Minka - Our Japanese Farmhouse

First official records of our minka start in Taisho 4, the locals say it was built in the late Meiji era, and dates inked on beams document Meiji 28 (1895) for the minka and Meiji 30 (1897) for the kura. Our goal is to restore and reform the minka (house), naya (barns), and kura (storage building) and bring them back to life. Here you will find the record of our work, and other minka related stuff.

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Kururi town

Cool spring water, and a shave-ice shop.

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Wild verbena

Popped up this summer on our neighbors's tanbo, and we now just need to find out how to propagate some...

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Today's harvest

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Ichihara rindo

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Secret rindo exploring

A small path through some quiet tanbo, led up into the mountains... past a fellow Cub explorer, a curious dam or flood control installation, and a trail through a bamboo grove...

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Showa hip

Found in our minka...

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Private swimming hole

With the 35C days, we've started cleaning the last few storms' mess from the villa's waterfall and bathing pool.

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Ichihara minka and kura

Tucked away in some quiet valleys, we came across a number of well-kept traditional homes and their kura.

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Bedroom tokenoma and ikebana

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Summer exploring

With the recent rains, the rice in our gun (郡) is really coming along, and exploring the cooler mountain trails is great.

Though the namazu (catfish) is typically part of earthquake warning lore, here they are asking to not discard gomi (rubbish) in the named rivers. We assumed because it would interrupt their detection sensitivity...

(Updated with thanks to @kittyrinn-aiko.)

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Usagi shrine

Seeking some respite from the heat, we sneaked up a quiet street, and came across the back entrance to an appropriate shrine.

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Chiba wildlife spotting

The last few days exploring, we've seen two usually elusive hakubishin, too many shika to count, a gang of pesky saru, one nosagi, a bittern of some sort, two enoshishi and an uribo, a tanuki, multiple kyon, a badger, and more than a few of the smaller birds above.

Not a single hebi (with thanks for that)...

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Kamogawa Hanabi

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Neighbors' tanbo

They used to grow rice, but now have planted blueberries (above c. 2013).

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This week's ikebane

More glorious shades of purple.

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Nostoc management

Brooming, vacuuming, scraping, nothing seems to work on nostoc in our lawn better than just adding lawn sand. It allows the grass to grow through, drains well, and deprives the nostoc of standing water. A lot - not all - nostoc dries up, withers, and blows away.

The lawn, from what was a driveway of old rock, a small pond, and sometimes muddy mess, has progressed nicely over the years.

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Kayabuki-no-sato

Some glorious thatch.