a dream

Sometimes you have such vivid dream that it has to be significant.

I was looking for a new apartment and was given an address to go and see. The street there started climbing a steep hill and my Volvo kept struggling the winding turns, gripping the gravel. At some point I noticed it wasn't a street anymore but a walking trail as people with baby transport pushchairs where passing by. This must be a family friendly area, I thought as I embarrassingly passed the 'no motor vehicles' traffic sign.

I finally end up on top of the hill hundred meters tall overlooking the city. No wonder the place is up for rent. No one wants to live here with such a high daily climb!

On the peak plateau there is the usual row house dormitory type buildings they build here for students. These are oddly shaped into large blocks however and I start looking for mine from street address number 1. Mine is numbered 31 - the last one in the block. After circling all the houses I realize it is the central one. Overlooking a hanging cliff down to the city valley.

I enter the building and the whole downstairs is a kitchen and dining room area in the style of an old Finnish log cabin. There are wooden floors, long chairs and tables made of logs and a large intricate fireplace. The fireplace is cocklestove oven covered in ceramic tiles with wolf motifs from old Finnish saga's. They remind me of the art of Snowshadow. She's into firing porcelain tile art now?

Apart from the kitchen area there doesn't seem to be any other spaces. Am I supposed to live here? Sure there are lots of cupboards, even ovens and microwaves embedded into the stove area but it would be a tight squeeze to fit all my stuff.

At the back I find some additional doors for storage spaces. One of them bears the Finfur Animus convention logo and a padlock. I wonder if that is an official con storage as these are student housing and someone has probably rented a storage space here. Somehow I suspect this is the doing of Oppeola. But didn't he move out of student housing a long time ago?

Couple of students greet me from the side table. One of them sais they know me from somewhere and offer to take me on a tour of the building. I question if the cramped apartment is really big enough for all of us. Are you supposed to keep all your things in storage rooms? And where do people sleep? At this point I notice the stairs up. There is an upstairs to this place?

The stairs end in a long hallway with a high ceiling and large windows opening each side to a view of the cityscape and valley below. I realize that this is a kind of loft apartment with a strange almost a cathedral like ceiling. An old school maybe? It is still all wood beams but now painted and decorated and it reminds me of the Jugendstil with white bright spaces and animal motifs. The floor bears a soft brown floor carpet that extends down the hallway. Small alcoves open each side with sitting areas and sofas big enough to sleep on. The student explains that there are no bedrooms. You just pick a place you want to sleep on.

We wonder down where the hall ends in a large wall made of window glass that light up the place. Someone has been building something on the floor with bits of unfinished paws and pieces of fur everywhere. I'm assured that people do vacuum often. I notice there are paintings on the walls. Paintings made of felt and fur depicting foxes and wolves and other animals.

I ask where do people keep their computers and I'm shown to a side room where drapes have been fastened to darken windows and a pillow castle has been built in front of a large screen tv. This is where I live, he sais.

At this point the realization finally sets in. This is some kind of furry commune utopia - and I wanna live here! I frantically dial the rental agent's number and prepare my mind for the flurry of questions. Is the room here still available? Do I have to pay rent in advance? Can I pay in cash and just move in? I hope I'm not too late...

Notes on taking walks and feeding foxes :3

Having too many things pressing on my mind: work, studies, responsibilities, I decided to take a short walk outside hoping I could resolve or at least lose some of them along the way.

I check my mobile before leaving. I used to worry about not being able to get in contact with people, missing messages, losing keys or having to call relatives for help in an emergency. But nowadays I can be at peace and easily leave my mobile behind when needed. The only thing I still miss though is the camera on it. I might stumble upon a fluffy fox or a double rainbow and miss the opportunity to share a picture with everyone. Meh, it’ll have to go. With only my keys in my pocket I leave the my apartment by the back entrance, instinctively avoiding a human encounter - a neighbor smoking outside. I hate the smell of cigarettes - and meeting people.

Even though I live some distance from the city there are still only a few nice walking routes to take. One is a strip of woods and fields between a golf course (what a waste of land those are) and the main road that goes by my apartment. This is the nicest route because it is totally wild and has raspberry bushes full of sweet berries at this time of the year. However it is rather short and because it has just rained the tall grass would get me all wet from the knees down. So I choose my second best option: a public path through the park nearby leading up to a hill. None of the these routes are ideal however. I would like to have one that makes a circle that leads me back to my apartment. But for each route I must either retrace my steps, or take a less nice road back home, usually a sidewalk with cars running by.

Once I step over from the pavement to the gravel pathway I feel better. Tall grass lines the path that the rainy summer has grown lush and thick everywhere. The path winds down first through a meadow and then into the woods. And I let my thoughts wind down that path.

There are snails everywhere after the rain. Carrying their tiny houses on their backs, I dread on stepping on any since it makes a horrible crunchy sound. For a while I place my paws carefully each time scanning the ground for a free passage. But they keep forming a mine field on the road. I cannot stand it. I close my ears and make a run for it.

