Farming in Japan

Greetings for the day you are reading this.   The other day, I went to my friend's farm to help out. It is located in the beautiful Sagamihara area, and his company is pretty big there.   It was a very nice day; however, the wind picked up toward the end.   Each year, he hosts a day where people he knows can help out with one root vegetable, satsumo imo, because the steps to plant satsumo imo are pretty tedious and require a lot of manpower. We are happy to help him.   After all the hard work, he has lunch prepared for us. Nice vegetable soup along with boxed bento. Of course, desserts are there, too.   This year, I have noticed that people who want to do farming or argiculture in general have increased. That is a very nice thing cause it is a noble work to be able to grow and feed people.   We were talking about his business, and I spoke about my interest in the business. He was very delighted to hear that calling me “Shacho.” It was a bit embarrassing to ...
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Finally, a full day at home

    It has been non-stop since I got back from Mongolia. First, I had to move. I had three weeks before I had to return the apartment. I moved several boxes a day. Then my father came to help. While he was here, we had to drive to Kochi, which took three days. I drove 12 hours each way. Then it was moving week for both me and my cousins. A day before we actually moved the last of the furniture, my cousins got a phone call. It was dreadful news. Their father had passed away due to his illness. As soon as we finished moving, or more like shoving things into the house, they had to prepare to go back to Mongolia for the funeral. That week was horrible.

    Then it was time to look for a parking spot for the car. The house comes with a parking spot, but we have two cars, so we needed to find a spot for the second car. It was a stressful week right after my cousins had left for Mongolia, because I had to park the car at the coin parking since my cousin hadn’t found a spot before he left. I had to park it every evening, and most of the week, I had to park in front of the house because the coin parking was always full. Finally, I found the owner of a parking spot by accident and got a spot a couple of minutes from the house. Don’t worry, I vented to my cousin because it was his car and he needed to find a spot.
    Then, putting things away started. It was a lot of stuff and everywhere. We lived with many boxes for a couple of weeks. Finally, I had to deal with them because my cousins were away. The wife of the cousin is busy with work, even though she works from home. So, I had to clean and organize the entrance and the hallway to make the place more functional and inviting. There are many small things that need to be sorted and placed, but that will come in due time. Right now, I need to figure out and decide where I want to put the microwave. I may have found a solution.
    I am doing all of this while I am going to work every day. It was so tiring. Today is the first day that I am staying home all day and doing some computer work.
    Oh yeah, also, I had my annual physical check-up. Everything is good except, of course, my weight. I am working on that now. Now, everything has settled, I can resume my daily yoga (I couldn’t do it due to my foot injury). Last week, I did four short sessions, and I will do more and longer sessions.

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