The First Day of Real Winter

2

calm

flowers and vegetables at the markets, bread at the station.

not calm

why did I hammer my finger why did I hammer my finger why did I hammer my finger

calm

Hit by a speeding Poodle, glasses cut into face above eye, blood, taxi, insurance card search, bandages, hospital visits for the rest of the week. Black eye coming through...sleep.

The Carpenters Trade

Pauwlawnia oil and a powder colour mix.
One floor done.

A layer of panelboard is going in underneath the wood.
All those bags of charcoal I dragged out of the car and down the lane...there really isn't so much once it's been poured into the floor....

What could be seen in the kitchen was just some bricks and mortar. The carpenter thinks that they may have been the base of a heavy mortar stove used for cooking, and that they removed most of it and just left a bit at the bottom. He says the kitchen was built with the rest of the house, you can tell that from the beams. The gardener had thought the kitchen might have been added later.


Only one layer of wood will go in the floor, but it is double thickness. The carpenter says that if there is enough charcoal underneath, that will be warm enough because there isn't much moisture.

The gardener took a look under the floor two years ago and said that a layer of soil had washed in from the mountain, that should be taken out. But the carpenter says that should be all right.

The ladies in the recycle shop said I had bought the wrong wood, the carpenter said it was wood for walls. People like to talk, even about floors.
Up until around World War II people were still using a hearth set in the ground, with tatami mats placed over wide beams. From about the war or after the war they covered over the hearth, put smaller beams across the wide beams, put in floor boards, sometimes with tatami over, sometimes with plywood flooring. These floor boards were put in 20 years ago, but there is no damp under the floor and the beams are still good.

The carpenter has lived next door for 30 years. He remembers the floor from then. At that time the husband was still alive, the two sons lived here, one with a car. There were two cats.

After I moved in the son said there might still be an irori under the floor. So I cut a hole in the flooring and the floorboards to have a look. There was no irori, just something far away under the kitchen floor. I fixed the floor but very badly and roughly, and it's been like that ever since.

The Izakaya's toolbox

The Charcoal Burners

A few years ago I got lost looking for the charcoal burners that the Gardener knew and ended up at a huge dark hut with a strange kiln in the middle.
I always thought I should take some photos there, and I needed charcoal for under my floor.
I couldn't really remember where it was, I went up the volcano along the wide road with deep pits dug in the sides for larva flows.
...Up a dirt road, past some industrial cow sheds, finally found it.
He let me take photos, then we made a deal for some charcoal. He said I could have the charcoal grit for nothing. But does it do the same as charcoal pieces? I don't know, so I bought the charcoal, a car full of paper sacks.
It was his father's business, he makes the charcoal from oak, slowly heating it for two days.

Then he sorts it. The good stuff is for restaurants, I got bags of the low grade stuff, that's what it's for.

Clan of the Black and White

Wood arrives for floor. Smell of cedar.
The new pony-club style fence.

computer stuff. reasonably out of the way.

None are related...

Unneighbourly graffiti

The almost insurmountable

The almost invisible dog.

Sugar's haircut begins
A mysterious ceiling light