Backside of the Barn

The backside of anything is usually not a pleasant place to be.

Even though the family made a huge effort to clean up the land behind the barn when the neighbor's new house went up, obachan has a habit of tossing things over the wall into this unused space. The old well used to be here and now has a cap over it that I don't trust, although I did stand on it just to see if I would fall in. I don't really have a death wish but perhaps the earlier intake of chemicals has affected my judgement.

My goal was to pull weeds so the area looked better but I ended up hauling 8 wheelbarrows full of trash in addition to 8 wheelbarrows full of weeds. There was a "graveyard" of old PET bottles, buried under a heap of deteriorated plastic and piles of leaves. Rusty pails, broken wooden furniture, a rusted empty gas can, poles, tiles, the old gutters and a huge pile of empty fertilizer bags tossed in this little garden. It is like a breeding ground for snakes, mice and mosquitoes. I couldn't handle it. It ended up in garbage bags for recycling and in the burning place. The area looks very nice now. My reward: 2 cooked yams; a small packet of nori seaweed; and a bundle of newspaper wrapped, peeled, ready-to-cook sato-imo.

The weird thing about today is that Kashiko, my nemesis, my sister-in-law who everyone hates, including me, came out to help me. I mean, she really did help this time. She's all cheerful and nice about it too. I don't know if she's on something or the planets have re-aligned, but it is a strange feeling to get along with her.