After nearly 20 years in big Tokyo I was feeling burned out in my not-so-successful "career" in the service industry, knocking on several ceilings....so after a chance discovery of cheap old farmhouses we set out towards the countryside - but still close enough for my wife to further pursue her working live, commuting by Shinkansen while I would take care of the house and kids and build my own little cafe at home...
Our first bump came when we realized that the bank wasn't willing to give a loan for an old rundown house on some worthless property in the "Hinterland". So, we changed plans and will be building a new house. We already bought the plot last year, with about 400 square meters size, and I have started the vegetable garden beforehand, next project will be the garden house.

26 July, 2011

A long day

Today was my off-day, meaning I was very busy trying to fit the necessary gardening, Garden House and Family time all into one day's time. Impossible to achieve, but at least I did some of each...

Early morning I set out to our garden to finish the asphalt roofing of the Garden House before the next heavy rain would come. For this I first had to strengthen the beams below the roof, otherwise I would not be able to safely climb onto it, but necessary to attach the roofing. I than cut the sheets of roofing, calculated how much overlapping I could achieve and than started with the first one from the low back end of the roof, slowly working my way up. I didn't want to move in a hurry on the sloped roof and was always careful where to put my hands and feet to balance my body weight  because an accident on the roof is never an easy story, and working alone would make it even more trickier.

 I than did the second job, digging out potatoes. I had first thought about bringing out the whole lot, but the weather now is not real dry, we have thunderstorms more or less close by nearly every day, and after finding some information on the net I took an easier, and time-friendly approach, and dug out only half of the first row to have stuff for the week it will take till my next off-day. They where very different in size, big ones but also very small ones, either they didn't get enough fertilizer in the later time or the bugs eating off all the leafs stopped the growth too early.

In the afternoon I had another two hours to finish the roofing, it had been getting really hot on the black asphalt sheets, indicator to put some insulation below the roof before the next summer...on the picture you can see the two beams I added in the morning from below, the ones that are not sticking out in the front. Before that the 9mm OSB had laid only on the corners and, needless to say, were really sagging in the middle.

For dinner we enjoyed the fresh potatoes, delicious, kind of buttery taste to it, remarkably different from the usual fare at the supermarket.


Hannah had a potato as well, mixed with her tomato spaghetti, and enjoyed it very much.






This a called a ヤマユリ, yamayuri, golden-banded lily. It's the symbol flower of the town and grows wild in different spots, as well as in our garden, two spots each with about a dozen plants in it, beautiful to look at.

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