FRESH CURRENTS

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AS TO THE GARLIC BESIDE MY BOWL

She asked if I had put ground sesame seeds on my ramen. I had done so and would later add more when the time was right, which was why I had left the ground sesame container open, and why there was still a mound of fried garlic slices in the small dish beside my bowl.

As this indicates, I subscribe to the Gradual Ramen Augmentation Principle (GRAP), which holds that you don't add every damn thing at once, unless you're a ramen newbie or have a mental condition of some kind with which you can nonetheless walk around among the general population.

With ramen, everybody develops their own Complex Creative Devouring Technique (CCDT), and if I do it wrong, I know I'll regret it for the rest of the bowl. You can't undo misdirected ramen. Nothing in the noodle area of the food shrine is more regrettable than ramen ruination, for one who appreciates the nuances between the noodles, where flavor resides.
 
Among the elements of this effort, apart from the ground sesame waiting over there in its container, is the garlic right beside my bowlful of ramen in thick savory broth with a red oily sheen, plus the sliced mushrooms, red peppers, soy sprouts, thin long-onion slices, bits of ground pork floating, here's a napkin for that drool...

I'd added some of the garlic and ground sesame at the beginning and mixed it in well to blend the flavors while amping up my appetite and cooling the temp to scaldsafe levels before I dove in - these steps are crucial, saving some garlic for later with sesame in my advance through the theater of ramen experience - then when all the succulence factors neared optimal merge and the time was right for more garlic with the remaining ramen and the ongoing garlic/sesame ratio fragrance - these things can get complicated at the quantum level - where the broth/garlic/sesame taste lines converge, the remainder of the garlic to be added at the precise point for optimal flavor distribution, you don't want it all at the beginning where it overwhelms the undertones of the Ramen Flavor Quantum Curve (RFQC).

These are key matters because, owing to cosmic laws as yet unformulated, fried garlic has a special affinity with emerging ground sesame essence, which at this moment begins to waft about, the flavors commingling at the heart of the dish, where one can no longer deal in quanta but can only slurp, scarf and worship.

And when, at the end, with both hands you grip and lift the bowl to drain those precious dregs of deliciousness, you have at last the full measure of your efforts.

Here's another napkin... 

FLAT FROGS AND OTHER KARMA

You know how it could be - if you’ve seen Rashomon or The Seven Samurai you know how it could be - how heavy and slabby a Japanese rain can be, waterfally yet misty, in places clear between streaking chunks of water like in that Hiroshige woodcut of travelers at Shono Station hurrying up and down the mountain in the rain in their straw raincoats and rush hats...

That's the rain I mean, the rain that cascades in gushes and streams but with clear spots here and there where the mist moves around and wanders by, so you know how it can be if you're rolling up a nowadays mountain road on a motorcycle in the dark on a late night of that same rain, a torrent of the rainy season that follows Spring into this part of the world, especially now and here where I'm leaning left and right as I travel the curving road, trying to see in the reflected glare of my headlight with the rain running down my goggles, trying to see to distinguish frogs from gouts of rain on pavement...

This all-water ambiance is when the frogs travel in their countless numbers across roads like shallow rivers; they hop in every direction in the apparent safety of night, each making instant green decisions as to direction and timing, just as from the passive silence there suddenly comes a monster roaring out of the dark, rain running down its face invisible in the glare of the single bright eye swaying left and right, dark into light amidst countless leapings, and like the frogs the driver must make a series of instant decisions so as to not run off the road, yet avoid flattening any of the leaping frogs that in their numbers give the road a greenish cast in the wet light...

Inevitably, though as evolution will have it in this infinity of choice we must all face in life, the driver prefers to remain uninjured, so there must be a number of fate-selected frogs that evolution prefers remain on the road for countless eventualities, one among them being the hawk's breakfast, for which the hawk will be thankful...

When I'd been heading down the same road that dry morning, I'd seen a hungry hawk picking forlornly at a fallen yellow-green leaf that lay on the roadway, much like a flat frog would; he dropped the leaf at my approach as he lifted off into higher hunger, the leaf fluttering abandoned to the ground like a dream of breakfast...

The karma of tonight will be balanced out tomorrow.

EGRETS AND GRANDMOTHERS

Now that the rice fields have been planted with long even rows of the faintest wispy green brushstrokes on pale gray silk that are the rice seedlings, and the leftover blocks of unplanted rice shoots remain here and there in the fields and on their edges, the only large living things to be seen in the paddies are egrets and grandmothers.

The egrets, in their turn, with long, slow, careful steps practiced and perfected over eons, elegantly patrol the paddies filled with young rice plants (never stepping on even one tiny shoot) and continue patrolling throughout the growing season, ensuring that proper balance is maintained between the populations of little fish, frogs and insects.

The other large creatures in the paddies, the grandmothers, are out there early in the morning or late in the evening after the machines have gone, to plant by hand here and there in the difficult corners and paddy-edge curves, to use up the last of the otherwise wasted rice shoots. Then the grandmothers come throughout the growing season to pluck the weeds that always, in the history of just about everything, try to take over.

