Helping and battling nature

This summer in Japan has been extremely hot and with no rain for many weeks since the devastatingly heavy rains which made world headlines in early June. Since July, it’s been a constant battle to keep the garden productive and the trees alive as the soil has progressively become drier and drier. Even the two typhoons that passed by failed to deliver the much-needed amount of water that was needed to replenish the moisture in the soil.

Today is no different. It’s August 27th and the temperature outside is 37C. But in addition to the daily watering duties, this morning, more than usual, it was to be dominated by my interactions with nature.

• early morning battle with horseflies while milking the goat. They are particularly bad at this time of year and make life for the goats extremely tiring and uncomfortable.
• another early morning battle to eliminate hornets attacking one of our bee hives. recently, many of the large hornets at once have been attacking the hive and as they obviously communicate with those back at their oven hive, it’s a battle now to keep their numbers down – killing as many as possible by hand as soon as they arrive. While this has been successful so far, I decided to enlarge the protective areas at the entrance to the bee hive to give the bees a better chance of survival when I’m not around.

eliminated hornets

some of the many bees killed by the hornets

new protective entrance for the bees

• while making this new protective entrance, one of my daughters came from the lakefront beach with a piece of discarded netting that had THREE snakes entangled in it. Unfortunately we could only save two of them but whole episode was a vivid example of the damage plastic waste is having on nature, particularly around our seas and oceans.

A dead snake entangled in plastic netting

• finally, we felt compelled to do a beach cleanup before lunch. A typhoon last week left an appalling amount of rubbish along the beach, most of which was plastic. While we cleared most of it on the day following the typhoon, there is still more cleaning up to do until the beach is back to its regular and relatively clean state.

 

Before

After – a little better

Results of 3rd clean-up

I think we all need to be more re-connected to nature and examine the consequences of the disconnect most people in the westernized world experience. Indeed, this disconnection is likely to widen further as modern conveniences become more and more engrained into people’s lives, and as more of the world’s population find themselves living in cities.

Today mother nature she kept me particularly busy and engaged – and although much of my mornings activity could reasonably be regarded as dealing with problems and trouble, I remain thank full for a lifestyle that gives me so much contact with nature, and for all the experiences, gifts and challenges she presents.

 

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Bees

Last year we failed to catch a wild colony of bees, so this year we decided that in addition to trying to catch some again, we would order a nuc (nucleus colony).

This has now arrived (9000 bees on 3 frames) in a brood box. I added 7 empty frames and am now hoping they don’t abscond, but instead use the new frames to expand the colony.

When 7 to 8 frames are full, I will need to add a 2nd box (super) for the colony to expand into and make their food store for the winter months.

I’m now studying again and relearning what I tried to learn exactly one year ago. There’s a lot of jargon but it’s a topic that is easy to get engrossed in.

Needless to say, we are all enjoying watching these fascinating insects, that truly bring the garden fully to life. Hopefully our wisteria, honeysuckle and star jasmines will soon come into bloom.

I have also been weeding very selectively, leaving anything that produces a flower (speedwell, dead nettle, vetch …) well alone.

 

 

 

 

 

Water issues: Future proofing the garden (part II)

The above diagram shows the settling tank we now have. Grey water from the house must now pass through it before being released into the wetland area next to the pond.

The wetland area itself is at a level slightly higher than the pond allowing water to pass through the wetland area (and the network of plant roots) before reaching the pond.

The settling tank is made with two pieces of large water pipe that are used to create two columns of sand and gravel. This should help take out the worst of the contaminants from the water and is relatively easy to take apart and clean. Below you can see the tank and pipes which were used.

Any questions on the system or advice on how to improve it, please feel welcome to contact me.

inside the tank (before the grey pipes were filled with sand.

finished settlement tank system

wetland area and pond to help treat the greywater

Water issues: Future proofing the garden

wetland area and pond to help treat the greywater

making a drip feed system

capping off the ends of the drip feed

rainwater harvesting – daisy chain of containers

rainwater harvesting

rainwater harvesting

rainwater harvesting

rainwater harvesting

The other day it rained for the first time in 9 days, and at the time, our harvested rainwater supplies were almost completely gone. The really bad news is – it’s only May and the long hot summer period that always follows the rainy season (June) is still quite a way away.

Summer dry spells over the last two years have become noticeably more frequent and watering the garden, more and more of a commitment. As a result, I have been planning various improvements to our water conservation measures. These are;

• adding more upcycled tanks to increase the capacity (by around 800 liters so far) of our rainwater harvesting
• collecting old hoses to make a drip-feed systems. For this holes are drilled into lengths of hose which are attached to junctions that help spread out and shorten the path the water has to take. Finally just shut off the end of the hoses with pieces of wire (see photos above)
• diverting the greywater from the washing machine to a soak area in the back garden and having the rest of the house’s greywater going into the wetland area around the pond (shown above). Although we use washing power which is phosphorus free etc and is designed not to harm the environment, in the past when too much gets through the wetland area and into the pond, it can still kill fish.

