FLAVORS OF THE MIST

Up at dawn this morning in a cloudy light, awakened by an odd crunching sound outside that had an inviting succulence to it, like a horse eating a bunch of carrots beneath my bedroom window. I got up and looked out into the dimness and there saw the ghostly shape of the Baron, enjoying a late banquet of the chestnuts that now litter the ground, he having pretty much finished all the acorns.

He would nuzzle around among the spiky hulls, his rack of tines waving in the air, until he found a free chestnut and gobbled it up, then he'd stand stock still savoring the sweetness, crunching the nut hull and all, eyes half closed with the ecstasy, zoning out every bit as deeply as I would over a big chunk of chocolate or cheesecake or apple pie let's not go there, let's get back to the Baron standing lost in the flavors of the mist, his fine antler tines all well sharpened against the tines of fellow suitors that now and then wander into in the Baronetcy as I hear now and then in the clacking of head swords up in the forest.

What puzzles me, though, now that this year the chestnut harvest has sort of slipped by us humans unnoticed in the rain and workdays, is why the bears don't come and get it, given the abundance of acorns and chestnuts we have here. I hear a lot lately about country folks all over Japan being hassled by bears whose natural diet of wild acorns and chestnuts has been seriously diminished by unfavorable weather, so there's frequent news of bears wandering into human habitats like mine for acorns and chestnuts...

The Baron may be noble, but royalty has no value in the wild, than which nothing is truer...

Somehow this brings to mind the happenings on Wall Street...

IT'S A BAD YEAR FOR YOU NAME IT

Seems like this is a bad year for just about everything, at least for the wildies around here, though many of the civilizedies aren't doing all that well either. I was out looking for free wild food this morning in the form of mukago, which are ready at around this time of year, but it seems like the yamaimo offspring have suffered the same fate as acorns. In my searches I found a final total of might as well be zero, barely a few pitiable tiny pea-sized things hanging forlorn on the long yamaimo vines tracing through the bamboo and forest-edge undergrowth.

In good years I easily score handfuls of the minipotatoes from among the wild yamaimo leaves as I go along the roads and wade into the bamboo. Even if I'm not thinking of mukago I am reminded by those lush pennants of bright yellow heart-shaped leaves vining up and across the bamboo and low bushes, draping themselves from one plant tip to another, eventually creating a yamaimo leaf canopy that gets most of the sun and rain and in autumn yields the best crop, those on the tall bamboo stalks silhouetting their tasty wealth against the sky: air tubers that can reach the size of a large macadamia nut.

It's all academic at this point, though, cause this year, even in the best of my secret places there were lots of golden leaves but no treasure to throw into the pot before the rice cooks. They were even scarcer than acorns, which both the bears and the wild pigs like, but the mukago are a special treat for the latter, because after strong winds the minitubers fall to the ground among the bamboo warrens where the pigs nose about and bears do not go; this year, though, there is rampant mukago notness on top of severe acorn notness, so among the gruffly marauding bears there will be some grumpy widely foraging pigs out there, as though either group needed competition...

In the same vein, took a morning walk to visit the pond yesterday, and on the way passed the old wild persimmon tree whose autumn branches every year appear about to break from the weight of the fruit, so I always feel duty-bound to grab a few pocketfuls - especially before the monkeys get them - but this year there were only a half dozen or so persimmons on the whole tree; I've never seen a wild tree looking so unfulfilled at the peak of its career.

Then over at the pond I saw on the sloping bank countless places where a number of wild pigs had nosed up the soil in search of earthworms and any other natural slow food they could find, but from the immense number of nosings I'd judge that the wild porkers must have had to hustle to finish all that work before dawn, so it appears they didn't have much success, and unlike me they don't have a well-stocked winter pantry, so this may be quite a hungry winter for the local wildies.

Both of those hungry parties are welcome to my chestnuts and compost pile, as long as they dine at night. Casual dress, no fighting, and stay away from those onions.

BEARS WILL BE BEARS

Been hearing in the news about the sudden increase in bear sightings around the country and the commensurate rise in bear attacks, a great number of those sightings being in Shiga Prefecture. The large majority of those sightings and attacks have been on this side of the Lake, which is a lot more foresty and otherwise wild than the more urbanized regions to the east, where bears might occasionally, out of excessive civilizing, roam the streets looking for figurative couches and potato chips.

Over here on the other side, where the bears are more naturally satisfied because we are blessed with harder furnishings and slower food, every now and then there is an announcement over the village PA system that yet another bear has been sighted in a garden or orchard and we should be careful in going about our daily activities or at least be ready to wrestle.

In any case, the bear population in general has increased over the past few years of profuse acornification by the generous oaks, but as we are now experiencing in terms of human currencies - whose intrinsic value is less than an acorn (acorns at least being viable and edible) - the oaks even here are in recession and the bears, though not exactly homeless, aren't eligible for anything like food stamps, so must go off to wander human vicinities in search of sustenance for themselves and their young, an effort that can put the brawny creatures in a mood even worse than mine after two hours without breakfast.

One aspect to all this that is seldom mentioned in the news accounts is that bear gall bladders are worth their weight in gold because of their alleged tonic properties, which may explain the occasional rifle shots I hear at dawn in the mountains above. Mind you I'm not pointing any fingers, especially at folks holding rifles; anyway, if they're gunning for bear I'm sure they have licenses.

As for myself, after 15 years of not having directly confronted any of our ursine cohabitants, I still go outdoors and wander as usual in forest, to and from garden, firewood and mushroom inventory amidst the absence of acorns, while my garden grounds are rich with fallen chestnuts bursting with beary goodness, without giving a thought to it. I have to change that routine, especially at dawn and dusk: I should make it a habit to check the property before I go wandering out there. Despite my familiarity with habituation, though, it's surprisingly hard to create a new habit out of bears.