Right turn

So it seems Mr. I did talk to the workers and they "tidied things up". Basically what they did is that they rearranged the logs that they had dropped in my lot, so now they are not pointing in the air and aren't inaccessible anymore. So I will be able to cut them down to size if I wish to. Apparently the fact that the logs don't belong there in my plot doesn't matter.

Looks cleaner from far away already

Anyway, I'm not gonna fight about it cause it's all organic matter and I am not in a hurry to do anything in that plot. So I don't mind. In fact I am looking for an excuse to leave it for a while. All those logs lying around are just the perfect excuse, so I can focus on my bigger, bamboo, plot. Maybe in a couple of years when the logs are nice and rotten I can start looking at that plot.

This counts as cleaned up these days

I am right now focused on talking to the city office folks, and asking them to do something about the road, which has no cover and is so muddy that I get stuck in with my truck every time. It took a few phone calls and several week's waiting and a couple of visits by me with maps and pictures to get them to have a look and it seems they will put some gravel along the road. Well it is better than nothing. The guy who was there said it is not decided yet, but they will cover the worst parts which is 70-80 meters starting from end of my bamboo plot (where it borders Mr.K's) to the end of my other plot (where it meets Mr.O's)

Map

Also he said what they will be covering is a narrow path, just enough for the Kei truck to not get stuck. So it's not gonna be super wide. All to keep costs down. Oh well.
My problem is that the path created by people and trucks passing on it is a straight path, whereas according to the map it should turn right. (The "A" road in the map, the dotted line is what it looks like now) The bottom part in the map is pretty well-defined thanks to the big trees along the path. But after the trees it just continues straight forward. It results in my plot getting smaller and part of it being used as road.

Started to fix the road 

So just a few days before the city guy was gonna visit, I cleaned up the actual road (it was overgrown with bushes and small fast growing trees), flattened it and turned it to the right. It is still not according to the map, but it is much better. I also talked to Mr.K and asked him to drive on the new path from now on because it is in his own interest to keep the real road clear of vegetation by driving in it. That way his plot will also not be shrinking. He was pretty impressed with what I had achieved in such short time.
After that I laid new bamboo along the correct path and made new borders, and filled it in.

Before filling the new bamboo borders. The diff is easy to see.

So this way I regained a triangle, with base of 2-3 meters and length of 15-18 meters. That's more than 20 square meters. Not much but it counts when a plot is as tiny as mine.

All done.

The new path is still not turning dramatically to the right, but that slight turn makes me happy. The map's turn is not a big turn neither.
So the guy came and looked at the path and took a few pictures, and said they will cover the path the way it looks now, i.e. will use my new path.
Back in the garden, not much new going on... the passion fruit has grown enormously and I made a couple of add-ons to its trellis, so now it is a 3-D trellis.

It is also now creeping up on the strawberry bed...

The fig tree is also getting bigger. I noticed tiny figs on its branches.

Not sure what I am supposed to do with it so I just let it grow

Zoom in to tiny figs

Remember I removed some big bushes to plant an apple sapling? It all went fine and the apple likes its new home. I did fill in with some compost and raw garbage when I planted it, which turned out to be a kind of mistake.
Lots of tomato seeds in the garbage apparently, so the bush area that I cleared, it now bushed over again, this time with lots of tomatoes.
Well, at least it is edible stuff and not totally unwanted. But one can see how out of hand tomatoes can get.

D'oh! my finger got in the way

OK, no finger. The apple tree can hardly be seen

 

3 down, 20 something to go

When I bought my chainsaw it came with a bit of gas in it already. There was a note attached from the company saying they had to test that it actually started the first time, so that is why. After I chopped up the fallen tree on Mr.O's land, there still was some gas remaining, so I though to myself, let's cut down some trees and see how hard it is.

It's not big, but it does the job

In my "bamboo" plot I think there are 25 or so sugi trees. I intend to cut them all down except for one which is right at the road nearby. It is useful as a marker to show where my plot is. If I cut them all down, there is a risk that cars gradually start driving more and more into my plot.

Before

Some of the 25 are small so I decided to start with those and work my way up. That way, I would get a bit of practice before getting to the real big ones. The two smallest ones could easily be cut down, just by noticing how the leaned and stand behind it and saw. One of them had rot in its core, more than half its total width so it was pretty hollow. Interesting to see how rot felt to the saw and also a bit how it affects cutting it down. The third one I cut was a little bigger so I cut it like a real tree, by first cutting a triangle out into it where it is supposed to fall, and then cut from the other side.

I didn't really need a wedge yet because it was still pretty small in comparison. After I chopped those 3 up, I ran out of gas.

So next time, after I have burned most of the bamboo and the plot is clear to felling trees on it, I will buy gas, and wedge, to start cutting the rest of the trees down.

After. Can you see which ones I cut?