In addition to the dry spells we are experiencing, I also read an article which predicts a particular hot dry summer for North East Asia. Article here; 2017 Asia summer forecast: Heat to roast northeastern China, Japan And longer term, the prospects are not likely to be much better Japan may become 4.5 C hotter if no anti-global warming steps taken

 

Bees and honey?

traditional Japanese hive

By the end of this year, or more realistically, next year,  we hope to add honey to the list of foods we provide for ourselves. To get us started a local beekeeper provised us with 3 traditional style hives to attract native Japanese bees using the scent of wax.

If successful the bees will start making a cone from a horizonal cross suspended at the top of the top box. As it gets bigger, it will extend down to a second cross bar at the top of the next box. When the cone extends far enough into the next box, the cone in the top box can be cut off and harvested. The now empty box is then placed at the bottom of the stack. And so on…

That is the plan, and a wonderful site explaining this much better with video can be found here http://warre.biobees.com/japan.htm

Winter fuel (part II)

local meat from the mountains

local food

In addition to the earlier post here two other sources of winter fuel:

• salad (chard, muzuna, lettuce) and a few other vegetable greens (spinach, konmatsuna, tat soi) which are available when the snow is not covering them

• deer meat (venison) – we have a neighbour who hunts deer and with winter being the middle of the hunting season, have a regular supply of fresh venison. Although I generally don’t eat meat, venison directly off the nearby mountain side ticks many of the boxes that help make good food item choices:
  • locally sourced
  • sustainable sourced or produced
  • organic

If you have any recommended venison dishes, please let me know 🙂

 

Winter fuel (part I)

Winter is the time for both eating preserves made from summer produce and making preserves – for us this so far means marmalades – from the three citrus fruits the grow in our garden. These are Hassaku, a kind of Dekopon (may be), and Yuzu.

Marmalade made from hasaku and yuzu

The 3 types of citrus fruits we have

Hassaku

Part of this year’s harvest

It’s also a time when we can appreciate the wood collected and prepared for the winter months. Collecting your own fuel for the winter connects you to the precious recourses nature provides, and also gives the feeling of achievement – securing the source of warmth for following winter season. This is much like the pleasure people get from growing, preparing and consuming their own home-grown produce, or creating handmade items rather than simply purchasing them off shelves.

Mid-winter wood cutting session

Although most of the wood collecting is done spring through to Autumn, above photos was taken mid-winter. This recently fallen tree was too good an opportunity to miss.

Insulation, insulation, insulation

We’ve now been living in this house for 3 years and one of the greatest pleasures is walking into the house in winter and instantly feeling the warmth of the house – regardless of whether the wood stove is on or not.

The insulation we installed in the walls, roof and floor of this house, together with the triple glazing, are working beyond our expectations to keep the house warm in winter and cool in summer. While the house isn’t an airtight passive house  (or Passivhaus), which generally employ heat exchanging air vent systems, we designed it to perform as close as possible to a true passive house.

In winter, and without any heating, the house only very rarely gets below 15°C, regardless of the temperatures outside. Today (23rd Jan 2017) is a good example. Outside is 0°C and snowing hard. The wood stove was on the previous night only until 11.00pm and without any heating since then, at midday the house temperature is still hovering around 16°C.

More information:

1st year data on the inside and outside temperatures – see Insulation – 1st year’s performance – to give a better picture of how the inside temperature changes are minimized by the effects of the insulation.

And further details of the insulation we used can be found at this other earlier blog entry; Insulation.

tough school run

2nd week under snow

…still snowing…

 

 

Ecolife video message

During the Autum (2016) I was asked by my university (The Kyoto University of Foreign Studies) to be the subject of one of their promotional videos aimed at highschool students here in Japan.

It’s now finished and part of a series of short profile videos on different lecturers.

To see it, or any of the other videos in the series, click the picture link below and scroll down.

 

 

1 step closer

Thursday night (14th April, 2016) one of our goats gave birth to THREE kids. And although they are all boys – not ideal – the good news is they are all healthy.

So this is one step closer towards our goal of getting all our own milk and cheese home- supplied. If everything goes to plan, all three kids will be weaned in 2~3 months time, which will then give us about 6 months of future milk (and cheese) supply. By the end of this time, around November, the whole cycle should have started again after a visit from a local billy goat.

With most high protein foods (meats, chicken & fish, and dairy) having the highest footprints in terms of CO2, water etc. my more ambitious goal is to become self-sufficient in these food groups.

We currently have 14 chickens which supply us with more eggs than our family of 5 can keep up with, and  from time to time, they also provide us with opportunities for meat – for example – if we have too many cockerels, or any fall victim to local weasels (which has happened once so far).

We are also lucky to have a steady supply of venison and wild boar meat from neighbours, which I consider to be very sustainable sources of meat.

So in general, reaching the point where we don’t need to buy dairy, chicken or meat products is no longer the pipe dream it seemed a few years ago.

Post script:

Of course, a better course of action would be to become a strict vegetarian again (as before moving to Japan)  … and to then get my family to do the same.

May be this will become my next pipe dream.