The egrets do it because it feeds them, it's a pleasure and it leads onward. The grandmothers do it for the same reasons.

THREE FLOWERS

I am not going to complain about the weather, I am not going to complain about the weather, I am not going to complain about the weather, so spins my mental noncomplaint wheel. I must remind myself. It’s a pending hurricane I think, been hanging over the archipelago with its cloudy rainless veil and no sun to speak of for four days now; cool nights, good for planting if this was a month or two ago, but now I use it as ideal cover for my maxosweaty endeavors like pruning and cleaning the culvert beside the inner road, a superb source of upmountain soil and leaf mould, plus it’s free, only a lot of sweat required, which I am able to produce in major volume with little effort, so who could ask for more. Perfect weather for hard labor, but I’m not all that ecstatic. Every cloud has an aluminum lining.

On the brighter side, had the Trio of Brio helping me yesterday at the early part of the culvert etc. task, and with four of us it went way faster than me soloing this last little part. Which reminds me, I forgot to mention that when we went to buy the wheelbarrow together I noticed that the girls just walked along among the big bright swatches of potted flowers on sale display at the gardening center without paying any particular attention to the blossoms, despite all that color and fragrance, so after we’d picked out the wheelbarrow I said they could each choose one kind of flower to take home and plant in a pot. I hadn’t expected such an interesting result. 

So there I was standing by a brand new green wheelbarrow with yellow handles while three little girls went touring around among the thousands of flowers in pots, closely examining each kind to see which one was theirs, the one they wanted. What criteria were they using, I wondered. Looking for something that spoke to them somehow-- that said what? Of course the color and design, maybe the fragrance, but fragrance, design and color were in abundance; what else? That personal something more that each of them was looking for without knowing what it was until they saw it. It took a while; they went all over to see all the flowers and make sure. I waited. I’d already planted my flowers.

Kaya came back first. She had selected what the shop called Kashmir Decoration, a cluster of varicolored flowers that looked like small pointy brushes that had been dipped in special bright paints. Miasa came back after about 5 minutes with her selection, a pot of small round-petaled pink, almost cartoony flowers, called Fairy Stars, beautiful little things with white dots at their centers, that rose on thin stems and danced like pink stars in the eye-sky. We waited. Mitsuki, the fussier twin, was making extra sure. At last she came back holding a pot containing one big round yellowball blossom on a tall stem; it looked like a miniature sun, it was so piercingly yellow. It was called an African Marigold.

The thing that surprised me was how different and how ‘thought-out’ the flower selections were. In my shockingly offbase mindlock I’d expected that all three would just quickpick the same sort of cutesy, babybreathy kind of ittybitty flowerbunch, but their picks were as far apart and as different as one could get. I’d had no idea, I realized, how deeply different the three really are; even the twins! 

During the drive home the girls carried their flowers on their laps. When we arrived they each selected a pot they liked from among the empties stacked around the garden, and I helped them pot and water the plants, asked if they each remembered their flower’s name. We put the flowers in the shade, then the next morning moved them into the sun. The plants are healthy and growing day by day, so each time the girls visit, they run to see their flowers and go aaah! I see them saying the names to themselves.

Three such different flowers!

 
HOW TO BUY THE BEST WHEELBARROW IN THE WORLD

It might be surprising to realize how seldom you purchase wheelbarrows, but when you do go out and buy a wheelbarrow it's pretty straightforward, you generally just go right out and... buy a wheelbarrow.  When I recently came up against the gardener's curse of sudden wheelbarrow inadequacy, I gave it a bit of thought and realized that in over seven decades, I had purchased only one wheelbarrow! Talk about frugal.

So, I thought on, why not make the most of such a lifetimely rare occasion and buy the best wheelbarrow in the world? That would require young granddaughters, who are the goddesses of small things. Luckily, I would be blessed with the Trio of Brio on Sunday, who would be at the house ready for some gardening and general handiwork.

Being only 11, 9 and 9, the Trio have never bought a single wheelbarrow in their entire lives, either collectively or individually, so I figured this was a unique chance to spring it on them, put their inborn skills to work. I was surprised, though, to see how jumpy-up-and-downy they got as soon as I said "Let's go buy a new wheelbarrow," somehow triggering instincts the Trio didn't even know they had.

They had loved using the friendly lunky old one, getting rides in it and carrying each other now and then, until only a week ago, when old Wheelie, held together with cotter pins and baling wire as the bottom rusted out, had been on its third or fourth tire with its second inner tube and got a major flat just when I was doing the most important thing in the history of the world; isn't that always the way. The metal recycling guy was glad to have the remains.

