Lift me up

Still no car... probably they're gonna wait till the last last day of March.
In the meantime, the mini forklift came, so I had something to do...

My first thought was... Man, this thing is heavy!

Lucky for me, it was a sunny day, in between rainy days so I got a break to assemble it. However, it seems to be made on some other planet so I didn't get a break when it comes to manual. At first glance, the instructions are in English, and I was so happy to see it. Then started to read it and quickly I wished it had been a Japanese manual. Not only did the language make no sense, but the picture looked nowhere near what I had bought. Great. Time to dust off and use the old brain.

Engrish but not funny

I did manage to put the thing together, no thanks to the manual, but to my own basic knowledge in mechanics.

Nice!

Next I decided to keep both the lift and the chipper in the car port. Now that all the logs are gone, there is a lot of space there. Even with the bikes and the coming mini truck, there is still plenty space. Plus the shed in the backyard is just full and keeping the chipper in there is kind of awkward and in the way. So I bought a large waterproof sheet to cover them with.

Chipper in its temporary home in the shed.

With the chipper's wheels pumped it was easy to roll it back around the house by myself. Not at all as hard and problematic as when we brought it to the shed.
Once the chipper was in the front, I tried loading it onto the lift.... and discovered that there was no comfortable balanced position that the chipper would fit onto the fork. The only way is if someone keeps a hand on the handle of the chipper to avoid it from rolling off or falling off...
I think I can remedy this by not loading the chipper directly onto the lift. Instead I will load the chipper onto the cart I have which is broad and stable, and then load the cart onto the lift.
Either way, another problem is that the lift itself is not exactly the best tool... because it weighs like 50 kg, so after loading the chipper onto the truck, I have to lift the lift onto the truck too somehow, without breaking my back.
I guess a ramp is best. Just wheel the chipper up to the truck using ramp. Oh well, live and learn I guess. Anyway both the chipper and the lift now live under tarp in the car port.

Meanwhile...

In the garden slowly things are coming back to life. I have yet not planted any seeds though, it is still too cold. And if I plant things indoors as preparation like I did last year, the two new cats will eat them up. Mini and Oreo are just too wild and too curious still. They eat, tear and break anything that is new to them.

Broad beans and garlic

Most of the vegetables I planted in the end of summer popped up but went to sleep when it cold colder, and now are waking up and resuming their growth.

Random salads

Last year I pulled a lot of weeds and planted lots of random salad seeds everywhere. Now they too are coming up. I guess I have to study about different salads that I planted, like how to recognize them. Otherwise I may end up eating weeds...

Some vegetables are really late, or really early.

Random shot

I worry a bit about the asparagus. Not sure if they are dead or just sleeping. No sign of life yet though.

Chingensai are blooming

Broccoli will start blooming too soon

And finally, the covered greens in the backyard

Got chipper

The broccoli in the backyard are finally big enough to eat. Here is a breakfast I had last weekend, 100% homemade.

The most tender broccoli I ever tasted. Just harvested.

The forest plot "flattening" is turning out to be such a never ending task, and as I mentioned before, it produces way to much bamboo and the forest "floor" is impossible to walk on. I considered burning the bamboo but that will pretty much kill the ground/spot where I make the fire.
Soooo I just took the leap and bought a 13 Hp shredder/chipper. Yeah, I have had enough of worrying about all the bamboo. I will chip it all up, spread it all over the forest floor and then still be able to dig out bamboo roots if I want to.
I placed an order for shredder in Amazon, and it said it should arrive 3 days later. Recently it has been pretty much raining every day here, so I looked at the calendar and was super happy to see that the day after the shredder's arrival it was going to be clear and sunny all day, and then the rainy misery would continue for another week after that at least.
So in my head I planned to head for the forest on the sunny day and start chipping wood. Surely that whole day would be a big progress. My truck is still not here, but the chipper has two wheels and I could just walk the 500 meters to the forest I figured.
The reason I wanted to start chipping as early as possible is that the longer the bamboo branches lie there on the ground, the harder they get (unless it is raining constantly) and the harder to chip...
Waited and waited but there was no "we have sent your item" mail that whole day. Same thing the next day. I started to worry that my perfect plan was going to be failing before it even started.
On the 3rd day, the day before the sunny day, the day the chipper was supposed to arrive, I got a mail saying "Sorry for the delay but it was not possible for us to make your shipment on the planned schedule, you will get a mail once we can ship". D'oh!
Late night, I got another mail saying they have shipped. And I could track the chipper online.
The sunny day came, and what a sunny day! Perfect, especially after all the rain. Only I had no chipper prepared. But I was not going to give up so easily. Tracked the chipper and it said it has arrived in Chiba, but still not out for delivery.
I thought to myself that I should grab the opportunity and use the nice weather to put in some potatoes in the ground in the land I am borrowing. Then hurry back and receive the chipper and then hurry to the gasoline stand, get oil and gas and rush back and head for the forest with my chipper and spend the afternoon at least, chipping.
In the farm land, I dug up a second row, and put in the potatoes. I also covered the first row with black mulch sheet so weeds would not come out. That took 1,5 hours, and I was super tired after.

