Crow Update

The crows have lost their breakfast, lunch, and dinner spot.

Unfortunately, crows are noisy and the fruit tree was messy.

They still gather. Can you see why?

Corn fields. They've done a lot of damage.

Let's see if this works.

These photos were taken with a Panasonic Lumix 10x.

recent posts about the recent neighborhood crow situation:
Gathering Before the Storm

Gathering After the Storm

The Morning After the Typhoon

 Mt. Fuji looked like this.

I could see the damage to the corn from the roof. This is ground zero.

The corn looked like this before the typhoon.

Yesterday, the zucchini in another farmer's field was curved.

Today, it's twisted.

His corn is a little bent, but still standing.

Our vegetable stand is open today.

Cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, carrots and onions made it to the shelves. Bags of edamame, too. Some of their stalks were flattened and muddied.

A little more damage in the next post.

These photos were taken with a Panasonic Lumix 10x.

Taking the Nets Home

Our vegetable stand man is taking a rest before he heads home.

Changes after the Storm

The storm stopped trains in Tokyo and grounded planes. From a distance it looks like the fields out here in west Tokyo came through the storm okay.


Some of the netting was blown off,

but there was also some damage. It could have been worse.


This idea worked well.


The vegetable stand man and his wife have taken down the boards and are back to work. See this post to see the preparations for the storm.

Changes in the Field

Our vegetable stand man usually covers some young plants with plastic to protect them.


This morning he was putting nets over the plastic for more protection. A big storm is coming toward Japan.



It is a lot of work! (The patch of green in the right foreground is broccoli that has been harvested, so he's not protecting it.)


The farmer of the other field had help. They put nets down to prevent the plastic from flying away. This is the first time I have seen them do it.


Work continued as usual after all the net was laid out. By 10:00 AM the wind was already picking up a lot. Fortunately, the nets were holding everything down.


After lunch, the vegetable stand man and his wife closed up for the day. They hammered boards to the end of the stand to protect it from the strong winds that may come our way.

This Hakusai Gets a Chair of its Own

150 yen for a full head of Chinese cabbage! Direct from the field.

Click to enlarge the photo and you'll see another, bigger hakusai on the bottom shelf. Can you see the farmer in the shadows? He's minding the store while his wife is home cooking lunch. She left earlier with a cabbage in her bicycle basket. He's in the fields all day except at lunch time and late afternoon when his wife is making dinner. He is 86!

Filming the Field

I've been following the vegetable stand man around and taking photos. Today, there was a film crew filming the field for a commercial about the area. At one end of the field, they filmed. At the other end, I was taking photos of the vegetable stand man storing his sato imo for the winter. I'll post a photo later.

Autumn Field Work

Those guys missed all the action. That's our vegetable stand man working in the fields. He's moving sato imo to store them for the winter. Those are sakura, cherry blossom trees on the right.

Tools of Field Work

Our vegetable stand man uses a machine to till his soil.

But most of the work he does by hand

and foot

and hand tools.

Cutting Cabbage

Our vegetable stand man walked along this row squeezing the heads of these cabbages. He chose one and cut it off at its base. Then he cut some of the outer leaves away from the head.

He put it in his basket along with another kind of cabbage to take to his vegetable stand to sell.

But first he stopped to check the broccoli.

In the Morning Light

The leeks look blue.

So does the broccoli.

Click on the photo to enlarge it. Actually the camera was on the wrong setting!

Another Use for Clothes Pins

The farmer behind our house has covered some of his rows of vegetables.