Wheelbarrow purchase being one of life's special experiences for little kids, they are super great to have along when selecting which wheelbarrow to buy from among all those on offer, with all the different colors, depths, weights and materials, handgrips and other features that the tired elderly gentleman in some kind of hurry is willing to overlook for the sake of just getting this business over and done with it's too hot and crowded, a cool drink in the shade would be nice, but those new minds will not stand for weakness at such a crucial moment in life, which is good for said guy, who will be using that wheelbarrow, which is why in the first place he selected his young granddaughters as wheelbarrow advisors.

They didn't look at the rows of wheelbarrows, or the groups of wheelbarrows, or the categories, models and prices of wheelbarrows; they looked at each wheelbarrow. All over. Pulled them out and tried them. Tipped them. Said this one's got plastic here, this one's scratched underneath, this one has a dent on the front, this one's yucky blue, this is a nice green though, and has cute yellow handles, besides it's not too heavy, no scratches or dents, easy to push, this is the best one.

That's how I got the best wheelbarrow in the world.

It looks really perky at home in the garden.

HARDBOILED WITH FLOWERS

I was outside around dusk tending to an old potted flower as my good botanical deed for the day when I heard the noise: an odd, seemingly random, yet somehow intentional noise, an attention-getting noise, an insistent rustling in the duff among the cedar trees just upmountain--

Normally such sounds are naturally irregular, like a thrush hunting for bugs among the leaves, the hopping, leaf-scattering noise varying in incidence and intensity with the hunting action, like the wind. This noise had a slow, scattery but rhythmic incidence and always the same loudness. That never happens naturally, except perhaps with water. But this was animal. Attention getting. Huh? I kept looking to see what it was; it sounded kind of large; then on the third or fourth try I saw between the trees that it wasn't a bear or a fox or a deer or a wild pig,which don't make noises to attract humans anyway; it was only crafty Crow. Who...doesn’t... make... noise to attract humans either...

He wasn't doing anything specific, he was "as though" just sort of randomly shuffling along in the leaves, not stopping to feed as a thrush or other hardworking bird might do, no: I could read him like a dark book, he was making all that noise to see if I moved, and if it was really me, because I was near where he wanted to go, i.e., the compost pile, his favorite dining emporium in these parts, like Capone had in Chicago. Here, though you can get fruit peels and other impossible luxuries, you name it-- pineapple crowns, even, and if it was me Crow would have to wait, and who knew how long; Crow does not like waiting (Al didn’t either), let alone abandoning his reservation to another crow.

Anyway, when I turned my head and stood a bit, the better to see him, he had achieved his immediate purpose: it was me and I was there. With no longer any need to move, Crow just stood still in dark impatience. He knew it was me now, and I now knew it was him (we have our history): he was The Mighty Titan. He knew it, I knew it, he knew I knew it and so on down through the infinite maze of crow/human intermentation. So as he stared at me darkly, mulling over the fact that I had moved and so was real, I said to him in the deepening silence - in a voice to scare a crow and so gain the psychological upper hand - if there is such a thing with winged creatures - that I knew he’d done the plastic bag job and was The Mighty Titan the authorities are looking for; he should come clean, he'd feel better.

From out of the darkling forest came that icy look, you know that look, you’ve seen it a thousand times after dinner in any of the smoke-stained questioning rooms on any of that relentless crime show that replicates with all those different titles, where at some point you’re expecting repentance on the stony face of some non-beaked thug across the table from a hard-boiled detective not holding an old potted flower at twilight and saying that if the thug just confessed the detective would do his best to try for a minimal sentence, maybe just one of those electronic monitoring bracelets or something, but instead he gets that look, that icepick look that says: "You can’t hold me, you ain't got nothin'!"

And Crow was right, I had nothin. Purely circumstantial. He flew away in recidivist disdain and I went into the house with some lettuce I picked instead. As I was rinsing the leaves in the sink, Crow and his moll flew into Chez Compost for dinner, selected a nice long golden apple peel and wafted it to their reserved loveseat in the cherry tree, where they shared and squawked sweet nothings like all the innocence in the world. 

There are countless crime stories in nature too, where justice takes care of its own.

ALIEN VEGETABLE Ramble

You could maybe see it their eyes, if they were potatoes, but they're of the squash family, so in their leaves and postures: that longing for a bright, warm sun like there was before they were seeds, sun that their forebears enjoyed day after day, as their Mediterranean heritage led them to expect... 

Thus it is that, following days of half-hearted, cloudfiltered sun, just when the teenage vegs need to head for the open road, take off doing their natural equivalent of surfing at Malibu or cruising the route in fast cars-- instead I get zoned zucchini, touchy tromboncino, rankled radicchio-- they hang, stand or droop around moping like teenagers who can't have the car keys. What's a parent to do? It's all my fault, I'm a vegetable internationalist.

I got the sullen trio from sunny Italy, and not one has a visa, none speak the language, they come up one morning, look around and say in that tacit sprouty way: Where the hell is this? What's going on? Why am I here? The kinds of things we all wonder about at that age.

