yes it's the Ume plum season

it seems like this year is a great year of fruits here in sado. a friend of my dad's gave us about 15kg of Ume plum picked in her back yard the other day. and today kuzuhara-san let me pick their Ume plum at their yard. the two trees were both full of big plums although his family and a friend already had picked a lot before me. i ended up picking maybe 20kg of ume- thats a LOT :0

each of my parents pickled 4kg of ume to make umeboshi, my mom also made ume wine and syrup and I made jam a few days ago, then today i started making an enzyme drink.

whats in the drink?
8kg of ume plum
a bunch of young red pine leaves
7 or 8 bamboo shoots (peeled and cut into pieces)
dokudami plants
japanese pepper leaves
sugar (this is to extract nutrients and water from the above ingredients)

i put all these ingredients in a big bucket in rayers, put a wooden plate and a 10kg rock on top. im going to let this mixture ferment for a few weeks and strain it and make a condenced wild drink. this is totally experimental and i have no idea whats going to happen but i feel this is gonna be fantastic.

well ill let you know how its doing along the way.

pictures: 1. boxes of ume plums, 2. making of umeboshi/pickeld plum, 3. the jam i made, 4. the enzyme drink ingredients, 5. inside the enzyme drink bucket

home made wine

I picked so much silver berry the other day so i decided to make wine out of it.
all i did was crash the berry in a glass jar, mix sugar and water, leave it on top of the fridge with a cotton cloth over the jar, wait for 3 days and strain it.
when stored in the fridge, it had become alcoholic and effervescent like beer or champagne. its a wild yeast's magical job. I dont drink alcohol but it sure was a fun experiment. I enjoyed it.

skies

fighting with weed

as you can see, theres almost no weed in conventional rice paddies (the picture above), but theres a ton in our rice paddy (the one below) because we dont use weed killers.
so my dad and i have been weeding it almost everyday in the past month in the muddy rice paddy in a semi-crouching posture.
its so much work and is hard on my back and thighs. Its no wonder almost all the rice farmers use weed killers.
i personally enjoy weeding our rice paddy cuz its so much better for the eco system and it feels good to soak my legs and hands in a cool mud:)

you are welcome to come play in the mud or help me weed!

I'd like to

build my own house prolly with straw, mud and sand in the woods
make a composting toilet
and live off the grid

bamboo craft

kuzuhara-san, my friend and teacher got this used knife for me when i helped this garage sale last week. i made bamboo chopsticks with it today. the knife works very well so it was very enjoyable.

the picture below shows some of the toys i got to make when i helped kuzuhara-san with his bamboo workshop the other day. the big thing is a bamboo gun, the one on right is a puzzle ring, and the other two things...i'll show you hot to play with them when i see you :)

bamboo is everywhere around me, these toys dont need to plug them in, and they return to the earth. yey!

one of my favorite plants

we call it "dokudami" in Japanese. its scientific name is Houttuynia cordata.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houttuynia)

this plant grows in a somewhat shady place and where the soil is acidic. its super pervasive and strong.
it has white flowers, green& dark reddish leaves, and a strong scent. often people treat it like a nuisance but the whole plant is said to have a dozen of medicinal benefits so people soometimes call the plant "ju-yaku, or ten medicines" e.g. to prevent constipation, arterial sclerosis, high blood pressure, to name a few.

so i picked a bunch of it, bound it into bundles, then hung it over a bamboo pole at my dad's cabin to dry it. ill make tea out ot it when its dry and crisp. i can't wait:)