After the meadow there is a straight path through the woods. An old road perhaps. Perfectly symmetrical stips of grass and moss line it like a fancy carpet at a hotel reception, with trees on each side making a similar effort to impress. My first thought is: I wish I had the camera. Then I relax and just enjoy the view. A horrible blaring noise echos in the woods. A pair of those miniature motorcycles young people are allowed for some reason race on a nearby road on full throttle. Somehow the almost deafening noise fits well with the scene I’m looking at. A kind of abstract scene from a Kubrick movie perhaps where you are faced with a path of destiny. However the significance of the moment eludes me as the soundscape breaks abruptly. The motorcycles stop at an intersection. There is silence. Somehow the magic of the moment is lost. So I move on.

The trouble with paths is that they never go the way you want them to. You would want to have a path that goes from A to B, and then take you via a different route back to A. But no. You get to B and you are stuck. The only way back is to retrace the same route you just walked on. Boring. Oh, well. There is some comfort if you think about the path as not being the same when you walk it back. The point of view is different. There is that. But also from an existential point of view - you never walk the same path twice. As time moves on the path is different. And so are you. A different person walking down a different path. Just because it’s the same path doesn’t mean you won’t notice something new, or think different thoughts. At least this is how I rationalize it to myself. And I have to. This is the only nice path that goes from my apartment.

For a moment I recall past relationships and the disappointments. Perhaps I should look at them as analogous to the paths: no two relationships are the same. And I’m no longer the same person either. Perhaps it’s time to give it a try without the fear of making the same mistakes again and going down the same road to misery... I quickly shake off such thoughts. I don’t want to delve in old memories right now.

The nicest bit of the path travels below a wooded hill with some old trees on it, with canopies reaching thirty or forty meters, the undergrowth being kept in check by their shadow. Fully mature forest with strong bark that has seen many a decade of winters and storms that I wrote about in one of my previous posts. However now that I’m self-conscious of my enjoyment, I begin to lament the fact that it’s going to end soon. The path to the edge of the forest isn’t very long. Perhaps less than 500m. There the wood ends and changes to a minor road between houses. It’s always like this. I enjoy the journey, not the destination. I want to climb mountains, but from the top I cannot see the mountain. A sentiment from a haiku by Japanese poet Matsuo Basho (松尾 芭蕉, 1644–1694). This is why I travel, but never want to reach a destination. Perhaps because I feel there I have none. There is no one waiting for me there. A home. Where is it? What is it?

Adventuring is about living in the moment anyway. That is why I like getting lost on my travels. When I’m Tokyo I take random walks where I just walk aimlessly in one general direction and enjoy all the things I encounter, without worrying where exactly I’m going or if I’m getting lost. I can always find a subway station back to my hotel or grab a taxi. It is that kind of careless existence that I seek. Find moments of freedom in. And that kind of attitude is needed if you want to experience places and notice things. If you have a predetermined path and schedule you are slave to its tracks and the clock hurrying you makes you forget to live and stop to explore an alley where you might find a scruffy cat to scratch. As children we knew how to live in the moment, fully. I used to play by edge of the forest, where the tidy grass gave way to the wild undergrowth of the forest. All the wild plants were much more interesting than the managed grass, and only my mother's calls to come eat lunch broke my journey through the wild undergrowth. I never had a destination to my journeys then, and neither have I now.

I take a shortcut through the grass and get distracted again by work related thoughts. A sewage pumping stations has a shiny new cargo container next to it which I recognise as a standby diesel generator in case of power outages. It keeps the sewers from overflowing even if there is a major outage of electrical power. I’m glad someone has thought of such a vital aspect of our infrastructure that everyone just takes for granted.

Little disappointed at not keeping my thoughts straight I wonder down the road between expensive houses and their gardens. A person is taking out their cat on a leash. I ignore the person and concentrate on the cat. It’s one of those Persian fluffy ones. And as cats usually do on leashes they just wander aimlessly not bothering one bit where their owner actually wants to go. I exchange some pleasantries with the owner while checking out the cat which seems happy to get some attentions. Then continue on up the hill.

As the road once again turns into an unpaved footpath I’m presented with a fork in the road. All the old interesting looking paths I would usually follow are dead ends I know. After the motorway was constructed they were cut off. There is only one option that actually takes me somewhere. Further up the hill which is called ‘the chilly hill’. Being tall and exposed you get a chill up there if there is slightest of wind. From the top you can see tens of kilometers in almost every direction. Only towards the city center are there are tall tree tops which obscure the horizon. It is there that the sun is setting. Orange glow below a soup of clouds. A bright spot lingers between the treetops but I cannot see any detail from all the glare. So I turn around and look down into the valley and the horizon. There I see the sunset in action. The shadow slowly moving in the landscape. Cutting trees, factory chimneys and high rise buildings in half. From the tops of their windows I can watch hundreds of reflections of the orange ball of fire I couldn’t otherwise see. Sometimes it’s worth looking the other way. Most of the scientific methods of observation are based on this idea - you get much more insight into a phenomenon of nature by looking at it indirectly, its interaction with the environment.