Just hope the wild boars don't eat them all up

Back at home, it was almost 11 A.M. and the home page still didn't say anything about delivery time. Just as I was closing the browser, the door bell rang and there it was. 100 kg package. The delivery guy needed my help to haul it down and inside.

Mystery box

This was not your usual cardboard box. It was wooden with proper frames and nailed shut. Just my luck, when I am in a hurry the boxing is different than I thought.
Starting at the corners made most sense, so that is what I did.

Nailed and bolted metal

It took some effort to get those bolts up...

But the rest were just tiny nails

Tiny nails, but oh so sharp.

Gloves necessary

Once the corners were off, it was easy enough to pry open the top. I was in hurry. Some stupid wooden box was not gonna stop me.

Top/Off

Hmm...this doesn't look like a ready to use out of box chipper though.... let's get those walls off and have a closer look.

Yep, definitely not ready

Damn damn... OK, still it can't take more than an hour or two? I can still get a couple of hours of light to chip....? or?
Read the Japanese manual as fast as humanly possible and putting together the beast. It was quite straight forward, but it weighted nearly 100 kg so turning it around and lifting it to fit parts under without putting it down on its side where the motor is.... took some strength and time to say the least.
It was gradually dawning on me though that today, there would be no chipping. With luck I could assemble the thing and put it in the shed before the rain came pouring down for another week.

Almost there.. just the wheels missing

Once I attached the wheels, I saw that the tires were not fully pumped... in fact they were flat so wheeling it around as I thought was not going to be such a good idea. In fact the wheels refused to move without air. I tried to pump some air in there to remedy this but it turned out to be impossible because the valve was not the type to fit my pump... great.

All put together. What a beauty!

The short distance around the house, between the front door and the shed in the backyard seemed like miles now. Again, I was lucky to have a flat cart. Together with my girlfriend we loaded the chipper on the cart and started slowly pushing the cart toward the shed. The worst part was the west of the house, it is narrow just enough to fit the cart, there is the water tank and the air conditioning unit, as well as the whole side is covered (by me) with pebbles to make the path non-slippery in the winter. Great! that turned out to work against me too.
Once we arrived at the shed, my whole body and its muscles felt like it has been through the chipper.
I was in pain for 2 whole days after that... not used to use my muscles 100% I guess.
Anyway, the next day which was rainy as hell, as preparation I bought a valve converter and pumped the tires. I also bought oil and a 10 liter gas can. But I won't be attempting to chip until my Kei-truck arrives. In the meantime I will prepare the rest of the forest plot by cutting more branches off the felt bamboo.
Of course, wheeling the chipper back and forth between the shed and the car won't be so efficient so I will be keeping it in the car port instead, and cover it with sheet to protect it from wind and weather.
I also realized that the big thing will not be easy to load into the truck, even if I use a ramp. So I ordered a mini fork lift, that can handle 200 kg. I am sure it will be handy for more lifting than just this. I should give my back a break. Well not literally.
 

Meanwhile, at the forest...

I got tired of the flattening. Not physically but it is now clear to me that I have too much bamboo on my hands. Even if I cover the ground twice over, there will be more. And I cannot really walk on top of them as I imagined, even if they are laid neatly in parallel.
So, I took a break and ordered a wood chipper. It should arrive early March. In the meantime, it is getting warmer and we are getting less and less frost so I took an hour to prepare the soil where I borrowed some land.
I dug a couple of straight lines, raised a bit of dirt and put up some old tunnel frames. Just that one long bed is so big I think I will not need more land unless I have a tractor or lots more to plant.
I will make one more row next to this one and plant potatoes. And Just in case I will make one more row next to that with tunnel.
I don't think I will be able to keep up with more than 2-3 long rows like that but one never knows. It is my first time and I have no idea what kind of effort is needed, so I am improvising.

I did this manually with a hoe... so

Just to show how big the land I am borrowing is, here is the land with my newly made row at the far end. Actually I couldn't get the whole land inside the frame so it is bigger.

Yep it's big

The soil is the best quality I have seen so far though, nice and soft and full of life.
  

Hoarders Story

Spring is here and I am happy to find an egg or two every day in the nest. Then one day I could not even find a single egg...

It was a nice and sunny day

Not a cold and dark day where one would expect the hens to go on strike or anything like that.. but still. The hens seemed happy and healthy.

But the nest was empty, except for some poop

I sensed something was fishy but didn't care to investigate further... until I opened the coop to clean up the poop from inside.

Still nothing strange. Just poop on the poop board

Until I leaned in more to move the poop board, and found hidden away treasure!!!

Must be a week's worth

Somehow the hens had decided that the nest was not the best place to lay their eggs, and together decided the coop corner to be optimum.

