Rin-do

Logging roads. After the typhoon last week, the logging road up the mountain across the river from the house was a bit damaged. Which was not so good for me, since I had to use it to bring some more wood down. I wish I had thought to take pictures of the bad spots before I spent an hour shoveling fill into a one meter deep rut. But here is one of the not so bad spots.

So I filled up the truck with gas...

Gas prices here in Japan have been going down a bit, so I thought I would take the K-truck in and fill it up. Sure enough, 141 yen/L. Not too bad.
For you Americans out there: 141 yen is $1.78.
One liter is .26 gallons.
So the price in USD was  $6.73/Gal.

What's the price like for you guys?

My New Fork

My Digging Fork and my Farmer Boy

I love a good tool. Like my new Spear and Jackson Traditional Digging Fork, which I picked up for 6,615 yen online last month. And it is a pretty nice tool so far. I double-dug a trench for planting my peas in, and this thing just sank into the hardpan like a hot knife through butter, and when I levered it out, it mellowed the subsoil beautifully! It was about a million times better than the only other fork I could find in the home centers, which happened to be manure forks. They just don't do the job. Sure, they sink in nice, but bend like rubber bands if there is a rock or root anywhere.

My Friend Kay

I'd like to introduce you to someone special- my good friend Kay.
She's a cute little 22 year old, and she loves to get dirty working on the farm.
She loves to carry giant sacks of leaves in the fall, and in one load she can carry more firewood than we burn in a week in our stove. She never complains about the weather, and is as surefooted as a mountain goat.

She's special.

She's my truck :)

So you see, here in Japan, they call these cab forward micro-trucks "Kei-tora" lit. "Light Truck."
I just call mine "Kay" for short. They are incredibly useful, even though the old ones like mine scream if you push them past 60Km/hour (about 45 mph for the metric impaired). She gets incredibly good gas milage.. She has limited slip differential 4WD (whatever that means) and an AM radio. That is about the extent of her options. If I want to check the oil, I unbuckle the front seat and take it out to access the engine. She is so old I have to stop the truck, get out, and lock the hubs manually before I can put her in 4WD. When I drive her, I have to open the window to stick my elbow out, and I have to bow my legs to fit in the cab. But she's sturdy, clean, and looks good in white- even after Labor Day.

Yep. She's a good 'un. A keeper.