Nowadays we talk of bubbles a lot, people living in their own bubbles of ideas. What they can or choose to see. But from the standpoint of general relativity we all live in a bubble of time. However far we gaze into the horizon, we can only see light that has travelled to us. When we look at our own sun we see light that left its surface some 8 minutes ago. We have to wait 8 minutes to actually see what is currently happening on its surface. Consequently if we were to live to be 100 years old and at the beginning of our lives asked the question what is happening at that star up there right now, we would only get the answer within our lifetime if the star was nearer to us than 100 light years. There are only 76 stars (of spectral type "A") within that distance - or inside the our time bubble. A bubble we can ever receive any information from during our lifetimes. The rest of the universe is beyond our reach. We cannot see or hear it, nor can we send a message to it. At least not while we are alive. All we can do is look into the sky - and see light that started travelling towards us hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago.

My bubble is so small that I can only worry about what happens next day, next week, perhaps 6 months from now. Beyond that there is not much that is reaching me at the moment. Leaving the the rays of the sun bouncing off into the distance I move on.

Couple of guys in their 30’s are playing with a radio controlled car, a dune buggy of some kind and seem to be having lots of fun. I’m glad they are free to do their own thing and nobody is there to judge their life choices. I’m often too worried about someone judging my life choices. I avoid talking about them.

Coming down the hill from the other side towards the houses I smell a fragrant smoke from their chimneys. Wood fire is one of my favourite smells. I consider myself quite sensitive to smells. I don’t like strong perfumes and use none myself. And I hate cigarette smell which makes me nauseous. Wood smoke from properly dried birch logs on the other hand has a sweet calming smell that brings forth memories of campfire sausages, evenings around a fireplace and lakeside saunas. I know the sweet part of the smell is actually incredibly toxic and carcinogenic aromatic carbon rings making all kinds of compounds and forming soot. But most of them smell rather nice and often sweet. Hence the name ‘aromatic compounds’. At such low concentrations as they are carried by the wind they are quite harmless to enjoy. I stop several times to breath in the whiffs floating by.

Arriving back to the edge of the woods where the footpath ended, the sun finally gives up its orange glow and is extinguished by the clouds. Sharp shadows disappear and calm dusk settles in. At each step it is getting slightly darker. Yep my eyes adjust and I can still see under the bushes where the light is the least. Human eyes have an amazing dynamic range. The range of processing different amounts of light. There is however a limit to it just like with a camera exposure. You will not see inside shadows if you are blinded by a glaring light. However our brains do a trick that extends this a somewhat. From our current field of view the brain takes many ‘exposures’ by moving the eye to focus on different area of our field of view. On some exposures it focuses on the dark bits and blurs the bright bits and therefore gets more detail from the shadows. This way it can compose a ‘scene’ and present to us an appearance of seeing in one go much more detail from our field of view than would be possible by trying to take one huge exposure with our limited dynamic range. I take several exposures with my eyes to try to confirm this theory. I should really look it up on google when I get back home so I won’t just make stuff up (nah, I didn’t).

A dusk is just the time for foxes to go hunting after resting all day. But I’m a fox with a full stomach having had a huge dinner earlier. A shrew runs across the road, pausing briefly in the middle to gauge me as a threat and then scurries off into the undergrowth. I leave chasing it to a more hungry fox. Although come to think of it, I would probably try to chase down the fox if I saw one. Take it home and feed it. It would become one fat fox in my care.

Then once again I reach the end of the path and cross the road to my apartment. I wonder how am I going to remember to write down any of these thoughts. Perhaps I could somehow get a printout from my brain? Memory is so fickle that I probably have forgotten half the things I wanted to remember and made up the other half. So it goes until we begin to carry HD-cameras with us everywhere that stream our whole lives on record into cloud storage. And that day isn’t far off. Until then there is still time for adventure. Even if only an hours evening walk.

At the stairwell of my apartment complex the familiar smell of someone cooking casserole.

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

~ Tolkien

How make a simple cooling fan for your fursuit :3

This example is for total beginners with no knowledge of electronics so everything is kept as simple as possible. There are much more sophisticated electronics all over the internet but you really need to know what you are doing with them ;3

Here are all of the things you need.

Find an old computer fan like the one in the picture. Check that it says it runs on 12V. This particular one draws 0.36A of current. More powerful ones give you more air but they also make more noise. You have to try each one to test for the noise level.

You also need a battery case or holder because you need to put 1.5V alkaline battery cells in series to get the 12V required. Going under this voltage is OK, the fan will just spin a bit slower. In the picture there is a single 9V cell which spins the 12V-fan just fine and is also a lot more quiet. However don't go over the 12V because the fan was not built to handle more power.

Here is a simple diagram of the circuit

It is a good idea to place a connector you can plug and unplug easily as you will most likely want to install the fan in your head, whereas the battery-pack will be located somewhere on your body, like in a hidden pocket. Having a connector between allows you to detach the head from the body so you won't be trapped by wires.

A switch is also a good idea if you want to save battery life or just want a convenient way to temporarily switch off the fan if it making too much noise or something. This is entirely optional as long as you have some way of quickly detaching the battery from the fan if something goes wrong.

