Ginger, frogs and spring chores

No rain today, so the village was bustling with activity. You could hear saws, rototillers and cutters all around as everyone rushed outdoors to catch up on chores that we have had to put off for so long.

We stood in a long line at the store for lime and chicken shit (is there a more delicate way to say that?) for the vegetable patch so I could plow. The soil is so heavy with clay that everyone needs to add this to their fields for spring plantings. I plowed both gardens twice with lime and the soil looks beautiful. There is something about a freshly plowed field that is simply delicious. I wanted to just roll around in the dirt but figured people might not understand...

So,(instead of making a fool of myself) I planted kabocha pumpkin seedlings on the south slope under little plastic bubble tents to keep them protected from the unpredictable frosts. I planted a few cucumber plants in the little greenhouse.

I bought some ginger roots and planted those next to my garlic in the house garden. The broken ginger root is just barely buried in the chicken-poop-enriched-soil with about 1 cm of soil and straw covering the roots.

The onions are developing nicely and the garlic looks strong. The cherry blossoms are in full bloom, the nano-hana are still bright yellow. Broccoli is flowering faster than we can stop the blooms but we are eating the blooms and buds as fast as we can. We harvested the last head of cabbage and turned up a few lost carrots. I saw my first frog...a little brown frog who had been sleeping in the field jumped out of the way of the blades...it feels like spring.

We paid the obligatory annual fee of 8,000 yen for village affairs when the public service speaker blared a reminder this morning. I didn't understand any of it except for --come by 10:00 with money.