So this year I've got problems from the start with interest and discipline, botanical gangs expecting golden sunny Tuscany and instead getting misty mountainside mornings in Shiga in Japan-- where's Japan? Freshly germinated foreign vegs don't know anything about this country and its weathery ways-- which aren't bad, comparatively, but totally wrong in terms of genolocation. This is not where that veggie DNA was designed for, the radicchio is practically saying where's that warm golden sun, where's that spicy dialect, as it shrugs its tiny emerging leaves in that Italian way and will not be uplifted or accelerated...

My Italian is crude, at best, even though I grew up in an Italian-rich NY neighborhood and picked up a few things, but mostly swear words from Italian teenagers, so I can't say much to encourage an Italian vegetable except in a negative way. I also for some reason took two years of Latin in high school, but it's not much help to explain to sprouts and seedlings that Gaul is divided into three parts-- even though they're of Roman heritage - that's Caesar talking, kids - the laid back zukes just look at me like I'm deranged, even in botanical terms, which I suppose a Japanese farmer passing by might also conclude upon seeing an American speaking error-filled Latin to traditional Italian salad vegetables in the morning mist of a Shiga mountainside, but hey, those foreigners can be strange anyway, like a lot of their vegetables.

Given my own history, I'm certainly no exception.

THE BIG PUSH

This morning, noticing around the goat pen down behind the station (a family down there keeps goats), how the weeds outside the fence around the goat pen have all been eaten down by the ruminants except for one lush plant, which thrives there, temptingly green, right beside the fence, but is never touched...

Got me thinking as I waited for the train about how plants that taste bad therefore not propagated via their seeds by browsing animals, whereas other plants taste good and so use animals to propagate them, with a little bit of fertilizer to boot...

I wasn't directly, decisively thinking this; rather, it was an almost natural attitudinal pattern to my thought, and at some point I realized that I was thinking comfortably along lines that implied that the plants were intelligent, decision-making creatures, exercising some kind of intellect in propagating this way, i.e., assessing the survival advantages they might obtain by doing this or that etc., when it was a matter not of intelligence and botanical decisiveness, but of Darwinian probability, genetics, environs etc., in an evolutionary process that pertains in all times and places, and that has led over thousands of eons to all life that exists on earth today.

Then it came to me that this was exactly how early humans had looked at and thought of their surroundings, it was their natural perspective on the situation: that there was an intelligence immanent in the world, a perspective that lives on in us today, as witness my own instinctive thought flow (there are those - and they are many - who believe this view to be the true and only one). Then came the sudden corollary thought that maybe this is also true of what we call thought in ourselves: isn't it possible, even likely, that as self-deemed sentient beings we are misguidedly attributing innate intelligence to our “own” thoughts? Ask any poet, inventor, physicist, thinker where they get their revelations, they cannot say, and know better than to try.

Traditionally the creative act is attributed to “inspiration,” or being “breathed into” by the gods; that's the best they could come up with in the old days, and we still use it today, for we can do no better. We can look at the brain till we're blue in the face, but we'll never get to the root of an idea, because it's not of the world we can know. So where is it rooted?

What we deem intelligence in ourselves and what we attribute to the muses, the thoughts and insights that occur to us from we know not where, are also necessarily in some way integral to this comprehensive unceasing evolution of being that we are a part of, that I call “The Big Push.”

This fundamental inability to detect and control the genesis of our thoughts and ideas, coupled with our ability to generate, express and delight in them, even to be in awe of them (Eureka!)-- could it be that the templates of our respective minds are in fact reacting to and filtering aspects of the “Big Push” through them (of which the elements of thoughtstuff are a part) just as the universe “pushes” through the timebound organic mesh of all else that is (to put a quick hypothesis to it), of which we are a distinct yet integral part, carbon-meshed, pattern-catching synthesizers that we are...

Just a thought...

FIREFISH

In their standard grammar school education, the three grandie girls (now 11, 9 and 9) get to follow the prescribed path for a prescribed time in age-segregated classes, learning to read and write, add numbers, sample science and social studies, acquire a national history, absorb the essential received ideas that bind a society together.

After school they sometimes play with their friends, in forms of play that are increasingly virtual as society edges further into deferred existence mode, but for years now, when the Trio of Brio come here to our house on the mountain by the forest above the Lake they get outdoor jobs to do, they get boots, gloves, big tools and - at first - necessary guidance on how to use shovel, rake, axe, hammer, pick etc.

So for some time they've been using mauls and wedges to split firewood, axes, saws, clippers to prune trees and bamboo, they dig holes with shovels, they want to learn to do all of it, use all the tools, now and then taking impromptu discovery breaks, e.g., one of them found a frog under a rock, they decided to name it by committee ("Oompa-kun" was the unanimous choice) or they play with long boards and log sections (an interesting sort of rock-and-rolling seesaw - for children only, btw) then back to work raking the garden, scything underbrush, tending the fire (with a brief sports break, dipping long, curvy windfall cedar branches into the fire to catch the firefish that swim in the flames), raking leaves into big piles, sweeping cuttings, clearing culverts, lugging buckets of leaf mould, planting seeds, pulling weeds, harvesting stuff etc., in the process acquiring considerable and increasingly useful counterweight to the virtual. It's a real lift to see how much they get done, how naturally comfortable they are with physical labor and how proud they are of what they achieve in the heavy realms.

