Rainy day 雨の一日

It is raining pretty hard today and we cannot work in our garden or rice paddy (we could, but we will catch a cold). So instead Dave decided to work in the workshop. The above picture shows one of the bowls that will be sold in our online store soon! 今日は雨が強く降っているので、田んぼや畑で作業はできません(できるけれど風邪をひきそう)。そんなわけでDaveは工房で木工をすることに。こちらのお写真は、もうすぐネットショップに載せる作品の一つです!

New Rice 新米

After threshing, the rice was taken to the nearby “rice center” for more drying and hulling. Then, the rice came back to us as brown rice. We took a bag of rice to a rice polisher for polishing the rice, and then, finally, we cooked and ate the rice for the first time! 脱穀後、お米は近くのライスセンターに運び、乾燥と籾摺りをしてもらいます。籾摺りの終わったお米は玄米の状態で戻ってきます。それを精米機で精米して、昨日の夜ついに食べてみました! It […]

Threshing rice 脱穀

After drying the rice under the sun for about two weeks, Dave finally threshed the rice! 刈り取った稲を2週間ほど天日干しした後、ついに脱穀作業をしました!(Daveが) Dave started threshing the rice on Friday, but the machine suddenly stopped working after a few hours, and he couldn’t finish it. 金曜日に脱穀作業を始めましたが、この機械(ハーベスター)が途中で動かなくなり、作業を中断せざるを得ず。 The next day, Dave’s mini-me joined his daddy! 次の日、息子が参加。 Our son is only 10 years […]

Chestnut gathering 栗拾い

I went to collect chestnuts with my son yesterday. 昨日、息子と栗拾いをしてきました。 Many of our neighbors have chestnut trees. One of them told our son that he can have all the chestnuts he can find under the neighbor’s tree. ご近所に栗の木があるお宅がたくさんあります。ご近所のおじいちゃんがうちの息子に「好きなだけ拾ってええで」と言ってくださったので、毎年栗拾いをさせていただいています。 You shouldn’t touch the chestnut burr for the obvious reason, so… 見てわかる通り、手で触れないので Use your feet to open […]

Blueberry bagels ブルーベリーベーグル

I baked blueberry bagels the other day. As I mentioned before, there was no bakery when we moved here 10 years ago. There is one in town now and it’s only 15 minutes drive, but they don’t sell bagels. So if I wanted bagels, either drive for an hour to get to a bakery that […]

Rice harvest 稲刈り

We harvested rice yesterday! 昨日、稲刈りをしました! First, set up the rice-drying rack. Hanging the rice on this rack to dry the grain is the traditional method. Most people don’t do it anymore; they use a combine harvester to reap and thresh at the same time. But drying the grain under the sun makes the rice taste […]

Getting ready for the rice harvest 稲刈り準備

This is our rice paddy. It is looking good! 我が家の田んぼ。いい感じです。 Dave spent several hours fixing the binder earlier today, and now he is cutting some rice to be ready for the rice harvest tomorrow. バインダーの調子が悪かったので、朝から何時間かかけてやっと直し、明日の稲刈りに備えて一部を刈り取っています。 Looks like it works with no problem! 問題なく刈り取れるよう。よかったー。 Our son brought this home from school the other day. Cute and […]

Sansho/ Japanese pepper 山椒

We have a Sansho (Japanese pepper) tree in the front yard. うちの庭には山椒の木があります。 The young leaves (kinome) are used to garnish food, such as bamboo shoot rice. You can also pick the fruit while they are green and preserve with salt. Sansho has a very unique aroma and the fruit is quite spicy. タケノコごはんに木の芽をトッピングしたり、青山椒を塩漬けにすることもできますよね。青山椒の塩漬けは何度か作ったことがあるのですが、きちんと処理をしないとものすごく辛い。というか痛い。唇や舌がしびれます。 But we […]

Cats and sliding paper doors ネコと障子

Our sliding paper doors already looked terrible. But now… 我が家の障子はこんな具合になっていて、これでも十分ひどいんですが What happend? 何が起きたのか? Cat happened. ネコです。 Two of them worked together very nicely. こちらの2匹が仲良くやってくれました。 “What? I’m a cat and I’m just doing what cats do.” 「ネコがネコの仕事をしただけですが、何か?」

Focaccia Friday フォカッチャの金曜日

I bake bread 2-3 times a week, and on Fridays, I bake Focaccia. 毎週2~3回パンを焼きます。金曜日はフォカッチャの日。 I usually sprinkle rosemary on top. ローズマリーをトッピングします。 Focaccia is Dave’s favorite and it is easy to prepare and bake, and I decided to bake it every Friday so that Dave gets to eat his favorite bread once a week. フォカッチャはDaveの好きなパンで、仕込みも簡単。毎週金曜日を「フォカッチャフライデー」と決めたら毎週忘れずにDaveの好きなパンを焼けるという仕組みです。 Momo […]