OPEN FLAMES IN THE FIREPIT. Bring in a few pieces of already burning charcoal for use in the center of the pit. Roast some fish and rice cakes on bamboo skewers, drink a cup or two of rice wine heated in bamboo pitchers and served in green bamboo cups. Then everyone go outside, check that the fire department truck is standing by, and torch that sucker.

Summer in Ibaraki

Figs ripening

Raspberries too

One of my peach trees- Indian Blood Peach

Persimmon "Fuyu"

A keyhole garden bed of edamame (green soybean)

(I don't care how others tell you how to pronounce it, the proper pronunciation is flat, like "eh-da-ma-may" and NOT "eh-da-MA-may" or any foolishness like that. I know, I live here.)

Me and the boys, beating the heat in our "jin-bei" Very thin hemp cloth shorts and loose top. Wonderful things, really.

Showa Timeslip in Iwaki- Matsugaoka Park

Last weekend, we accidentally fell backwards in time to the late 1970s/early 1980s. We were coming back from a nice hot spring in Yumoto, Iwaki, and decided to check out a park- Matsugaoka Park (the link is google translated, but the pictures are nice). We parked the car, unloaded the stroller, loaded up the baby, and then carried the stroller up the several thousand stairs to the top of the hill. Not a whole lot of handicap accessibility we thought. Arriving at the top, we found the other parking lot. D'oh!
Then it was back in time. The SkyCycle, boat ride, carousel, and mini train, complete with "Family Rand" on the locomotive. All for 60 yen/ride for kids. Yes, even the prices were from the Showa period!
Great care had been taken to keep all the signs and writing to period- even the newly repainted signs style was a throwback.
Did I mention that there were no people in the park other than ourselves and three park employees? Woo Hoo!! No lines! Here are the highlights-

Who could resist the Family Rand train?

The Sky Cycle entrance. Love that funky 80s font style.

Daughter and wife pedaling like mad.

The nautical theme- complete with Koi and live turtles!

Goats Have No Reverse

Goats have no reverse. Seriously. I have two of them here on my homestead, neutered bucks named Sato and Yo, and while they are geniuses at escaping any type of enclosure, they are total morons when it comes to their leads. In the morning, they are excited and happy to be out of their pen (Actually, I am pretty sure they spend most of the night out carousing, just slipping back in at daybreak, like a certain teenager I once was). They are so excited and happy that they immediately wrap their leads around my legs, and continue to spiral ever tighter. And the dog doesn't help, alternately jumping over and ducking under their ropes. So I have to push their heads in a vain attempt to make them back up. Nope. That won't happen. They are bigger than Great Danes with a heck of a lot more traction. So I have to unwind the leads, wondering how goats managed to tie a clove hitch around my knees. Now I am able to move another ten or twenty meters before they find a nice cane of bamboo. Sato goes clockwise, the Yo counterclockwise. Round and round like a flipping maypole. The dog jumps up and down like some sort of spring loaded mud caked pogo stick. I am tempted to just leave them there, but again I untangle their leads and finally get them to their tether in the meadow. Finally the dog and I can get the walk done. Whew.