By now, when we adults have to go inside to do our indoor work, we can leave the girls  in charge of everything: the fire, the wheelbarrow, all the tools, the tasks to be done - it's all up to them - and a bigness fills their boots. Tugging on their work gloves, they set out to tend to everything, and how they change, then; they become their full selves, walk around with authority and intention: straight, tall, assertive, wasting no kiddy time, getting the things done, taking the tasks to heart and taking care doing them...

Proud delight it is, to watch them from the upstairs window, see them find reward in being responsible, a character strength of great importance for the future of humanity, though not as important as firefish.

NATURAL CONVERSATIONS

As the only foreigner on this portion of the mountains, maybe I shouldn't lean back at times during a hardworking day with my feet on the camphor stump and talk aloud to myself out about my firewood plans, respond to those ducks quacking by overhead or remark at volume as to how the shape and texture of that amazingly sunlit cloud up there reminds me of George Washington's hair in that unfinished portrait I used to stare at a lot where it hung on the wall at the front of the class in first grade at St. James Academy back in Albany NY, because local folks come by suddenly at odd times walking their dogs or themselves, and I have the international image of foreigners to uphold. Most of us should at least appear to be mentally stable.

Sometimes I also necessarily address whatever task I might be doing - for example, some bucked oak has a knot nearly half the way through, so the wood and I must dialogue colorfully and in depth, as happened not long ago, when a dog-walking newly retired couple from somewhere further along the mountains came strolling down the road with their dogs just as I was chewing out a large chunk of oak with some sharp-edged words I'd learned in the military, which often do the trick. Fortunately those folks probably don't speak English to that depth, though the general message was clear, as was my in-that-moment relationship with oak, one of the harder woods (generally, we're old softies together).

I've since noticed, though, that that couple don't anymore walk their dogs down the road past my woodsplitting stump, they use the roads further away across the mountainside. They could be oak sympathizers, but more likely prefer to avoid sharp-tongued yet opaque English conversations between man and wood.

Like I say, I should at least try to hold up my end of the foreigner image, and keep my natural conversations to a low volume, insofar as possible, though I can't cut them out altogether, often being involved in such laborious tasks; as well, natural surroundings can be eloquent, and one must respond.

So if you happen to be strolling by one afternoon and there's a guy talking barracks talk to a tree, just be aware that there's nothing mentally wrong here; likely as not he's responding to something the tree just said.

THE EARTH-CHURNING PRE-DAWN CLASH OF THE MIGHTY TITANS

Just at the edge of dawn this morning, from deep in the fathoms of firewood-splitting tiredness where I was casually exploring the fascinating streets of a wonderfully appointed dream city - an astonishing experience in itself, when viewed from our pinpoint of time in this ‘waking’ world - I was suddenly thrust alert into this pinpoint world upon hearing in the forest outside a mighty clash of titans - going on, as it seemed to me, much like the battle I’d heard a few years ago when two fully antlered bucks went at each other in a fierce dawn battle for turf, sharp tines slashing the air just outside that same bedroom window.

I got up and squinted out into the dimness to behold the source of the massive sound that was tearing apart the country silence - maybe the guys battle generally in the same place - but no: all was calm there, not a leaf was moving but for the lightest dawn wind; no, the big ruckus was over there! - I went toward the sound - No, it was definitely back where I'd just been! So I returned to that window, outside which there still were no heavily muscled Spring bucks churning up the undergrowth, but boy you could hear them: what a racket! Where was it coming from? How could such a massive battle go unseen?

I dashed across the hall to the other side of the house and looked out-- I gotta get a sight of this before it ends... From there I could hear what sounded like the clacking of antlers, but there were no deer out there either, gasping and slashing for dominance-- all that noise with nothing happening was the weirdest aspect of it... A mystery, up here in this quiet place where you can see everything from the windows...

So as the racket went on close by outside I went downstairs (surely one of the horned warriors must be injured by now and about to yield!) looked out a north window toward the paddies - no battling deer - then out the east window toward the Lake - no grunting, thrusting antlered titans over there either, but the crashing noise of their massive clash continued as before; I was going to have to actually go outside - put myself in the line of ire, so to speak - to find out what was happening.

So, bracing myself, I went to the big glass south door in the kitchen, beyond which the vast collision was clearly under way, pulled back the curtain to get at the door handle-- and there, right on the other side of the shatterable pane, just an antler's length away, was the entire scenario unfolding all over the deck: a battle-sized pile of trash (from a stuffed bag we’d forgotten outside last night), with a big and way surprised Dr. Crow at the center, pinning me with dark eyes for one of those interspecies moments that last as long as dreams do, his beady gaze seeming to say to my fuddled mind: Heh-heh-- Sure fooled the hell out of you, hey? Before big black wings flapped him fast and far away, leaving behind in the brightening dawn a vast and mighty pile of the trash of titans.