Two dozen eggs to be exact

I cleaned up the poop, the coop and took the eggs, as well as tidied up the nest boxes. After that, the hens returned to their old habit of laying properly in the nests. Now I find 3-4 eggs every day in the boxes where they should be.

The fruits of today. Poop and eggs

And that is the story of my hoarder hens.

The eggs were all still good and yummy

 

Dull saw, or just weak?

Gradually the bamboo flattening is progressing but I am too eager to wait till it is finished properly before trying my hands on a sugi tree...
So I geared up with my chainsaw again (it was a while ago I brought it along since the flattening and de-branching can be done with just a tiny handsaw) and headed to the plot.

My gear when going to the forest... until I get my car

Did a of the usual branch cutting first and when I got bored of that, I decided to challenge the smallest of the sugi trees, as a way of measuring my and my tool's strength.

The first to fall. Doesn't look very challenging does it?

Here is the same tree, close up. I have started wearing special gloves because after all the rain and snow the bamboo are all wet and slippery, plus I don't want to cut my fingers again. These are not dish washer gloves even though they look like it. They are much thicker and have real good grip. Underneath I wear a pair of normal gardening gloves.

Feel the force. May the power of our lord cut you down.

I hit the trunk with the full force of the fully loaded chainsaw, and went at it for a good 5 minutes until it felt like the saw was not going any deeper. Here is the result of that effort.

Not impressive

Even the tiny green bug that was resting on the tree did not think it was worth moving for. It just sat there and watched while I gave it another try, but it got no better.

Tough bugger

OK, tree. You win this round. But I'll be back. I don't know yet how but I will be back even if I have to cut you down with an axe. I am guessing either the chainsaw teeth have gone dull, or that the engine is too weak, even if it was enough for cutting thick bamboos, and that a real man's gasoline engine chainsaw is needed. I will think about it and try again.
In the meantime, I sulked and went back to my flattening. I even spread some leaves on the path I made next to the plot to make its tracks more presentable. I am pretty happy with that.

Looking north from the south west corner

Looking east from the same corner, with the path visible

The sun reaches the plot nicely now... and so does the rain and the wind. Just need to get rid of those sugis... 

Shaping the plot

Well now that we have the corners more or less pinned, agreed upon and signed, I can connect the dots and make the defining shape of the plot. I began doing this by laying some of the bamboo along the path to the south. At least I laid them where I thought it was supposed to be, between two big trees, on the edge of the path where the small cars use.
Until Mr. O came by and saw what I was doing, and urged me to lay the bamboo more inside the path. "The actual path is further south. People have just been using this flat bit because it is more convenient, but actually half the flat bit where people pass is part of your plot." He said.
So I started invading the current "path" with my line of bamboos in order to define the actual path. Of course doing this made the path look much narrower because the other side of the path (where the actual path is supposed to be) is overgrown and also gradually goes up into a hill... Ah heck, here, let me draw it:

Cross section of the path. My plot to the left (north)

So after I had made the path look narrow by laying all my bamboo at the edge of my plot, I thought to myself that the poor cars who want to pass need to have a chance at least. Therefore, I took a hoe and dug the "dirt gathered from above", and made clear and flat the "actual path". I even measured it to be wider than the convenient path was, at over 2,2 meters.
Here is the result. I am pretty happy with it, and even Mr. O who saw it later said it was well done.

It took a whole morning, but now I have 20 meters of path

Then another day I was flattening the bamboo, cutting branches etc. When I realized right at that spot where I was cutting, there were too many bamboos, and it was big and thick bamboo that was in my way and I had nowhere to put it. So I started hauling it over to the newly defined path, and continued the path all the way to the east corner, where we recently had remeasured with Mr. K
Time to put those extra meters to use I thought and started laying the big bamboos along the corner and the edge,clearly shaping the plot. And then I continued the flattening at the east end.
This is what it looked like after I was done that day.

The east side, seen from south

Yeah, it snowed again.
I have almost 1/3 left to "flatten" and then I can start felling the sugi trees. Here is a picture taken from east side, to compare with the ones before I started felling bamboos...

Mr. K's plot is in the foreground, nice and flat.

Not much else going on... except I met a lady who lives up the hill at the south side. She is a very nice lady with a maki stove, and was looking for wood to burn, so I gave her all the wood I had put to dry in the car-port. Win-win. I showed her my "garden", with the chickens who have now started laying every day again (hooray), and she showed me her big garden with lots of fruit trees but she said the fruit doesn't come out so well. She is not a pro, and doesn't put in any chemicals or natural nutrition in the soil so I guess that is the reason.
She was very sympathetic though. Good to know what people live around the plot.

Spring is coming, Jon Snow

Either that, or one of my chickens is confused.
This morning I found this unusually elongated and symmetrical egg in their nest. Days are getting longer so I suppose the cold doesn't matter.

I missed fresh eggs. Looking forward to eat this one