A fuse is must. I cannot stress this enough. Electronics without a fuse are dangerous, especially if they are installed in a flammable fursuit. A fuse rated about double the current draw of the fan is just fine. For example here I have used a 0,75A fuse.

Note on the power source: this is an example for beginners and is basically fire-safe. Using alkaline batteries makes the power source pretty powerless in a short-circuit situation. The current draw might burn through the wiring in the fan coil but pretty much anything else will just get very hot. DO NOT USE ANY OTHER TYPE OF BATTERY IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING! Chargeable batteries such as NiCd/NiMh and especially various Lithium-battery technologies can deliver huge currents and are not inherently safe in a short circuit situation. They have enough power to melt and set wire insulation on fire - or even worse, burst into flame due to an internal fault in the battery pack or charger circuit.

The advantage of using non-chargeable cells in a fursuit fan is convenience. If you are travelling between con hotels you don't want to be lugging with you chargers and worrying if your battery pack is running low. Alkaline cells are quick and easy to replace and every shop cells them so you will never run out.



OK, now let's assemble this baby :3

I prefer to use MOLEX-type plastic connectors. They are cheap and reliable and universal. This one has a small safety hook that keeps it from becoming loose. If you don't have the special tool to crimp the connector-pins inside then cannibalize and cut a ready made cable harness from some old electronics. You can find them inside computers and cars ;3

Don't solder wires together! They will brake. Solder is hard an brittle and will crack when there is any strain or pull on the wire. Instead just use crimps like these :3 Again your car electrician is your friend. You can lend the crimping tool and a bunch of these connectors or buy them from any shop that sells car-stereo equipment. Crimping wires together is the best most reliable way to make connections.

Sometimes wires are really really tiny. Too thin to make a proper connection reliably. The strands of wire will break when you are crimping them. You need to use a shell on top and pre-crimp them with so that when you place them under a screw or a larger connector it will hold better.

Wiring the switch and fuse. Here make sure you have a switch case with some strain relief mechanism. If all else fails, use hot glue on everything! ^^'/

You can run the fan either from a single 9V cell. Or a battery pack with 8 cells each 1.5V so 8x1.5 = 12V. Battery contacts are always a short circuit hazard so make sure you transport them safely. For example remove a cell from the battery pack will make it safe for transport (or just remove them all).

Fuse will protect everything so if you accidentally short circuit anything it will blow. Make sure you have spare fuses with you when you are travelling ;3

There! All finished! Wasn't so hard was it ^^'

Now how you install this to your fursuit is up to you or the fursuit maker. That is very specific for every suit but if you have managed to build a fursuit and this circuit then you will have no problem figuring it out.

Here are some pictures how I have installed mine:

My nose has no room for a fan so the only place is to put it up on my forehead. This the approximate location. And of course it is actually installed inside the head you dummy! >:3

I drilled some holes (carefully!) into the resin base to make some ventilation holes. They won't be much but at least some air will get through.

Finally I used the holes to ran metal wires to fix the fan in place. The firmer you are able to fix the fan the less it will vibrate and make odd noises. You might think it is useless over there and only cooling my forehead but that is not the point of the fan. It circulates the air around my inside my head and stops my glasses and the eyes from fogging over. And brings in some fresh air even though it is not directly in front of my mouth.

~ Tinka 

Totoro-baths under the milkyway

For my two previous trips I took to Japan I spent a good portion of my trip as a volunteer working at organic farms and eco-tourism places. This was via the WWOOF-network whose aim is to provide opportunities for cultural exchange at all kinds of eco-friendly places such as farms and guesthouses.

You basically volunteer to work at lets 6 hours a day for example at a farm and you get free food and a place to sleep. And the farmer gets an extra pair of hands for what ever needs to be done at that time: harvesting apples, weeding, more weeding, washing the dishes, digging holes with a huge excavator! And you both get a chance to learn about each other's culture and language. The exchange program is open to everyone. The network helps you to make the arrangement with the farmer-host you would like to visit.

Daikon radish

For me this was the perfect way to get beyond the role of 'The Tourist' - which I didn't like. I wanted to see the real Japan - the real / mundane / exotic everyday life - as well as any secretive things hidden from view.

As a volunteer you get to enter a Japanese home and live as part of a Japanese family - an experience a tourist could never get even if honored with an invite for tee at someones place. As a guest you are always treated a certain way - and don't see beyond the surface. But after a few weeks working at a family you start to get to know people as their true personas.

On my first trip I took it easy and just picked one place in Hokkaido - a biodynamic garden and dairy farm. And then went to join my friend all the way down south near Kumamoto, Kyushu to work at at Buddhist temple's garden.

Working at a Japanese farm for me was easy. I was physically fit and eager and already knew and accepted a lot of the cultural differences and quirks you need to know for not getting into to trouble. The work itself is easy and simple. For example stripping weeds or thinning apple buds are mundane boring tasks that even a child could do. But you need a certain kind of attitude and a state of mind to keep doing it for several hours at a time.

