A Kind Of Nothing Day

 It's 4:30 in the afternoon and I haven't really done anything today.

It was just one of those days that I couldn't find the energy to do anything. I tried, I went outside to see if I could clean up a bit more but the wind was so biting!  I thought about getting extra layers but then moving would be difficult. 

I moved some furniture around. I had a small desk in my room that I wasn't using, so I swapped an unused bookshelf in Christopher's room for the desk. Much better.

Other than that I've been in bed, reading and watching TV. 

I really wish that I had more energy. There is a lot to do. I would make a list but then I would just feel overwhelmed.

 Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I'll be going to the other city to teach, so that is half of my day gone on those days. Then Friday is recovering from that, which leaves just a couple of days a week to work on the house and land. I need to get my health better so I can do more!  

Everyone is doing what they can to help out but we are all working. I just have to hope that we will have some land cleared by the beginning of March to start planting! 

David said that this is the hardest time, just clearing out years of neglect. I really hope that once everything is cleared it gets easier.

A bit of good news is that Hannah has started a new job, at an afterschool cram school. She has only done two days so far but she likes the other staff that she has met.

Of course there are cats next to the building, so Hannah is very happy. She looks forward to seeing the cats, not working!!!!

The cats near Hannah's new job

Doing Outside

 Trying to clean up this house and the surrounding land is like taking a cup of water out of the ocean. You know you've taken a cup of water out but you can't see any change!

Today I was determined to clean the passage between the house and storage area. There is space there for the trash but we need more bins. We've been putting the plastic bags out there but the cats and other animals get into them!

Before, bits of trash left lying around

The problem was the wind was rather strong today. Being between two building there was a wind tunnel effect. Plus the wind was very cold. I managed to pick up most of the trash, but there are a load of leaves that need to be swept up and I want to take down some of the trees there. I don't think having trees right next to the house is a good idea!

After, not much difference but a start.

Found that Fluffy was supervising from the window.

making sure the work is done

I then went into the storage place to see if I could do anything there. But boxes need to be moved, Christopher was helping but they are so heavy that they need two people to move them. I did manage to get some more books on the shelves and found a top I've been looking for!

After that I had a little walk round. The trees are starting to bud, I have no idea if this is early or not. I'm a bit worried as winter is far from over. The past week has been very mild. According to the weather reports the temperatures are similar to mid March! Next week it's going to get cold again!

A few early flowers and blossoms.

The yellow blossom is very beautiful

I hope to get out tomorrow, the weather should be alright. But from Monday rain and possible snow!!

Just A Cat Post

 The cats have really settled in.

I was worried because they were fighting so much in the other house. At night we used to separate them, keeping Fred away from Alan, Steve and Frodo. 

Fred

Alan and Steve

Frodo

I don't know why but Steve, Alan and Frodo would attack Fred. Some morning, if they weren't spilt up, I would come down to fur and blood all over the place.

This house has all sliding doors which we can't block. I've been so worried about night fights, but apart from a bit of growling we haven't had any major fights! So far!!

One big problem, though, is the night time zoomies. There's a long corridor down the middle of the house.  Almost every night at about 2am the cats start chasing up and down the corridor.  I hear them racing past my room, then smashing into the glass door, then racing back. If it was one cat, maybe it wouldn't be too bad but some nights it's at least six of them!!

Of course they have found the best place to hangout.

The window where my reading nook is faces the garden where there a few bushes and lots of birds. As the weather warms up I think this area is going to attract a lot of birds and maybe other wild life, although I have no idea what animals are around here.  I think it could be very entertaining for the cats.

Some of the cats looking through the window

Sometimes when I come home they are sitting there, nice greeting!

Another problem is finding space for more litter boxes. We have 7 out at the moment but it isn't enough. I'll have to figure out where to put a few more. One place would be in the bathroom, but I'm not sure yet!  

I'm glad that they have settled in okay. I was prepared for a lot of fights and a lot more spraying and scratching but so far, so good!

Commuting To Work

 Since I lived in Japan I have worked from home.

I have a little English school. In all the places we have lived I've always turned one room into a classroom so I could teach. 

I really liked the idea that my commute to work only took a few seconds. Sometimes  I would get upset at people coming in the house, especially kids. I really would have liked another building on the same land where I could teach but that never happened.

Now I have to commute to work. From here to where we teach is about 30 minutes, not too bad, most the drive is through the countryside. I can't drive so I go with Mikey, which means that I'm hanging around while Mikey teaches to do my one or two lessons.  

I've only been doing this for a few weeks now but I'm exhausted. I'm not sure why. Part of it might be all the work I'm still doing trying to set up this house and helping on the land, part might be that my insomnia has reared it's ugly head again, and part might be the fact that I only have one lesson but Mikey has 3 or 4, so I just sitting around waiting for him!

I try to make use of my time. I reading a lot, I download a lot of books on my Kindle, also I'm trying to write more, experimenting with poetry, also I'm teaching myself how to crotchet. But it is still a long time to fill. Also the places that we are teaching in aren't heated. We feed the meter to heat the one room, so I stay in there. It's big, so I can just sit in one corner. I hope that once the weather warms up I can use another room.

Yesterday I got to watch one of Mikey's classes. Most of our classes are one on one so it was nice to watch him teach 4 kids at one time. 

