Shoji Time

Day 26 Saturday 4^th September

We are into the final stage of the project now with only a week to go. The weather at home has been just terrible with incessant rain and wind. Once again we have glorious sunshine and 30 degrees+ here today. All the local rice farmer types can be seen riding around on rice harvester machines as the harvesting season gets into full swing. It seems the average age of a rice farmer in the country is 66. Young people are not interested in such a job and who could blame them. All the old people here are bent over and hunchbacked from a lifetime in the paddies. The average farm size is only 10,000 sq metres or about 2.5 acres. One guy I talked to has 5000 sq metres of rice which he only grows because the city gives him a tax break if he is doing something productive with the land. By the time he pays to maintain and run the planting and harvesting machinery there’s no profit in it. It has become an occupation for the retired or those who have another job as well. While all the activity looks impressive, the agricultural sector here is approaching crisis point.  

Totally trad!

Today we bought some new blinds for the now clean windows. We also got some new lights for a couple of the rooms to replace the hideous circular florescent lights that are standard fittings in Japanese homes. There’s nothing worse than the harsh glare form these artificial suns hanging from the middle of the ceiling. Shizuka replaced the paper on the sliding Shoji screens for the windows  in the Tatami room. The mats are quite worn so we bought a carpet to cover them until we get new ones. I had my doubts about this room but it’s come up looking great and it’s kind of cool too.