Friend or Vermin?

Talking to the village chief the other day, I heard that people here in Arisaka get frequent visits from herds of deer. They come down from the forest, to forage and it seems they are not too scared of humans.

Locals don't enjoy them too much - they make dirt on the streets and eat produce from the fields.

According to him, other wildlife also includes Tanuki (Japanese badger, Bears (very occasionally) but fortunately no monkeys.

If you as one of our guests have a chance to see them, please send us a photo!

Searching the Forest

This is a late post of the previous weekend. I headed out early Saturday, and arrived around 8 o' clock the ground and fields were covered by morning frost, which provided a nice contrast to the clear blue sky.

Tired from driving, I headed out into the forest to search for possible building materials. The little stream going past our house leads up into to the forest, and on its banks I found a patch of strong bamboo poles growing. I went deeper into forest, and checked out the earth on the steeper river banks. At one place I spotted some slightly red coloured earth. After scratching off the top layer of decaying leaves, insects and other organic matter, I grabbed a handful of slightly moist dirt, an shaped it into a ball. It had excellent cohesive properties, which led me to believe that the soil has a high clay content.

When walking here you have to be careful, and better stay on the path. Farmers have marked off some areas with plastic ribbons, where they cultivate mushrooms (matsutake or something like that). They won't be happy if heavy boots would crush their crop.

Near the path I found some kind of grass that looked long and solid enough to be used , for example inside walls, as insulating infill or to provide a lattice for mud and plaster to stick on. I cut a few stalks as sample and took them with me to dry them out in the sun. Later I found out they were actually kind of baby bamboo sticks.



Later I went back and picked up another sample of earth from a different place. It didn't look quite as suitable as the previous one, but I tried out a mix all the same.