It helps if you glance up and see the snow capped Japanese Alps and see eagles circling overhead - and think about the delicious home cooked Japanese meal you are about to have for lunch, dinner, breakfast xP And the fact that you are there, in person, somewhere in real Japan living the Japanese life - even for a few days or weeks. I was so 'Zen' meditating all this I could have endured any hardship.

You rarely work alone. Farms are always big and there are other volunteers from all over the world, as well as family members, even neighbors helping to get a field or a garden patch done. I particularly recall when I was 'lent-out' to a local neighbor who was about to start building a new house - and I was there just as a pair of extra hands to move large logs and other building material around. There's a shortage of healthy strong men in the countryside so my help was very much appreciated and even though we were working together for only half-a-day we become good friends.

At this point I must mention that I don't know Japanese language. My level of Japanese is very basic: a few words and phrases that tourists need. I can kind of recognize a few words here and there when someone speaks to me. So lifting logs 'up' 'down' 'left' 'right' was confusing at first when I didn't even remember those words. It was good practice. And that is how you learn for real.

My strategy with my poor Japanese has always been to try to say something, ANYTHING in the language xP - and then just try to listen to any words that sound familiar. Then even if you don't have any idea what the other person said you just repeat what they said and they usually get that you are confused and repeat it more clearly or using simpler words. I've been pretty lucky I guess - I've never had any 'language problems' as such with everyday communications. However it would be nice to be able to have an actual conversation in Japanese. I would so love that :3

Hokkaido was my first wwoofing-place and also the strangest. It was a farm run by a US army veteran and his Japanese wife - so not exactly the genuine Japanese experience. But I picked it because I was interested to see the Biodynamic and CSI-model (Community Supported Agriculture) in action. I guess it was my 'culture-shock' moment but nothing too dramatic. After a few days there I just got sick with fever from getting wet at night sleeping in a tent because they had no other accommodation to offer at the time and I just felt miserable not being able to do any actual work. However before that I managed to fix a tractor, chop a whole load of logs and milk a cow which was a first!

So I was happy with it. A visitor from Sapporo gave me a lift back to civilization and I immediately felt better. Went to ask for a map of the city from Sapporo Station Tourist Information and noticed that one of the advisers had a Finnish-flag pin on her shirt. Asked her if she knew any Finnish and she replied - in Finnish! Apparently she had never visited Finland but spoke the language amazingly well having studied at evening courses arranged by Hokkaido Finland Society! So long story short I got their contact details, called them and asked if I could visit their classes in the evening and got permission. It was much more organized and bigger then the small language school at Osaka I was used to visiting - with over a dozen students per class (the teacher was called Aki if someone know's him from Oulu University where he had studied Finnish). Went boozing that night with the teacher. He knew how the Finnish drunk so I had a bit of a headache next morning.

After all this I went on a well earned 'vacation' in the south of Hokkaido where there were some active volcanoes. Got a traditional Japanese room with a tatami at a lakeside bath house with its own onsen. The lake had an all most a tropical island in the middle. I was surprised how hot it was but then I remembered that this was the hottest month in Hokkaido and therefore very similar to the hot but brief summer in Finland. The tourist only followed the tourist path and went away on the boat and left me alone with a whole island for myself. Ended up walking some 3km along the beach around the island - just wild nature everywhere - dipping myself in the warm shallow volcanic lake from time to time. Fortunately by this time I had learned to carry a couple of liters of water/tea with me - otherwise I would've been in trouble. The actual volcano I visited next day was all too crowded and touristy for my taste.

I finally took a plane south all the way to Kyushu which is the southern most of the main islands. Beyond that is the island chain of Okinawa. Kumamoto being the regional capital was easy to reach by train. I didn't take the Shinkansen because this time I was island-hopping with internal flights and didn't have the Japan Rail Pass.

I had thought Hokkaido had been hot for this time of the year but here was tropical heat I had only experienced in Singapore - scorching hot and humid. At midday people stopped working because it was uncomfortable and even dangerous to toil outside. By this time I had fortunately learned that I don't tan in the sun - just burn. So the first thing in town I went to a local superstore I got myself some long loose working clothing that had long sleeves and collar - and a large brimmed hat. It was strange to be this far south of Tokyo - everywhere we went had a real exotic relaxed countryside-feel to it. Very different feel to mainstream central Japan.

