And, its only appropraite to balance yesterday's snow-porn post with some baby-po... errr... that doesn't sound right... Some photos of Mona. In the photos below you can see that she is already quite smart and aware of the world around her.

• Photo 1: Mona listening to classical guitar.
• Photo 2: Mona listening to me sing.
• Photo 3: Mona after we asked "Who wants boob?"
• Photo 4: Mona being Mona"

Below you see Tomoe with the girl in charge of teaching expecting/new mothers in the village about how to be a mother. (would you believe she is already a mother of five? Just kidding.)

Posted by bastish at 01:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It has been snowing for two days again. These photos are from yesterday morning. There is more this morning. Luckily, the little ditch in front of our house has stopped running, and they are asking people not to dump snow into it for the time being. At least now Tomoe can't be mad at me for staying inside or taking a long walk with the camera...

Above: One of the gates of the local temple.

Above: Taking care of the snow - important places to go... (actually the little girl's ski competition was cancelled due to the poor visibility on the slopes.)

Below: Random buildings, street scenes, and shops in the village. The newest looking one is a "Country Life Experience" house, made to let people see what it would be like to live in a small town (and hopefully encourage people to move here). You can stay there for 1,000 yen per night per family. If anyone is interested, let me know.

Below: A stranded snow-plow, garbage collection area, and bus-stop.

Below: Our house after the first night of snow. I know it doesn't look like much, but that is because i spent a day last week shoveling everything that had accumulated so far.

Posted by bastish at 09:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Watching Mona playing with Poosh - the name Tomoe gave to the little sheep that mom and dad sent - I am wondering where she got her Kiwi genes...

She also enjoys hanging out with "stand-in grandma" (we gotta think of a better name for that) who lives next door.

While Tomoe spent the day Sunday playing with Mona, I had to go to work as a volunteer guide for a snow-hike with the nearby Iiyama Mori-no-ie group. I have some more photos from that hike, but can't seem to post anything other than Mona.

Posted by bastish at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Mona'a a star now, and it's not hard to see why. The television crew made their last visit (or so they promised us) last Friday to get some shots of us at home with Mona- some soft-core action of Tomoe giving chichi (breast feeding) her, and hard-core video of me struggling to write decent caligraphy of her name for the traditional "meimei" - what you do when you give a child a name.

The large paper (all of which Tomoe and I made in the traditional methods of this area, which is famous for its high-quality paper) is one that I wrote with the cameras pressing down on me. I also wrote one of the smaller postcards, and Tomoe wrote one of the smaller postcards after I challenged her when she was laughing at me. It would make me happy if no one can figure out who wrote what.

Despite the poor caligraphy, she seems to be happy with the name.

Posted by bastish at 08:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Posted by bastish at 06:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Don't worry, once things get closer to normal, there will be more photos about life here that aren't exclusively about the baby (Tomorrow I go snow-hiking and hope to get some good photos). But for now, by popular demand, more photos of Jane Doe. We have until Monday to figure out what this little girl will be called for the rest of her life.

Here are some photos from today - as little Mona(?) enjoys the warmth of Aunt Kelly's hand-knit winter cap.

In the mean time, everything is going well. I just got called into the local office to speak with the village official in charge of social welfare. I was afraid that it was because they heard that we had taken baby to the public bath, and as everyone in Japan knows - taking a baby out of the house before he/she is one-month old leads to most certain death.

It turns out that she just wanted to check in and see how everything is going. They also have to make a "home visit" sometime in the first month. On the one hand, this is offending. I am SURE that they would not approve of the conditions we live in (no heat but for a small fire stove, dust and wood chips around, no baby bed (we all sleep together in the same futon), and four cockatiels in the same room, not to mention the mice we hear in the walls every night...) But on the other hand, I also understand their position and the service they are providing. Not all the new parents in the village are as educated and informed as we are. We know what we are doing, and when we do something different than the "national standard" we know why we do it differently. Just a few months ago though, a neighbor's daughter (twenty years old) gave birth and when I asked about her experience at the hospital, she said "It was great! They gave me free diapers!". I guess when it comes to looking after the dwindling population of the village, there are bound to be some false-negatives. I am happy to oblige.

