And another one bites the dust

Another work weekend. The objectives for this weekend were to remove the ceilings below the two main rooms, so that the thatched roof can be seen from below. I went up Friday night by Shinkansen, and took sleeping bag etc with me. The utilities (except Electricity) were sheduled to be connected, but of course the place is a little dirty. I therefore used the 2nd floor room in the Kura as my residence. That evening though, I walked over to the Onsen, took a nice long soak and Sauna, and then opened a well deserved beer. It was nice to hear all the farmers talk about the harvest in the spa.

The night was pleasant, with insect music coming from outside all night long. Not long before falling asleep, reading a book by torch light. I woke up once (2 am) - probably not used to such a quite environment for sleeping. The house made small cracking noises occasionally, as the wooden beams contracted as the night temperature dropped to a pleasant 19C degrees, fortunately no sound of rats!

Next day, an engineer came to fix the electricity. He was so kind, he even helped getting the bath heater working, and took a big interest in the old Toshiba TV we found. Around lunch time all utilities were online, thanks to my father-in-law's phone calls and thorough preparation during the week - Thanks so much!

I started by cleaning out the storage space in the Kura, and then moved our treasures from the main room there. I also had a go at the garden, tidying up a bit, while waiting for other members to come. It turned out that Tomo was delayed (and had only a little time in the evening), and Peter had to cancel because he caught a cold. So I went ahead with the removal on my own.

As Peter has already warned me I was prepared for the dirt coming down, unfortunately that didn't mean that I could escape getting dirty. Specially the dust was an issue - thick clouds of dust, lingered in the air for minutes... I finally worked out how to alleviate the problem. I used water liberally on the surface. The dust was so dry that it looked as if it reacted magnetic to water. So by doing that, at least the dust already on the ground didn't fly up again when ceiling boards crashed down, and the new dust quickly settled.

I also took a video of the process. In the first part I try to capture some of the atmosphere of this house and its tranquil location. At the end, you can see me covering up the floor of the second room, sprinkling it with water an then knocking out some boards:



I did the second room on Sunday, after buying a few tools and equipment. Also started attacking the Garden once more. The main issue with the latter being the clinging parasitic vines that nearly overwhelmed the Ume-tree. I cut it off in 100s of place, but it was so tough to untangle the tree's branches, from these intermingled vines! There is still another days work in this tree alone.

Chatted with a neighbour, and he commented that the field will die if we don't work it. Furthermore, the weeds growing on it are bad for the surrounding fields, as the wind blows their seeds around. Need to address this issue soon.

Sunday night I was pretty tired and sore when back home. But because I finished the tasks I set out to do, I feel very good and look forward to the next steps of repair.