Furo = bathtub 'Totoro-style' - there's a wood fire underneath <:3

We woke up early every morning around 6:00 did some cleaning and washing and had breakfast at 7:00 and worked till 11:00 when lunch was ready. After lunch you slept through the hottest hours of the day and woke up to work again at two in the afternoon and then worked till six in the afternoon when we had dinner. And yes, that was way more then 6 hours of work per day but this was not the usual WWOOF-host but a special one that followed the Buddhist-temple life-cycle. They only took guests there who were committed to stay through the whole harvest - at least several months but preferably half a year or more. My friend had been there all spring and was about to be there with his Japanese wife all through that year. So as their friend and guest I was given special exception from this rule. But I was still required to do everything they did and the workdays there were quite intensive. After a days work I would have a shower or a bath in our traditional 'totoro' furo and just doze off to sleep. But I felt very at peace there :3

Typical lunch with lots of different things to eat like vegetable tempura xP

We tended a garden of various vegetables: Japanese cucumbers, egg plants, peas, salads etc. Well, I guess they were all 'Japanese' varieties because some of them were just unrecognizable to a westerner. Especially the cucumbers were really weird looking. But they all tasted great! The meals were 'vegetarian' due to the Buddhist nature of the host but for some reason sometimes seafood such as shrimp and dried fish flakes were part of the dishes so I'm not sure what their exact criteria was. The meals were always plentiful and you had lots of different things to try and eat. A steamed sweet potato was my favorite - it was like eating soft candy xP The Japanese rice-cooker is an excellent invention as it keeps rice fresh, moist and warm for a whole day - sometimes until the next day >:3 And when you have more than a few people in the house a large cooker is constantly on with timer set for making a fresh batch of new rice during the night :3

In the evening you had a moment to relax before exhaustion took over. The summer nights were magical (as sunset was around eight even during midsummer) and in the countryside you have no light pollution so you can see all the starts and the milkyway. Our Japanese friend would set his poi aflame and we've sit at the veranda just drinking and taking in the amazing air full of insect and bird sounds.

In part two: Bikers, Kittens and Smoking Volcanoes ^^'/

~ Tinka :3

...

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWOOF
http://www.wwoofjapan.com/main/index.php?lang=en

For those interested the wwoofjapan website has so clear and throughout instructions on every aspect that I won't repeat them here. I just urge you to read them and then re-read them all. That way you won't get confused and end up making mistakes.

It is important to carefully read all instructions you are given. The Japanese assume that all instructions are read carefully and followed to the point. I guess they learn already this at school. In comparison western culture is much more relaxed and understanding about such things - we don't read manuals. But for the Japanese this kind of behavior just seems sloppy or lazy ;3

Polka-dotted rice paddies

Rice paddy art using different colored rice :3

It is an exquisite feeling when you first step into the mud of a Japanese rice paddy field. Rubber boots or wellingtons are useless here since you'd only get stuck with them in the mud and they can also damage the roots of the rice plants. So you go with bare feet, lifting up your pant legs high enough not to get yourself wet (although sometimes the water level is high enough that there's no way to keep your pants dry) ;3

On a hot midsummer's day in central Japan the mud is at the same time cool and warm. It is cooler than the roasting bare ground but warmer than the water, having stored some of the heat from the sunlight piercing under the crystal clear surface. 

My friend's paddy in Kumamoto, Kyushu

Depending on the state of the field, somewhere down below there is hard ground under all this mud. Otherwise the water would all just seep away into the ground. This is also fortunate for you and reassuring to know - you won't sink in all the way. Typically the mud on top is very soft and loose and after a while you get used to walking in it if you are careful. It only gets sticky if you try to move too fast.

You should wear a large brimmed hat to shade you from the blazing sun (I for example don't get a tan - I just burn!) and a wet towel around your neck helps to evade the eventual heat exhaustion for a while longer. And tea, drink lots of tea :3

Occasionally you glance at the sky when you hear the cry of the hawks or endangered mountain eagles circling the thermals overhead. The green sea of rice stalks, clear blue sky and the snow topped mountains encircling you create a dreamscape you won't want to wake up from.

Organic 'black' rice almost ripe for harvest

The agricultural area and village of Azumino is located in a long valley in Nagano Prefecture in central Japan - also known as the Alps of Japan. Surrounded by snow covered peaks (Mount Hokata 3190 m / 10,466 ft) it is a lush agricultural area famous for its Wasabi-root plantations, fruit tree orchards and wine production. Some three hours by train from Tokyo, the largest town nearby is Matsumoto with a quarter of a million inhabitants, a quiet easy going town with lots of touristy shops and quirky art studios, the home town of the polka-dotted Yayoi Kusama. I even found a Monty Python themed whisky-bar there but that's another story...

Back at the paddy I'm starting to get tired. You see, one could try to use chemicals to keep the weeds down or use some sort of mechanical weeding machine, a tractor, to periodically mow between the rows. This however is very bad for the rice plants as it damages the roots and anyway no machine is that precise - it would leave weeds growing right next to and within the rice plant - and would require you to leave wide spaces between the rows for the tractor wheels. A human foot is only two inches wide and does not tear into the roots of the plants.

Our field was full of dragonflies buzzing around, frogs croaking happily away. But in a nearby field where they have put some sort of pesticide in the water it is all quiet and the water looks stale: and if you look closer you see dead tadpoles. Fortunately it is our field which runs into their field and not the other way around. It is the natural organic fields which must maintain higher ground to avoid being polluted by neighboring fields.

Work and toil maybe characteristic of the countryside everywhere but farmers have always tried to avoid useless work when possible. At the start of the season you grow rise seedlings in pots at the side of the paddy, trying to get them as strong and tall as possible so they have a head start over the weeds.

