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And now the rainy season begins, when the vast black rounded thunderclouds come roiling and growling in, the very soul of umbrage, harry the green and passive landscape, hammer home their points in bolted light. I did my best to conceal my whereabouts by donning a series of new disguises and going shopping on Saturday in preparation for a Sunday of gardening, but the weather found out what I was up to and started raining in earnest early Sunday morning so I couldn't get a thing done outdoors, and then about when it got dark the rain stopped, to save itself for the next time I try to work in the garden. During the week it was beautiful weather outside the office, sunny and cool, perfect for gardening, but the weather knows I'm here. In the evening went out in the drizzle looking for sansai (wild mountain vegetables), specifically mitsuba, along the roadsides up into the forest. There is that wonderful ancient feeling of gathering from the wild that has no parallel in civilized life, and gets right down to the nub of that old adage there's no such thing as a free lunch; this is about as close as one can really get to the lunch of no purchase, doing very pleasant work, in birdsong-waterfall-tree-green surroundings, to get it. And what a fresh, bright and fragrant lunch it is, lying there in the straw bag. On Saturday, during a short lull in the rain I sneaked out in disguise and managed to prepare the bed under the cherry tree for the ginger roots before I was discovered and heavily rained on. Also managed to note within the downpour that the asparagus has started its thread-slender tendril stalks palping the air with a greenness the color of spring dusk rain in reverse. Planted a plum sapling in the rain, it just begged to be planted with those little green eyes; immediately it began waving its arms and dancing. There's no mistaking when a plum tree is happy.