Even on a warm sunny Spring day like yesterday, when Mona was able to run around the house naked with no stove and the windows open, the heavy snow-removal machinery is still a common scene. They are everywhere. They come in many sizes, such as the super industrial village blowers recieving its yearly painting and …
Monthly Archives: April 2012
Patiently Waiting
Photos from today and two days ago. Every day is different, and I won’t be surprised if most of the snow you see here is gone in a week. Time to start thinking more seriously about the fields and the chicken coop. The sign is across a road into the mountians that they just plowed …
つくし発見
Mona was pestering me yesterday to go out and pick fukinoto, but she has already decimated the current supply on our usual route, and I wanted to walk someplace else anyway. Unfortunately there was little fukinoto to be found, but fortunately Mona was just as excited to pick tsukushi (horse tail), and this is one …
In the hopes that someone out there is writing a book about fukinoto and needs lots of stock photos for its pages… Look no further than my blog on a slow-news-spring. As you can see, Mona loves daily foraging sessions. She is a regular rock-climber as she scales the rice paddy aze grasping for every …
Still This Much
The snow-depth in the back is dropping as we shovel every day, but everyone is worried about the late start for farming this year. As of April 15, our walk to the bath still looked like this.
Just What I haven’t Been Waiting For
The best thing about the earthquake last spring was that it prompted a one-year hiatus of the fire-brigade bugle band. All good things come to an end though, and today was the first practice of the year as hundreds of volunteer fire people from villages, towns and cities in Northern Nagano gathered together for six …
Not Just for Tempura
In Japan wild spring vegetables are big. There are countless books aimed at vegetables hunting enthusiasts and most of them have a sentence or two about how to eat what you forage. Almost every spring vegetables is listed as “good as tempura” (Japanese style deep fried). There is an incredible lack of imagination. This is …
Finally
A little taste of spring for Mona to enjoy the flowers. Unfortunately tomorrow is supposed to rain all day on the bike tour.
I Will Not Rest
until everyone is as sick of seeing snow photos as I am of taking them. April 7. Caught in a blizzard on my way home from the rice-polishing vending machine down on Main Street. For real.
Still can be pretty
Despite my desperate desire for this snow to stop, I have to admit that it still is pretty sometimes. These were taken today as the post-snowfall steam rose from the Chikuma River.