Stock photo: Japanese Rice planting machine

The paddy itself is well prepared with impermeable hard bottom and embankments. Flowing water usually from a natural source like a stream or a river brings with it nutrients which settle in it to form the fertile mud. Preferable you want to plant the young seedlings as fast as possible so as to avoid uneven growth in the field. It used to be that people of the village would help each other and gather to plant one field at a time. This still happens where there is community for it. But its hard work and nowadays there are machines that do it a lot faster. A rice planting machine can go and plant several fields in one day and not everyone needs to own one. You can even rent one for a day.

Ones the rice is planted you maintain a level of water just so rice stays above water to feed on the sun shine but weeds will have a hard time making roots and reaching the surface. For the first weeks you can use a traditional mechanical weeding-sled made of a long float pulled by ropes from opposite embankments which slides gently across the water and over the sturdy rice plants, dragging along with it a row of chains (I guess these might've been rocks or sticks in the old days). The chains disturb the mud and mix any weed saplings into it but slide gently past the rice plants without damaging them. It takes two men less than an hour to weed a whole field using this method. But you can do it for only so long. Ones the rice gets too high and inflexible the float would begin to damage it.

Aigamo ducks at our paddy in Azumino

Then come the ducks :3 Ducks have always been part of paddies, eating insects and slugs and some of the weeds. The Aigamo duck was formed for this special task. Bred to be flightless and fenced in, it will quite happily spend its entire life within the rice stalks gobbling any insects, slugs and some of the weeds - all for free - and then providing delicious meat when the harvest time arrives. They are super cute and follow you around the paddy, chirping loudly, hoping you will grab a handful of delicious dandelions or clovers to vary their boring diet. Paddies with ducks in them are extremely clean because they act like robot vacuum cleaners pecking and hoovering up anything that floats in the water.

Doing the weeding later gets tough.

Unfortunately the local wildlife also knows this delicacy. Reflective bands of string or whole nets are sometimes needed to keep predatory birds, hawks and eagles from snatching them from the field. And it seems there is no fence that can keep out the most cunning of predators: the fox. It was sad that on the last day of my stay at this place I missed the opportunity to say goodbye to the ducks which had happily chirped along my feet on many a day. A fox had broken in during the night and eaten a few and then just ripped to shreds each and every duck in our paddy. The farmer was more angry then me, vowing revenge. But I had nothing but sympathy for it. That is what I would have done as a fox.

Ones the rice is tall and begins to shadow the water, most of the weeds begin to stay back. However there are a few weeds, tall grass types, that can still take root and can grow rapidly to shadow the rice. And for these there are no chemicals, no machines, no ducks. One has to step into the paddy and rip them out with bare hands. And this is what I had been doing for sometime.

Stock photo: rice harvester

It is both a very boring and very exhausting task. You reach down into the muddy water and use your fingers to find anything that is beginning to grow out of the bottom around the rice plants. Usually you can only find a single blade of grass. You grab it but don't pull but follow it down into the mud with your fingertips and find its root. And then gently but firmly pull the whole plant, root and all, out and into a bucket you carry with you. And then you repeat this a couple thousand times an hour.

Even my host farmer thought this was the hardest work he had to offer. No other western volunteer had endured this job without constantly complaining. Fortunately I was at my peak physical fitness at that time, and had already acclimatized myself to the cycle of farm work at the previous place, a fruit orchard. So for me it was a challenge I though I could manage. Fortunately we usually only weeded for half a day at a time - then rested - and then did something more interesting and less heavy. And the satisfaction from completing a whole field - such weeding wouldn't be necessary until harvest time.

Bath house on a hill under mountain clouds

Once the fields were all weeded and vegetable patches taken care of, there was not much else for me to do than to hang some laundry and enjoy the mountain views, eat blue berries and look forward to onsen-bath in the evening. The local bath house was on a hill overlooking the valley and the best time to visit was after dark. The local farmers would all come and soak in the hot water after a long day of work. They would not treat us as strangers for they knew we were also working on the same orchards. 

From the pool outside you could gaze into the valley under a starry sky and just melt your aches into the steaming hot water.

 ~ Tinka ^^'

Night lights of Matsomoto ^^'

On the shapes of leaves

" When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it " ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

On one of my walks as usual I begun to ponder the limitation of human perception in our culture and the frameworks we apply to sensory data. This came about when I found a very interesting looking tree at the side of the road. It wasn't unusual in sense of the word - it was just very old and stood out from others in a kind of majesty.

It had already begun to loose most of its branches to old age but was still retaining some really sturdy ones going up. The kind I liked to climb up when I was a younger and dared such feats. The view from the top of this one would be amazing as it was already some elevation from the rest of its surroundings at the side of a hill.

Lost in thought and admiration of its thick bark I began to wonder the process by which that bark is formed, and ultimately shed by the elements - and that it was this process which defined the shape of its bark and why it was different from the nearby trees whose bark was relatively young.