ABOUT PLANTING BAMBOO

The possibility of using bamboo as a protective element in the garden (not to mention decorative and otherwise practical purposes) has been mentioned in PLM comments now and again, but because of my own local experience I've always had reservations about the idea; however, there appears to be a solution, as offered here:

"I have read that commercial kiwi growers, owing to the sensitivity of the kiwi vine, are obliged to plant large hedges around their plots to protect the plant from excess wind and weather, but I don't know what they use for the hedges. Personally I am a fan of bamboo, a superbly useful and attractive plant, also very hardy (at least, most varieties are) and if you plant a "clumping" variety and not a "runner" it won't invade your garden and ruin your carrot patch. I have a fine stand of Black Bamboo (bambusa nigra) that hasn't spread more than a few inches in 15 years, and I generally cut four or five 10 foot canes from it every year for use as lash-ups and trellis supports. A nice curtain wall planting of this bamboo would not only make the place look beautiful but cut down the wind problem and provide you with lots of material to harvest along with your veggies; if you cut the newly sprouted growth, you can even eat it, too! There are plenty of other plants to consider for windbreaks, though." --JB Reynolds

[Excerpted from Lehman's excellent (and free) forum newsletter]

LIFE'S GREATEST HITS

It’s that extravaganza time of year, that speed-of-light time with the cherry blossom fireworks and the perfumed air, when Spring is getting serious about returning with a bigger show than ever, and around here that means the paddies are being readied in their turn, all down the mountainside.

Flooded one by one, faceting the mountain to set the stage, the skymirrors are then left idle for a heartfelt length of time while the rice seeds make their ancient way to planting size, but despite all this activity with all these focuses, these Spring days do not belong to the farmers or to the rice; these days belong to the frogs. All the frogs. Big frogs and little frogs, of all the froggy dispositions in the land about.

Stirred from the rain-softened mud, warmed by the sun and prodded by the primal mood, at dusk when the big silence falls, the male frogs begin their vocal warmups, and do they ever sing at this time of year, sounding their best against the plush background that is country silence, silence as there was the other night when I was coming up the road into the deeper deeps of quiet and darkness, all topped by the white spark of Venus above a thin slice of floating moon about to set behind the mountain, as the frogs tested their repertoires and began to sing with all that natural sincerity you get out here.

What an a capella group, performing in the Pure Land Mountain Amphitheater. If you stopped still to listen, and focused your ears, you could make out the individual frogs - the little one over there in a corner of a paddy trying out a rapid tremolo peep, and over there a veteran profundo laying down a thick, slow bass line, as a whole mountainside of song began to build, swelling and waning then swelling again, like a vast flock of birds turning and turning as one in the air, all the courting songs swirling together on waves in the night, serenading all the frog ladies with one of life's greatest hits.

The aftershow party went on all night.

MOUNTAIN LESSONS

Maybe it was sheer coincidence, but then again more likely not. The universe knows what it's doing and has a way of putting the lessons you need right in front of your nose or eyes or heart or foot as the case may be, though you generally have to be paying attention to note that it's not just a matter of luck that you took that particular turning, so when today I went out on the deck at precisely that time in the late afternoon when, as day was turning into night, all the soil that had been warming in the sun all day, all the vegetation that had been living in the light all day, gave a vast sigh at the peak of luxury and an invisible perfume of local satisfaction came wafting across the fields and filled the spirit of anyone lucky enough to have entered the theater of the air at just that moment, and today it was me. I just stood there nose up, breathing deep, sensing all the joy that all those plants, all that forest, all those ponds, all those fields, entire mountains and the Lake had been creating all day long and were willing to share with anyone who cared to join in. What food it was for the body roots. My spirit rose through the duff of my habits like a stem pushing up and out of the ground to bring a flower into the air.

HIGHER LAWS

Monkeys are puzzled by the human concept of ownership - as manifested in me, in this instance. Always cracks me up, that fuzzy look they get in their eyes as they have a shot at trying to figure out what I’m going on about while all they’re doing is enjoying the onion they were the first to discover, first to pluck from the ground, and that they are now holding in their paw and biting into, ergo they own it, so what’s the problem, dancing man?

Monkey legalities are clear cut, straightforward - no legal niceties in the wild - no liens, lawsuits, adverse possession, bad faith, no secret or hidden possession, no mortgages or deeds and so forth, all unneeded, since trust is not a cornerstone of natural justice, yet the simians are learning creatures, are they not, and therefore naturally involved in evolving beyond mindless brigandage, just as we ourselves once were (doubts of our success notwithstanding), so of course they will have a go now and then at expanding their minds, such as when they have a monkily owned onion in hand, are chewing on it and I pop up out of an opening in that big box over there, jumping up and down in my usual manner, throwing rocks, shouting and gesticulating wildly for some reason, trying to get something across that the monkeys can’t quite grasp, yet-- "That footwalker is so much in earnest, and so redfaced, there must be something to it..." is a thought that seems to zip through their mindspace as they gaze sidelong at me and then finally lope off with their onions, no sense hanging around a rock-throwing nonmonkey...

