At Haruhi-en Niho

Mr. U, who joined us at Haruhi-en Niho this month, has been getting used to it here.

Sometimes, he looks somewhat bored and walks around inside home.

So I asked him to braid ropes out of bunch of straw, which we got from Mr. U’s family, in order to hang persimmons.

Q-taro: “Would you braid straw ropes to hang persimmons?”

Mr. U: “Of course I can. Well, but I haven’t done it for 30 years…Lets’s see..OK. Let me give it a try!”

He has the very big hands as farmers.

He braided ropes out of straw in well-skilled manner.

Mr. N: “Hey you! You’re really good at it! I’ve never braided straw ropes, ‘cause I wasn’t a farmer. But I know you can do it very well with your practiced hands!”

Mr. U: “Can you bring me a pair of scissors? You‘d better cut off this sticked-out part. You can joint this to another braided straw rope like this.”

Q-taro: ‘I’m really impressed! I want to braid straw ropes with him together to learn more!’

At Haruhi-en Niho.

In the afternoon of a sunny day, Ms. H and one of our staff, N, were doing repair work together.

What they repaired was a sign board of road safety (photo), which was going to put on our premises.

It says, “Caution”, or “Watch out”.

Obviously, it asks drivers to drive safely because there is always an unexpected crossing by someone, like children, elderly people.

Then I wished Mrs. H and staff N the safety of repair work because they looked so enthusiastic.

Thank you, guys, and watch out!

From Haruhi-en Niho.

In Japan, mid-September is the season of harvesting rice.

We had been growing rice in a small container (photo above), and looking forward to harvest. But, unfortunately, it never happened. It withered away probably due to lack of water, or some disease.

On the other hand, we reaped a plentiful crop of bitter gourd, nigauri, which was a good news for us. Mrs. H is very good at taking care of plants. Thanks for being such a farmer.

As is well known, straw of rice is very useful. Last year, we made traditional ornaments of New Year’s day using straw of rice. Well, we will wait for next year and look forward to growing various vegetables next year too!

At Haruhi-en Niho

We have an expert of making pickled Japanese plum here. She is Mrs. Y, a resident here.  The other day, we asked her to make pickled Japanese plum. Other residents helped her out with it. It takes a while for fresh plum to turn into pickles with some salt.

The next day, Mrs. Y checked on it. She looked into the container and said…,

Mrs. Y: It looks like it has not dehydrated enough. Maybe, we need to add some more salt.

Staff: How much salt are you going to put?

Mrs. Y: Actually, no idea!  We must find it out by making small adjustments. It is trial and error. Everything works that way, don’t you think so?

Staff: Maybe yes. (…well, she is an expert of making pickled Japanese plum, anyway.)

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