Chipping wood

The aluminum ramps worked perfect for loading the shredder into the mini truck. Once that was done, I secured it with some rope so it wouldn't tip over while the truck is in motion. Then I took a veeery slow and careful drive to the woods.
However, I guess all my care was not enough, because when it was time to turn to left, at a traffic light and up a slope, the shredder did tip over and actually off the truck. The rope kept its legs in the truck though so its head dragged in the asphalt a couple of meters before I could stop. I got out and heaved the shredded up into the truck again, and saw that the painting on the side rim of the trunk had gotten its first bruises...oh well.
Drove the rest of the way without any incidents. Once there, I unloaded the shredder using the ramps, and proceeded to clear a small area in my lot where I could park the truck.
Once cleared, I got into the truck and started driving into the "parking" but the ground underneath was too soft and muddy and before long the truck was stuck, dug about 10 cm into the mud and would not move.

Stuck! What a great way to start the day.

Just my luck. Got out and used all my might to push and pull the truck out of its mucky grave and eventually fill in the holes under the tires with straws and branches and such. But still it was not enough to get the car out. As soon as I started the engine the wheels would just spin in place and dig deeper into the ground. Called Chika at home to come over and give me a hand by starting the car while I push.
She came over and was puzzled about the clutch so first I had to give her a crash course of how to drive manual shift. Or at least how to start, how to go forward, how to go backward, as well as how to break.
I got behind the car and used all my remaining power to push and pull the car back and forth until it got a bit of momentum and then shouted to Chika to start the car and go forward. That helped a bit, the car got out of its holes but she had to stop in order to not crash into a tree trunk, and the ground beneath was still very soft so I figured if trying to drive there the truck would get stuck again. It had to back out unto the road. Made sure that the four previous holes in the ground were filled up, before pulling the car.
I could not push the car back by standing in its front, because the front of the car is very weak, not made of metal and would just get dented and the car wouldn't actually move. So I had to stand behind the car and pull it. Anyway....long story short, together we got the car out and I drove it over to the road where the ground was more solid. I was afraid it would get stuck again so I sped up.
When I was walking back to the plot from where I parked the truck I noticed a lot of stinging nettles have started to emerge.

Better be careful.. these really can hurt

Now the shredding could start. I began slowly with tiny branches and moved up to thicker and thicker to see what size bamboo the shredder could handle.
The out-mouth of the shredder was too small and all the chipped wood kept getting stuck there and I had to stop the machine and clean it out every few minutes, which became cumbersome so I just removed the mouth piece all together and pointed the shredder toward my plot so it would just spit out the chips all over the woods in front of it. It still git clogged every 10 minutes or so and I had to clear the pile of chip in front of it every now and then but way less frequent than with the mouth cover in place.

The chipper in its natural environment. Mouth piece in the back.

With the time spent clearing a tiny parking area, and the car getting stuck and all that, I didn't have much time left for the shredding. Just a couple hours, which I used to get the feel of the machine. A couple of old guys came by and asked me if they could have some bamboo, as they were building a fence for the children's playground nearby. I told them it was ok to take as much bamboo as their heart desired at any time. They looked surprised and happy to hear that and gave me real deep bows and went off. I moved the chipper to the back of the plot and continued shredding a bit more until I put in a real big and thick bamboo in there which the machine didn't seem to handle very well so I had to lift the bamboo out. I smelled a bit of burnt rubber too so I stopped the engine, when trying to start the engine again by pulling on its rope, it didn't move. So I called it a day. Next day I would check what was the blocker. Parked the shredder in the woods and drove home.

The shredder sleeping

  

New car smell

Even a tiny kei-truck has that wonderful new car smell in it. Finally I picked up the car and enjoyed the 35 minute drive home. A bit nervous though, since it is manual transmission and although all my cars in Sweden had manual gears too, the stick is now on my left side. Being right handed, in Sweden shifting came kind of natural and felt right. Shifting with my left hand feels a bit unusual, and a couple of times when it was time to shift gear I noticed my right hand automatically reached for something to do (although the only stick my right hand is in charge of while driving is the blinker/lights)
When not driving, of course, my right hand is in charge of a different, bigger stick. Huh huh.

The truck is now home, waiting in the car port

Also, I had a bit of trouble finding my way home cause there is no GPS in the car. So I used my Google Map and had to glance down whenever I had a chance (at red lights etc.) to see if I was still on track or what was the next few directions.
Actually I think Google Map has a voice navigator for this kind of occasion, but I didn't have it installed. I will install that, plus get a smartphone holder so I can have the map more in front of me rather than on the seat next to me.

