Late Summer's Weekend

Our Friends Kayoko and Alastair of Bakoko the up-and-coming design and architecture practice, recently joined my family and me at Arisaka House.

Late summer created pleasant warm but not too humid temperatures, ideal for a casual Bar-B-Q.





Besides the pleasure of grilling and eating, some work needed to be done. You can see me - in dress rehearsal for the Oktoberfest - disposing dried cut grass, vines and other garden organics, while Alastair tries to improvise a new Moskito net for the windows.

Fighting the cold

With the coming of autumn, the temperature inside and outside the house has dropped considerably. Presently we have neither insulation, nor adequate heating system in place, but yet sleep in the house during our work weekends. How can we survive?


We activated one of the fire places in the main room, called irori that I mentioned previously in "Hidden Secrets revealed". While it looks cozy and burns pretty good, it doesn't actually give off much heat and most of that goes up into the air. But as our only heatsource, we can survive by sitting close enough to it.



We also used a table bar-b-q called conro, both for additional heat and for cooking. A tasty cheese and ham omlette in the morning gives enough energy for a days work!



Not all work is physical. Here Tomo enters details of our discussions with contractors, while sitting close for warmth. We use the conro to heat the water in the kettle, so we can also drink hot cofee. I admit its not exactly Starbucks, but very vitalising nonetheless.

Garden Attack 2

I headed out to Ueda early morning by shinkansen, still nursing a slight hangover from a previous evening event. To clear my head and get the old body moving, I started off by addressing the field/garden of the house.

From my mothers previous experience I understood that the two short Kamas were not ideal, as there was a lot of weeds and grass to cut. So on the way over I popped into the nearby DIY shop to buy the extended version.



Progress was ok, although some stones lying hidden under the grass took their toll on the blade. Maybe try to get a motor operated one for the near future. Grass hoppers and several "kamagiri" or praying mantises frantically got out of the way as I hacked away.

It was a good workout for arms and abdomen, and I think its even better than Billy's Bootcamp!

Later that day, a contractor came to take a look at the roof, and see how much needs to be done. He also brought his experienced dad (looked like 100 years old), and they had fun surveying the place all around.

To finish the work I lit a fire and burned the mountains of grass and weeds. Last time I let some of the stuff dry first, but this time it was just too much. It got a bit smoky, but overall the field is in much better shape now.

Hidden Secrets revealed

Tomo joined us and lifted up floor and ceiling boards to learn about the structure below and above. Its important in order to decide how to apply insulation to keep the house warm in winter.

At that stage we made an exciting discovery: 2 fireplaces were hidden below the floorboards! So this is how the previous inhabitants kept warm in winter. Its difficult to say how old they are, but ash is still contained in them. Its amazing - the round one looks like it is carved into a solid stone. How old may it be?








Looking below the floor revealed that the house is in rather good shape, so no problem from that viewpoint. The question is how to get the place insulated. Tomo suggested to replace the lower layer of floorboards, and then place a layer of insulating board, before adding the wooden flooring.

Now that we had bright daylight it was also possible to better discern the condition of the roof. Pretty ok, but some dusting and cleaning would be advisable. We also found potential problems: 2 beehives. The one on the picture is roughly 30 cm high, so relative small, and it looks deserted.

However, above the bath, Tomo discovered an enormous monster hive, about 3-4 times bigger. It must be the source of the 15 bees that I dispatched inside during my previous visit. I think we need professional help to remove that...

Garden Attack

Two weeks ago, I freed the plum tree in the garden, as well as the shed from a lot of crawling vines. Some of them were over 4cm thick, and a few clinged so firmly around some thin steel bars that it was impossible to separate them. I left them, out on a wheelbarrow to dry. We finally erased them for good by burning them. The Photo show Maya guarding the fuel on the wheelbarrow.



The concern was of course that due to the dry weather it was a bit scary to have a fire near the house, or on the dry field.

Because of this we checked wind direction to ensure no danger for the roof. My mother started hacking away on the weeds that have taken over the field in front of the house.



Before lighting up we also drenched the field with water, and kept the hose handy just in case.



Dry wood stored on the north side of the house provided fuel for the fire. Within seconds it was lit up and burning nice and hot.



Finally the entire heap was burned, and left only a few ashes.