Life of an organism like a tree is mainly concentrated in two key locations of active growth - the tips of the branches which form annual buds and are responsible for flowers for reproduction, leaves for photosynthesis and the ultimate upward growth towards sunlight - and a thin layer of spongy tissue left behind on all surfaces just under the outermost bark which keeps thickening the inside truck with water and nutrient carrying channels and also forms the outer bark which protects this whole operation from the elements, pests and disease.

The scales of bark covering this old gentleman were tough as shields. Each one having endured countless cycles of harsh weather and extremes of annual climate. Only paper thin slices of dried bark would occasionally come loose and float gently to the ground - or ripped off by heavy rain and wind. Yet this old tree had seen its formative years, now slowly but surely shrinking, loosing a branch here and there, taking a beating after another. With every shedding the shields would get thinner, polished by the elements.

It was in their shape I saw all this. Yet when you think about it I didn't really see any of that. It was all a story I made up to explain away what I saw. If given a similar piece of plastic painted pink, I probably wouldn't have recognize it as a shape of a tree bark and wouldn't have made any of the conclusions about its formation - and wouldn't use words like 'shield like' to describe the shape.

In the Middle age European theologians, especially popular ones, formed many such stories to explain away things - their shapes, their meanings, purpose, existence. A cow was there to provide milk for humans and its udders were shaped specifically to fit between the fingers of the man woman milking it. Even predators were there to teach us about courage (lions), cunning (fox) or the importance of washing (parasites). This was at the time made sense to some extent because most people had not the time to really observe and examine nature.

Naturalists who came long after begun to distance themselves from such anthropocentric explanations and begun to see multiple reasons for why things appeared a certain way and even some of the processes by which they came about. Modern evolutionary biology with its basis of chemistry and ultimately physics unified and made our understanding rigorous. No longer could we judge anything by their appearances - almost any process of nature had an inner life which we could only discover ones we delved deep into its hidden processes and interactions with its surroundings.

Thus the random ramblings and walks of the naturalists became quite boring and almost irrelevant. Apart from the occasional discovery of a new species or phenomenon which the biologist and chemist would then rush to examine, verify and dissect there was nothing much the old master could with his limited senses but be nostalgic for the old days when there was still some mysteries and secrets one could discover on your own.

So turning from my rigid framework of limited perception towards the next tree I was stunned to see it covered from branch to roots with velvety silk gown. A species of months had invaded several local trees that summer and was in the process of engulfing them. Every leaf was gone leaving a bare wintery looking tree - with a web like continuous translucent white cloth neatly woven by perhaps thousands or even millions? of Bird-cherry Ermine moth caterpillars (Yponomeuta evonymella). In fact the ground under the trees was quite full of dead moths and loose wings, bright white like petals from a cherry tree.

My thoughts were: OK, here is another process. But how would I see this phenomenon if I lacked the framework of explanations for each part. Surely I would have no idea about the role of the netting in the reproductive cycle of the months - or would probably make up some sort of quite imaginative explanation for it.

Then I thought my point of view was also quite biased in that I was looking at individual months and projecting myself 'in their shoes'. Many insects are 'hive-beings' as in they only survive in groups and it is their collective effort which defines their existence. Examining a single moth, let alone trying to find its process, its motives and purpose, without the whole of its swarm would be impossible or inaccurate.

In fact the border between the 'individual' and the 'collective' is very fuzzy in reality. From the anthill down to the smallest of bacteria and viruses, we too are composed of primordial collective agreements between interacting cells - even the our cells themselves are a union of two 'organisms' - molecular cluster called mitochondria and the outer cell with its nucleus distantly related to a single bacteria. The evolutionary development of early forms of life indicates that even these components were once 'individual' lifeforms that at some point merged to form a complete symbiosis - to the extent that we no longer hardly see them as entities on their own. 

To what extent can we then examine the behavior of a species, or any phenomenon in general, when we have this bias of differentiating entities into 'actors', individuals, and then assigning them with motives or purposes - when in fact we could just as easily see them as parts of a process with many interacting levels. In fact when you think about it the 'collectivity' or the 'individuality' of the moths to the cells in the tree bark are just degrees or levels of categorization. We cannot assign them 100% into either category.

This makes observation of nature particularly challenging - and disturbing when noticing that this applies to ourselves too.  We want to assign ourselves some level of free-will, yet always at a closer examination any such 'freedom' appears uncertain and elusive.

To think that we are no more free to choose the aspects of our behavior in every day life then a tree has in forming the shape of its leaf. Both are ultimately limited by the biochemistry (signals in brains and cell division in leaves) and environmental factors (sensory and other signals to the brains and the environmental signals like direction of sunlight to the leaf). On top of all these we have our conceptual and cultural biases - I guess the leaf would have some pretty restrictive biases too about what form to try to grow under the circumstances.

Approaching storm clouds cause my brain chemistry to switch to 'seek-shelter' -mode and my brain creates an illusion to myself that I have made a decision to return to home supposedly because of a rational choice about not getting wet. This all seems very satisfying to me and I congratulate myself on my decisiveness :3

Refs:
The Biography of a Tree - James Jackson,
Free Will - Sam Harris