Ass-shot from main gate

For now I covered the back with tarp to keep rain out. I already got gasoline for the chipper so on Saturday I want to go shred some bamboos.
But looking at the weather forecast, it looks like it will be a rainy day. Just my luck. Oh well, if it rains then I will go on Sunday. Bamboos, here I come.

Asparagus

Spring is here one week, then it gets real cold again and freezing one week, and then it gets nice and hot like summer one week. The weather is crazy, and the plants are not sure how to react.
Luckily the plum/prune tree in the garden is still holding on to all its pretty flowers.

I hope they make it better than last year

In the woods, I already spotted a couple of sneaky bamboo shoots which I kicked over right away. I have to pay more frequent visits to the plot now that they are coming out, if I am to keep them at bay. If I let new shoots come out the roots will never rot. The stumps I left after cutting down the bamboo have already started to mold and look real yucky.

Like a natural petri dish

As soon as the mini truck is here, I will be chipping the bamboo like there is no tomorrow. But for now I can just continue flattening and kicking shoots over. The chipper is waiting eagerly at the car port...

I will have a lot of tarp when all this is over

I did get a mail from the car dealer on Sunday, saying that the mini truck has arrived and I can pick it up this week. They even attached a picture of it.

Cute, isn't she

Otherwise, I have been picking weeds in the garden and removing the tunnels and netting. The asparagus turned out to be alive afterall (hooray). They are now starting their second year by popping out new a little thicker shoots.

They're still shy but look closer and you can see the green

More baby aspara

I did pick all of those weeds after taking the picture

And finally, I think I spotted a Japanese honey bee in my garden. Well at least I want to believe I did... I am no expert so I am going to pretend it was a honey bee and be happy for a while.

Maybe just a fly...

closer...

I am still thinking about keeping bees in the forest so it would be nice if I could catch them rather than buying them... again, just rantings of a total newbee..

Waiting...

It sucks having to wait for the mini truck to do anything else in the woods. And to add to the suckiness we are having one beautiful sunny day after another. All the while my bamboos are getting roasted in the sun, and harden so I will probably have a harder time now shredding them.
In the garden signs of spring are popping up here and there. Here are some random pictures.

The plum tree. Last year it got struck hard by fungi, better luck this year?

Lots of tiny tiny buds all over. I will try and cover a couple of branches of the plum tree to see if it helps. The disease spores are carried by wind from the neighboring orchard. If there is no difference between covered and uncovered, then I will just leave it to chance.
The other saplings are also budding. The most growth is shown by the mulberry.

I had to twist the branches into circles to keep the sapling scope limited

Not only trees but vegetables are budding and blooming too.

Top: Chingensai. Bottom: Broccoli

And last but not least we have the strawberries.

Tiny flowers in strawberry patch

Not sure how well the strawberry did through the winter. I guess we have to wait and see.
I wasn't completely passive though. I did take a trip to the forest to do some more "flattening" until the news about the mini truck comes. Both neighbors have planted saplings in their lots. I am guessing persimmons because they were talking about it all the time. I could see 2 saplings with labels attached in Mr. O's lot, and maybe 7-8 in Mr. K's. Really big gap between the trees, like 7-10 meters. Maybe they are planning to put something in the middle later... like a dining table or something.
While I was cutting away at my bamboos I saw a couple I guess from city who were digging and looking for bamboo shoots in the upper hill, north of my lot. Hehe, I guess they came to dig out shoots from my lot as usual, and discovered that not only all the bamboo is gone, but that the ground is hard to walk on, and had to settle for the bamboo grove uphill. I had a chat with the guy and he pointed out to me that the bamboo roots in my lot will start rotting (in fact they have already) and I told him it was good to hear as I am no fan of growing bamboo (And I thought to myself, particularly not for folks like you to take). It's nice that they are deterred. I guess there will be more bamboo hunters along. Would be fun to see their reaction too when they see I have chopped down their dear free bamboo source. Muahaha. Actually it would be good if scavengers would dig out the remaining roots for a couple of years. That would kill the bamboo for sure.
Still there are unflattened bamboo to keep me busy while waiting.

My plot. The "uphill" is in the far side.

Mr. K's lot is in the back. Look close for new saplings

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.