Mikey teaching

He has a list of verbs on the board and was practicing "can". One verb was hit, giving hints the kids had to make a sentence using the verb and can. One girl came out with "I can hit Mikey". Mikey's response was to run away screaming for help, of course the kids loved that!

I Ache

 The past few days the weather has been very mild, high in the mid teens. So I've been getting out in the garden a bit, trying to tidy up things, put away stuff that has been left outside since we moved in.

Easy enough to do but I didn't realize how much bending and squatting I would be doing.  I wasn't out there for long, maybe half an hour each day, with breaks but this morning I woke up feeling like I'd been hit by a ton of bricks! I'm not sure what bit hurts more, by shoulder feels pinched, my back and hips just ache and my legs think that this is the end!! 

I know I'm out of shape, but I didn't think I was this bad!

I also know what my problem is, inconsistency! I'll start something but then give up because something has happened. For example last year I started to do some chair exercises. I was doing great, not really enjoying it but able to do them at least 4 times a week. Then I got shingles, which took a month to fully recover from, followed by Covid, another month with no energy! After that I never got back into doing the exercises, it was always tomorrow or next week. But as the year went on we got more and more busy with the move and I got more and more stressed with everything exercise became the last thing on my mind!

So I'm thinking about starting some exercises again. I've been watching a lot of videos about exercises for back problems. Basic stretches to help the pain in my neck. I've been doing them two or three times a day, which has helped a bit. I need to find something that will give me a good work out without killing me. I also want to start walking before it gets too hot to go outside!  Plus there is still a lot of work to be done in the house and garden.

I have a few projects that I want to start as well. One is building a catio, a cage for the cats attached to  the house. I thought about buying one but they are very expensive. Looking around the storage rooms I have found these massive meatal racks, that could be used as a frame for the cage. So I'm looking for ideas for that.

Also I finally pasteurized the first lot of honey.

First lot of honey

I have to buy a funnel to put it into a smaller bottle! This is about a quarter of the honeycomb!

Next is to figure out how to make marmalade from these Japanese oranges that my student gave me. They are too sour to eat as is.

I thought I would have a lot of time to read and write once we moved here as I'm not teaching so much but I seem to be busier than ever. But it's good for me, no time for self pity parties!!

The Land

 David has been working hard on the land that is just up the road from here. Last year he couldn't park the car on the land, it was that overgrown.

This morning I went with David for half an hour. I was pleasantly surprised at how much he has done.

Last year

This morning he could get the car on and he had widened the small path in the middle of the second photo.

The widened path

One reason he wanted to go was to try out his new chain saw.

He worries me with these machines. He is so accident prone. As a child we would end up in the emergency room every other month. 

But he seems confident in what he is doing! 

  He cut down a lot until the chain saw broke, the chain came away from the place that was holding it!

He got it fixed but we had to get back so I could finish lunch.

The weather has been very mild the past few days so I'm trying to get out and get things done.  There is still a lot of trash outside the storage place next to the house. I've been trying to organize it so we can take it to the city dump.  Big job but getting done bit by bit! 

The Bee Hive

 There has been a bee hive under this house for many years. When we lived here 16 years ago, it was already well established. We tried to kill the bees off but they kept coming back.

The place where they were coming in and out of the hive was next to one of the paths that leads to the back of the house where the different meters are. I've been worried about the guys who have to go down there. Also Christopher had a very bad reaction to bee stings when he was little, he might have out grown it but it's a risk.

Yesterday morning I showed a home page to David of a company that deals with these types of insects, there are a lot in Japan. Even cute caterpillars have a deadly sting, speaking from experience here!  The company looked good but even just the basic price was 10,000 yen (about 50 pounds) if there were any problems it could get very expensive!

David decided to open up one of the tatamis to see what the hive looked like. We had noticed that there was no activity at all, either they had died because of the sudden cold snap the other week or they were hibernating.

David was surprised at the size of the hive.

massive hive

He tried to pull it away from the floor beams, it came away it pieces but also a load of honey started to drip from it. Of course David had to taste it!

As he pulled away more and more he was shocked at the beauty of the structure inside.

Really beautiful

He managed to get it out. There's so much honey in there. Also we found a few bees that were hibernating. 

Bees in the hive

So now we have a dilemma. 

We want to harvest the honey but save the bees. But I don't want the bees near the house!  After checking on line to see if it would be possible to process the honey we divided the hive. The pieces with the honey we kept here, the other part David took to some of our land that has a lot of weeds, especially those that bloom early. I hope that the bees survive!

This what we were left with!

Lots of honeycombs!

To get the honey it is basically a process of straining it through sieves, until the comb has been removed. The last straining is through cheese cloth. 

So all day yesterday and today I've been processing honey. It's fun and rather interesting to do, but very sticky. I thought about using it as is but after reading more on line I've decided to pasteurize it. We've used a bit already in tea and coffee but just be safe I think that the pasteurization method is best.

mashing the honey comb

honey before pasteurizing

When I was told that we had to leave the other house and move here I thought about growing vegetables, maybe getting a few chickens for eggs (not happening as they stink!), pottering around in the garden. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would be processing honey!!  I guess this is part of  the adventure that is life.