One might even think they are trying to evolve, given the slight evidence, such as of a conscience, until a gardening season later they steal another of my onions and try once more, fleetingly, to get their minds around this bizarre concept that the hatwearers apparently embrace, that onions far away from them are in their possession, even when in a monkey's grip! Could anything be stranger? Or more different from the keystone of monkey law, to wit: I’ve got the onion in my paw and I’m eating it; could anything be more owned? A philosophy shared, to a much greater extent, by many of our fellow moneyspenders, DC and Wall Street being handy examples.

So, in evolutionary reaction, I have stopped growing onions; but for who knows how long, since this could cause a setback in simian legal evolution. Just imagine the pretty balance there could be to the world one day, if we could get the monkeys and the bankers into the same high court...

Up in the forests

the shock of smoke -

but it's cherry blossoms

JOURNEYS OF THE SPIRIT

In the morning there are trees everywhere, as though they crept up on my consciousness during the night. They shine green in the window, welcome me into the day. Warblers warble in them. Sunlight twinkles through them. Out in the morning, the farmers are at work early, readying their paddies.

Yesterday the farmer who owns the paddy across the road spent most of the day fortifying the paddy wall, using the long hoe made for the purpose, in a rhythmic dance with the earth. All the paddies in their eachness fit together like perfect facets on the vast green gem they make of the mountainside. The farmer's work is thus a matter of beauty, as compared to the manufactured concrete or metal paddy wall units more modern farmers use to achieve the same purpose.

The traditional mud wall has to be tended more often, like any work of art, but the rice no doubt appreciates the attention in some vegetably emotional way we know nothing of, is more contented rice, and so offers more content to the consumer. The farmer as well is no doubt the better for it in body and mind, lives better, sleeps better, has better generations, and is less out of pocket.

I can imagine the rationalizing arguments for the new ways: how they save time, even though they cost way more than mud and must at some point be discarded and replaced. Commerce, as a science, knows nothing of the spirit or its journey through time, a journey that is impossible when time is money.

THE MYTH OF THIS MORNING

Tuesday morning came wrapped in a fog like the one in which Japan got started way back before history, and who knew what was going to happen this time. It was far thicker than the standard fogs you see on all the folding screens, that obscures less important details of famous events; it was a MythoFog of the kind that was there when Amaterasu Omikami and her troublemaking brother got to stirring up the ocean, resulting in Japan, among other things.

The morning's similar potential was not lost on me when I set out from the house on my Mythic Motorcycle and began to roll downmountain into eternity or the morning train, whichever pertained, wending my way through what might lead to a whole other country and culture or who knows what in this day and age, nobody really bothers to intuit that stuff anymore, all the mythothings that can get started on a godly whim...

We have conventional non-mythic fogs up here all the time, living closer to and sometimes inside the clouds as we do, but when we head on down to the flatlands we soon enter clear air, morning fogs hereabouts generally being temporary affairs that evaporate soon after sunrise. This fog, though, had a lot more going on, it seemed to get more mythic as I plunged down the road into the fog of meaning, which wasn't damp like the usual fog, even though it was cold like the hand of history on your neck, with more frisson than those fogs they attempt in the horror movies or that Dickens and Bronte wrote of to such great effect, so in my head there was a Victorian quality blended with some Japanese godplay in a complexity that is hard to describe...

In brief, the portent was major. As I slowly rolled down through the deep gray and blessedly monkeyless silence (they know what's going on), curving left and right, back and forth, all the way down, something in me kept expecting some kind of mythic event. It would have been a lot harder if I didn't know the road, but even so I had to go slowly in case a Japanese deity appeared... Can you imagine the scandal of a collision with a foreigner on a motorcycle, that would be one for the holy books...

Finally I got to the station where I was not surprised to find that it too was in the fog - in fact right at the bottom of the fog - and it too was silent-- no train sounds, no announcements of delays or cancellations-- Was I really here, this was my hand before my face was it not, no sound of other people walking and talking, no godsilks rustling, there seemed to be no one around, sometimes I'd hear what could be a footstep, but who really knows in the early phase of a myth, so I locked up my bike as usual, got out my ticket, felt my way through the mist blanket to the ticketwicket, wicketed my ticket and there was no one on the other side, all was silent, wrapped in the muted strivings of the gods...

I climbed the stairs to the platform, which disappeared before me; I walked on as usual, in faith that there was a platform there, I too became invisible like the mountains in front, the whole range of mountains right there in front was invisible, and the Lake in back, the big Lake just there on the other side of the invisible platform was invisible too... We were all invisible now, a state it is well to take seriously...

