Out of the blue... and into the green.

It seems that I haven't written anything here since December, so time for a pre-spring up-date.


The end of December saw the shed getting it's last few planks of siding fixed on, and a lovely new pot-belly stove replacing the one we'd borrowed from Iain and Tomoko. We took the chimney out through the northern wall instead of going through the western window, and it's made the shed feel so much more spacious. Not to mention warm.
As hinted at in that last post, we ended the year with the digger. Sankyo lease, our local tool hire place, has this cool system where they don't charge for days on which the company is closed. So, if you rent something on Saturday morning and get it back to them first thing Monday, they only charge for a day. Cool eh! We timed the digger rental for the new year holidays, meaning that while we had the digger for 6 days, we only had to pay for one! How's that for lateral thinking! We had to pay for drop off and pick up, but it still saved us a packet. We also rented a chipper which ended up costing nothing as I had to fix it before it would work properly, and they felt bad about it. "So", you may ask, "what were you doing that needed a digger and a chipper?"



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Due to public demand, It's time for another update.
As you can see, winter has arrived. We had our first frost at the end of Nov, and the cold has brought about an increase in activity here in Okayama, both to keep warm by moving during the day, and to keep warm once the moving has stopped at the end of it.

The 'un-shed' has come on leaps and bounds. After cladding the walls with 'Yaki Sugi' boards, it was brought to my attention that a single skin of boards was going to be pretty drafty. Indeed, it was. So, after extending the floor out to the second bay (as reported earlier) off came all the cladding, and up went a skin of plywood...



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Well, after getting the shed framing up and (relatively) plum, the flooring and roofing went on. And then the comments started flowing in... "You should live here!", "This is too nice to be a mere shed...", "Look at all this space... are you really going to use two thirds of it to park cars under?", "Imagine some nice lighting under those beam braces...", "You could turn that bay into a bedroom for guests.".
Ok! I give up! I'll build a shed somewhere else and this will be a living/relaxing/temporary accommodation space. Alright? Satisfied? Jeez...
So, I've now floored the center bay, and will be removing the cladding on what was the northern wall of the Southern most bay (ex-Shed!!) so that we have one big room and people can come and look at it and say "When are you going to floor the third bay?".



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Kazumi and I have been blessed with the presence of Iain and Tomoko for the last three weeks. An absolutely enchanting couple, Iain has been keeping me going and focused on getting the shed done, while Tomoko has been reminding us that despite the primitive conditions we're human and that there's no need to slum it. At the same time making sure that we're well fed and watered. Happily the four of us have found each-other very easy to get on with and, dare I say, I feel like a life long friendship has been founded. All power to the both of you!

The shed has come together great guns, and all that remains is the roofing and cladding. The frame is up and rock solid... and considering our amateur status, pretty much all aligned and square. There have been a number of 'plan Bs' during construction, and even some 'plan Cs', but we work on the old Islamic tradition that it would be arrogant in the extreme to create something that didn't have any mistakes in it.



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It's official, we will be hosting a 'work party' here in Okayama on Oct 10th for all our friends and colleagues. The idea of the party is not only to help us with some of the jobs on the land, but also to raise awareness of climate change issues and to persuade people that waiting for their leaders to do something will be too late, and that they themselves can do something.
Hopefully we'll have got the yurt, the shed, and a toilet set up in time, because we're expecting maybe 20 people or more. We'll be putting together the solar array that we've bought (most of), and people will each have a couple of trees with which to start planting our forest garden. Of course, if you're coming, feel free to bring a tree for the forest. Anything productive and suited to the climate. Bushes, trees, ground cover (that handles shade well)... the choice is yours!
We will be providing soft drinks, so bring a bento for your lunch. Party runs from 10am to 10pm. If you want to stay, bring a tent!

It's been hot. Bloody hot! Working out there in the middle of the day is impossible, so we've kind of gone Mediterranean... maybe nocturnal would be closer to the truth. Work starts at sun-up, usually between 5~5:30am, then we knock off at 10 or 11. If there's stuff to be bought from the builders' merchant or some such, we head off and do that in the middle of the day or just chill out (figuratively speaking, 'melt out' would be more accurate) over a slow lunch. Once the site is back in the shade, between 4 and 5pm, we head back to finish off and tidy up. Usually knocking it on the head just before sundown. Not such a hard schedule, but hey, we're not on any particular schedule... actually, having said that, I've kind of gone and created an artificial deadline and battle plan for the next two months, culminating in a "Forest Garden Tree Planting and Solar Array Building Work Party" in solidarity with the 350.org inspired Global Work Party on Oct 10th. Oops!