Others have asked me to blog about how we are raising her in our bohemian way, and I plan to give some details. Fact is, though, we are not that unorthadox.

Posted by bastish at 04:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I miss the days when I could shovel my Mrs. Stabnicks drive in an hour and get a stick of Juicy Fruit gum or an apple as payment...

As I mentioned in the "Baby Comes Home" post, there was an unusually big snowfall for January while we were in the hospital. That was Thursday and Friday. Saturday was a bit less snow falling, but all the drainage ditches were clogged due to everyone shoveling and dumping their snow in at once, and an avalanche up-river. I didn't know about it until yesterday, but apparently two of the 80-year-old men put on their snow shoes and made the trek up to clear out the river, once again bringing water to our little hamlet. Apparently there was no one else who was experienced enough to do it. I told the local head that next time I would like to go along - even if I can't be of much help, at least I can watch and learn. He laughed at me.

On Sunday, all the head (males) of the houses gathered in the morning to shovel the snow from various hamlet assets, such as the shrines, the fire-brigade shack, and all the fire hydrants. In the photo you see my kumi (section of the hamlet) trying to find a shrine under the snow. It was literally under the snow. Out of sight.

I was on Yuki-fumi-toban ("your turn to stop the snow down") duty, so on Monday I and a neighbor set off to shovel in front of the garbage collection spot, again in front of the fire-brigade shack, and in front of the local meeting hall. It is quite an easy job now, but back before the big snow-plows, yuki-fumi-toban had to stomp down a trail in the morning so the children could get to school, and other people could get to the local store or wherever they may have needed to go.

Due to the water shortage, I have not yet shoveled the roof of our entrance-way, but the doors still slide smoothly, so it must not be too heavy. Instead, I spent yesterday helping our neighbor shovel another neighbor's roof. Usually it takes him only one day to do it alone, but by night-fall, we had still not finished.

Today and yesterday, I set out to clear the snow from our backyard, where it is piled up to the eve of the second-floor roof. If I don't clear it away, it will eventually just be resting on top of the roof on the oldest part of the house. While I doubt it will collapse, it may warp the house, and cause some very unhappy chickens living in the first-floor garage who can't get food until spring.

I shoveled all day, mostly just re-digging the path I dug to the river a few weeks ago. Just as the sun was about to go down, I was finally to the point where I could start clearing the area that is actually important. Luckily, tomorrow is going to be sunny and warm again, so if I am not too sore, I might be able to make some headway - and possibly find the pond that is supposed to be used to melt all that snow...

Posted by bastish at 05:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

We came home from the hospital a day early. I am not sure if it is because Tomoe and the baby were in such good condition, or if they just wanted to get rid of those freaky people who bring a rice cooker and rice to cook their own meals, and walk through the halls at night singing to their baby. Whatever the reason, they were happy to see us leave early. (Even nurses on different floors who we had never met saw me in the elevator and new that we were leaving that afternoon.)

The TV crew came for our release. It couldn't have been a better day for TV documentary drama. Some of the rads were closed due to snow, and we chose to take a back road to avoid heavy traffic. Back roads take longer, but make for much better scenery and TV.

All the nurses were asking if we would be able to get into the house, and I assured them that our neighbors had probably shoveled our entrance way already. When we got home though, there was a meter of fresh snow between us and the front door, so while Tomoe and the baby waited in the car, I tunneled a path to the door making it extra dramatic for the TV folks.

We are still thinking about names. I like "Kogomi" (a type of wild edible fern that people in this area eat a lot of), "Fubuki" (Means whiteout. One of the boys who will be in her class is named "Kaisei" which means "Clear skies", so i thought that if they ever hooked-up, it might be cool to have those names.) We have a few days left before we have to officially decide. So far the front-runner is "Mona", because it is two syllables and easy to say, and it is pronounced the same in Japanese and English.

Posted by bastish at 12:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)