Tidying up more

I had trouble sleeping cause I kept thinking about one tree in my other forest plot that had broken during the typhoon and it had fallen over on Mr. O's plot.
He just showed it to me in passing and said he wasn't really doing anything in that plot anyway so I didn't have to hurry removing it. It has now been there more than 3 weeks, and every time I pass it I kinda feel guilty.

The broken tree

Zoom in where it has fallen

It is pretty heavy, and some of its branches have dug themselves deep into the ground as it fell, so it is pinned down properly in place. My excuse so far had been that I didn't have a chainsaw etc but that doesn't work anymore.
So, in the morning, armed with my brand new Husky chainsaw I went to see what could be done.

Me in my lumberjack gear

The chainsaw cut nice and smooth like knife in butter. It felt great. I cut the trunk up in smaller bits and dragged them away to my plot. Actually used them to mark the border better.

Trunk, divided

I hope Mr. O gets happy when he sees his plot is cleaned.

Tidy

Tidying up a little

Went to the woods and cleaned up a bit more around the fire area, and lined it with some old bricks I had lying around in the garden.

Now it looks safer

The mosquitoes were really having a feast on me, and I took the opportunity to make a nice and big fire to keep the bastards away.

Bloodsucking vampire

With the mosquitoes gone, started sorting out the bamboo, piling them up on the north side in a nice square, and also pulled out the worst of the weeds, and burned the bamboo nearest to the fire area, so the circle around there got wider and wider. After I was done, poured 20 liters of water on the fire to make sure it was put out properly. (Got a plastic watering can from the garden which I was not using, and took rain water from Mr. K's plot. He said earlier that it's OK)

I can almost have a campfire

So the burning of the wood have now officially begun. Let's see how long it takes...

The ring of fire

The bamboo plot is pretty overgrown with huge weeds, and nowhere to access the middle part where I had "reserved" for burning things. Also the typhoon had messed up my nice pile of bamboo in the north, as well as added a few more bamboos that had fallen over from the next door plot. So the first thing to do was to clear all that and make a path to the middle.
Spent one day cutting and cleaning the typhoon bamboos that were just hanging in dangerous angles, and put them on top of the pile in north. Also removed a lot of weeds and more bamboos that were lying on the ground and made a path to the middle.

facing south. Can almost distinguish the round fire area in the middle

facing north looking at the bamboo pile

And the next day it was suppose to rain. So I figured it would be perfect to make a fire. Instead, it turned out to be one of the hottest sunniest days this month, with no rain whatsoever. I made a tiny fire and started burning bamboo.

Just a few minutes in

While it burned, I worked moving bamboos around a bit and removing more weeds and widening paths. I burned bamboo for 3 hours before I felt I am about to pass out from the sun. So I put out the fire and went home.

An hour or so later

Trashland

I did order a Husqvarna chainsaw and it arrived just before the weekend. So armed with that and all ready to deal with the fallen trees blocking the path to my plots, I headed to the woods.
Just to see this.

Well what a nice surprise

The trees had all been cleared off and the path nice and clean. Well somewhat. "Great!" I thought and continued further to see if they had cleaned the path all the way to my bamboo site.
Before I got there though, looking closer at my plot on the left, I noticed something..

Ah come on!

Whoever the kind soul was who had cleared the path, had dumped ALL the trees into my plot. Just a nice impossible-to-sort heap of trees. I can't even go in there anymore. And those weird angles they are lying at, and the high places they are, I wouldn't dare challenge with my chainsaw. I think they cut down 2 trees inside my plot at most. One of them was already an old broken tree maybe only 4-5 meters tall. But the rest of the garbage they dumped in my land are the huge trees that fell from the land on the right side, all the trees along the path were nicely cut down and moved into my plot.
Asked around a little and it turned out the owner of the land where all those trees had been asked some company to clear the path, and that company apparently just found it very convenient to use my land as garbage dump.
So I continued asking around and got his name (Let's call him I.-san), found where he lives and walked there and knocked but there was no one home. Anyway, tried a couple of times later and at night when it got dark he was home. So I introduced myself, thanked him for clearing the path and explained the situation to him. He said he had asked the company located right next door, apologized and said he will go to the site tomorrow to have a look and will then ask the company to take the garbage somewhere else. I got his number and gave him mine just to be sure.
The 2 following days I was working in my plot but didn't see anyone come look at anything so I may need to remind him if nothing happens in a week or two...
So...back to the path. It was actually clear all the way to my bamboo land so I got to do some work.

Almost impossible to know there was a typhoon

Kitty TV

The night after the typhoon there were a lot of tiny tiny flies outside. And of course the lizards were out to feast on them. One of them found a good spot on our kitchen window and was chasing flies and eating.
Of course my bored cats were very thankful to have something to look at

First only Oreo saw it

Close up on the cute lizard

After a while both cats were admiring it

It has actually been happening 2 nights in a row now.