So, where are we at? Firstly, a new face. Iain will be wintering with us and helping out around the place. He has spent most of the last year down in Kyuushu and has moved up to Honshu recently to look for a plot of his own. Hopefully, while staying with us, he'll be able to find something suitable in the vicinity. Talk of an Okayama based 'Intentional Community' has been bandied around for quite a while now, and who knows, this might be the start of something along those lines.



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So, money has changed hands and documents have been duly stamped. The land is well and truly ours now.
I think I mentioned before that we're trying to get at least some of the woodland to the north of our plot. Here's an image to help you follow what I'm about to say:

The plot to the right, No.3 in the pic, is up for sale and at not too bad a price, to be honest. It's only 300 or so square meters though, and it's somewhat 'separate' from us, if you see what I mean.
The plot to the left, No. 1 in the pic, might be for sale. Trouble is, the owner is currently bed ridden and, unfortunately, non compos mentis. The family that stand to inherit this plot are inclined to realize it before gramps pops it, and thereby add cash to the inheritance rather than keep the land. Or so we've been led to believe. I'd like this bit of land for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's three and a half thousand square meters of not too steeply inclined san-rin which we could use to build on rather than the small genya down at the bottom of our plot.
Another reason is that while we were exploring at the weekend, we found a small pond (tame ike) that would be really useful if we wanted to or were forced to stop using the mains supply that we have.
The third reason is that it adjoins what I've called 'Plot 2' in the picture. This plot appears to be ownerless, or we've been unable to trace them in the usual manner (city office, real estate searches etc.). Seems like he's just dropped of the face of the earth... which means that if we put up signs stating out intents to claim the land as our own, and if no-one challenges us for 20 years, it becomes ours
Yes, I'm serious. Here's a link to an article by another non-Japanese homesteader in Japan, Ken Elwood, titled "Adverse Possession of Abandoned Land in Japan: A Primer". It tells you all that you need to know
So if I can buy plot No. 1 and claim plot No. 2, I reckon that will do us just about right and we'll be set up for the rest of our time on this good ol' planet of ours.

I've been thinking about how we'll use the land we've bought as time goes on. The permaculture course I've just finished reminded me of the importance of zones. Zones can refer to many things, but a useful set to start with can be zones defined by expected usage, or frequency of visit. I've knocked up a couple of zone maps, only preliminary but reflective of my thoughts as they currently stand, and will put them up here so I can come back to them in the future to see how far off the mark I was

There're three maps. The first with no zones, but a rough idea of what I'm trying to do. The second showing with Zone 0 (the yurt). And the third one showing how the zones might change once the real house has been built. I should add that I've forgotten to include the yurt as a secondary residence in this map:




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Well, it's taken me a week to get myself sat down in front of the computer to type this, so here goes.
I got back from the UK last Wednesday, and what a time I had!

The first few days were at home in Farnham with sis and the folks. It was great to see them all again and everyone was looking relaxed and well. It was reassuring to see that the dining room table is still the place for heated political debate and putting the world to rights, just like it always was. The volume seems to rise at about the same rate as I remember too. No wonder Dad's starting to lose his hearing! I managed to catch up with Rog & family too which was great.

The other reason I was in the UK was to do a fortnight's Permaculture design course down in lovely Dorset.
The course was hosted at Pat Bowcock's "Ourganics", a debt free and self sustaining business that is a venue for permaculture courses and grows produce to sell to the local community. Our principal instructor was Aranya of Designed Visions. The residential (they provided a field and food, we brought tents) course spanned 14 days and covered all the usual stuff that a Permaculture Design course covers.



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Well, the interview with the Nogyou inkai is over and done with. I get the impression that the district we're hoping to move into is about as strict as they come. I think I mentioned earlier that the chou had successfully resisted being swallowed up by their nearest city a couple of years back, and that as a result they were proud as hell about their new found independence.

The inkai was represented by the kai-cho and three senior members, and we had our notary (forgotten the Japanese word for it, a kind of lawyer) with us.

The interview was a fairly weird experience, the notary had told us to not go into any details that weren't brought up directly by the inkai, and so I spent most of my time biting my tongue. I wish he hadn't said that as it made me very self conscious.



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