Flowerpots

Yesterday, it was really really humid and hot. In the eveningwe had the shower and there was a sharp drop in the temperature.

Today, it is really really "cool". So I'm wearing long sleeve shirt.

In my garden, there are some flowerpots.

Now small tomatoes (we call them PUCHI tomatoes) grow, and blueberries also grow.

Blueberries are said to be good for weak eyes. Now I enjoy eating them, though they are little bit sour. Now I seem to suffer presbyopia. It can't helped.

Yesterday I tried Tempura of parsley. It was realy nice. If you get bunches of parsley, try it.

Shiso herb juice

One of my friend, who is good at gardening, brought a big plastic bag full of Shiso herb this year as usual. So I made Shiso herb juice. It is said to be good for "summer lethargy". (Now I'm suffering from "rainy season humidness".

And I gave a small plastic bottle of Shiso herb jucie to my neighbor. And she gave me lots of beans, potatoes, and carrots. So I gave half of them to the friend who gave me Shiso. Everything goes round well.

Yesterday I made potato salad, just using the potatoes, and bunches of parley. Now in my garden parsley grows thick. Today I'm goint go make"parsley TEMPURA".

Garbage -4-

We can't deal with garbage by our selves; it means we have to understand that we need extra attention to deal with garbage. What do you think about it? It's not easy to burn garbage and to bury garbage in this narrow Japan. We need to change our mind from easy thinking that garbage should be thrown away to serious thinking that we have garbage disposed by someone. Though it might be out of focus about this issue, in my house, probably my husband and my daughter think that they have their garbage disposed by me. So anyway our garbage manages to be separated.

Moreover I hope we think about garbage positively. Though I also tell old times, at that time "Don't waste everything" was common. Some people would hesitate to throw things away. But now we are surrounded with full of things and it is easy to think "buying something new is easier than keeping old things". So we tend to be indifferent to throwing things away. It's not good. We should have interests to throw things away. Actually these days, the word of "MOTTAINAI" that means "what a waste!" is being reconsidered. And using a picture book, the word of MOTTAINAI is reconsidered at moral class in every elementary school. It's a good and really effective thing to change our minds, isn't it? And though it's a tiny thing, I also read an English version of this book at nursery schools. Reading the book, not only audience but also myself can rethink about garbage.

It's a usual thing to obey the rule, so we should dispose garbage according to the rule. But having "Mottainai" sense we try to deal with garbage positively not from command. This attitude is more important, don't you think so? And this attitude might lead to save the earth. Anyway not try to think "throw away garbage" instantly, wait a minute to put garbage into a trashcan.

Garbage -3-

The people who dumped such garbage must have no other purpose, they must thought just "it's troublesome", or "it' s a tiny plastic bag of garbage". I understand their feeling. In my house there are three trash cans in the kitchen, one is for burnable garbage, one is for cans and bottles and the other is for plastic bottles and traies. My daughter and my husband have a trash can in their each room. Usually they put any kinds of garbage in their trash cans, and on Sundays, they separate and throw them away to the suitable trash cans in the kitchen. But sometimes they don't do that saying "troublesome","busy" and I do that while murmuring. How do we deal with garbage smoothly?

Until a few decades ago we would burn burnable garbage in the yard, and bury others in the hall on the corner of the back yard. When I came here about 20 years ago, I had a small incinerator. So I burned used paper. But now many people don't have enough space for putting incinerators and enough time for burning. If they had, we have lots of plastic things. And we noticed when we burn them they exhaust harmful gas of dioxin. So now, burning garbage at home is prohibited.

to be continued

Garbage -2-

This time I'll explain how to separate garbage in my town concretely.
We should separate 5 categories and 10 types.
1 Recyclable Resources
There are 6 types in this category.So we should put them into 5 types in the corner of garbage station.
a. newspapers, b. cardboard, c. magazines and other types of paper, d. cloth, e. bottles and cans f. plastic pet bottles (we should remove caps and labels, rinse the inside and crush flat before disposal.)

And there are other 4 categories. But they also mean other 4 types.
2&g Hazardous Garbage ; dry cell batteries, light bulbs, spray cans, etc.
3&h Combustible Garbage ; kitchen scraps, plastic items, special paper such as fax paper, photos, and so son. video tapes, etc.
4&i Non-Combustible garbage ; potteries, pans, broken glass, wire hangers, cosmetic bottles, etc.
5&j Oversized garbage ; furniture, household electric appliances and so on. In this case we call the Oversized Garbage Reception Center to apply for a pick up. The cost is 810yen (less than 10$) per item.

And there are other things not to dispose; TVs, laundry machines refrigerators, car batteries, tires and so on. We should ask dealer or Collection Company to handle them.

Garbage -1-

In two weeks, I'm going to make a short speech about garbage. So I'm putting together my mind on this diary. If you don't know the system of dealing with garbage in Japan, it might be difficult to understand the contents. But anyway I'll try to wirte down. If I get some comments, I'm really happy.

Garbage -1-
Are you interested in the garbage problem? Any municipal authorities attempt to reduce garbage and recycle garbage to cut down the cost of garbage running costs and to decrease carbon dioxide.

In Yokohama, they should separate garbage into 10 groups and 15 kinds of things. And this year they succeeded in reducing 30% garbage, and 750 thousand tons of carbon dioxide. The cost of separating garbage was not so cheap, but they could cut down the cost of running incinerator more. And the amount of carbon dioxide seems to be tantamount of the amount of the forest 1.2 times as large as Yokohama city.

It is a wonderful thing. On present showing separating garbage seems to be the easiest way for everyone to try to reduce garbage equally. If small tries get together, it must be of big effect. But this separating is kind of command, we should reconsider this problem of garbage as our own problem; we should do something by our will, not by command. At that time we’ll really be able to overcome this problem.

In my city, the way to deal with garbage is not so strict. We separate garbage into 5 groups and 10 kinds of things. I think it's not so difficult. But on the day of garbage truck coming, I often see some bags of garbage which are against the rule. Most of them are small plastic bags full of mixed garbage of plastic bottles, paper, can, and so on. Probably some lazy single men (or women) do that. When a garbage truck comes and sees them, they just put the sign written "rule violation", leave them and run along. After that house wives or elder people who keep the house, separate the garbage in the bags according to the rule. Does it sound something strange? On the surface separating garbage is well done, but not everyone does it.

to be contined

Pickled cucumbers

The other day I was taught "pickled cucumbers with Syouchu".

Now My daughter loves them, so I often make them, and I often give som of them to my friends, and most of friends are surprised and glad. So I tell the recipe.

It's really easy, if you can get Syouchu.

Prepare 5 or 6 cucumbers.

Cut both side of them a little to let the liquid penetrate easily.

Put them into a big plastic bag with zip.

Add 120g suger.

Add 23g salt.

Add 30cc Syouchu.

And just wait for a day.

I usualy use millet suger, so something brown in this photo is "sugar".