In the myth of the moment I went and occupied my conventional waiting spot there at the heart of The Fog of infinite hearts, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, and there I waited in what once was time for what once was a train, but there was no train... Still no train... Then some other hopeful commuters appeared like miracles out of the fog, spiriting past me to their trainwaiting spots; we waited in our collective invisibility.

After about half an hour an announcement came vaporing out of the soup that the express train - which doesn't stop at our humble rural station - was about to come through, the one that, 10 minutes before my usual train, comes roarblasting past at 80 miles an hour only inches from the platform, quite a stimulus on a normal morning...

But I couldn't hear anything, standing there right beside the track, maybe the muffled bleat of one of the goats that lives on the property down there beside the Lake or a goddess was doing something, then came a rumbling like a giant slow pushcart grinding along a hard road and the morning express came pushing into our part of The Fog, rolling through at about grandma bicycle speed, interior all lit up in the foggy dim, the folks in the cars like passengers in an airliner going through clouds, staring out the windows with big eyes at seeing ghostly commuter figures there in the air on what must please god be a platform, waiting for a train... or maybe they were rapturing their way to heaven... Imminent myths can do that to a collective mind in transport...

Our own train finally came pushcarting out of the generative fog - it was crowded by now - stopped before us, opened its doors, took us into its light, closed its doors and rolled on slowly through vapors that diminished like the past as we grew older nearing the big city and buildings became visible; turned out that a well-developed civilization is still out there...

Need I point out that what was about to happen, mythwise, is still about to happen, fog or no fog, so be ready...

HIGH POINTS IN THE MUCH ADO

Much ado about everything under the sun and moon, been taking the Trio of Brio for chunks of time so they can get some gardening experience etc.

Also as time and events allow I am gradually assembling a Pure Land Mountain Kindle Book, working title Monkeys & Onions, getting closer to what might seem a reasonable size and resonant compilation, during a time of rich firewood cutting bucking and splitting, when home.

The Trio helps with that too; surprisingly hardworking, they love heavy extended physical tasks like splitting firewood, also stacking same. In between which starting the garden, digging, planted spinach, radishes, lettuce, radicchio, some first tomatoes, some zukes, more chard, shallots, strawberries, herbs dill fennel basil thyme, mints etc. - no flowers done yet - snap peas, soon some tromboncino and foreign variety of zuke for which I had to battle the govt seed folks but prevailed.

Nearly stepped on the first frog he was so invisible.

Deer got into the garden somehow; have to figure that one out.

Our well is now producing ultrafine water, liquid diamond to a thirsty man.

Finally put up (above the Monsanto page) my ongoing Fukushima page, atop the Archive section in the sidebar; latest link there is possibly imminent Tokyo evacuation due to reactor No. 4 (no way for that not to sound sensationalistic).

Haven’t been on the blog for nearly a week except in thought, been meaning to post but time is a laser, just had to post this zipblip about it all in a few spare moments early this morning after planting some tomatoes carrying some wood and now about to go pick up the Trio for an afternoon of garden labor--

So much to write about, so vast the sea of happening and all I got is that keyboard up in the loft up in the house...

Which reminds me those rain gutters need cleaning, rainy season coming on, better do that -- Soon as I can --

And the woodstove clean the woodstove...

BEANS DON’T GRAB MY BAMBOO

Just out this blustery morning checking the bean plants, now about 30cm high and beginning to reach about, so into the soil beside each of them I inserted a selected mountain bamboo tip about a foot tall, after trimming off the multiple little branches down to an inch or so, providing a nice little sequence of easygrabbies up which the little bean plants can climb and hold against the wind to do their beanie max, but after 1 week I can see that they don’t care, they don’t give a damn, beans have no gratitude. But I knew that.

For some reason, the new beans ignore this valuable gift and just go scrabbling along, blown this way and that, looking for what, I don't know, an escalator? Is this a characteristic of modern young beans or has it always been like this? An even more disturbing thought is that maybe they’re like me when I was their age, all the obviously advantageous wisdoms and facilities around me and I ignored them for pennycandy fluffstuff I don’t even remember. Are there teen beans?

Gardeners can’t help but plummet down the rabbit hole of such thoughts when they behold the natural world from up close, first-hand, dirt-knuckled. They look at other gardens, as I do, in my local wanderings, here and there noting the little tricks gardeners use, like one I saw several days ago, of tying a tangly handful of upside down broomstraw to a stake above a bean plant for the beans to grab onto and climb.

Naturally I was impressed by that and will try it, just like when I saw a farmer use some cut mountain bamboo tips with the branches trimmed back to a few inches stuck in the ground above his bean plants so they could climb easily what a great idea, so at once I cut some of the mountain bamboo that grows so prolifically around my house it’s a pain - plus I love free stuff - so I stuck it in the soil above my bean plants and they just bent right past it, ignored it cold, like they ignored my dangling strings, my jerrybuilt trellises, my rough braided twine...

Those farmers and I are using the same beans; I should see what they use for discipline.