Mother's Day surprise

While I did receive flowers from my husband on Mother's Day, that wasn't the big surprise.  They weren't even the typical Japanese Mother's Day flowers of red carnations.  Instead they were my beloved gerbera daisies and roses.

I also wasn't surprised when my son tried to not let me come downstairs in the morning, but later ran to get me saying "momma, come quick!"  My boys are rock stars when it comes to making me breakfast on the weekends.  Today they went all out and made a traditional Japanese breakfast of fish, tamagoyaki, miso soup, and rice, along with matcha tea.

What was surprising was when they left me for a couple hours in the afternoon and returned with worms!  What???  Well, these are special composting worms known as red wigglers.  Their poop is known in the gardening world as the gold level of compost.

I have bemoaned not having a worm bin here, so my husband and son thought I would be happy to receive a package of red wigglers as a gift.  They had to visit two fishing shops (which I doubt there are many of in Tokyo) to secure the worms.  Some people "raise them" not for gardening, but for fishing because they multiply quickly and are easy to manage.

I couldn't be more thrilled with receiving this thoughtful gift!

I had some coconut core bricks from gardening that I was able to hydrate and build them a bed inside a plastic bin we had on hand.  We tucked some celery leaves and an apple core into the bedding and tucked the worms in for some excellent dining.  Now all we do it wait for them to eat more of our kitchen waste and turn it into amazing plant food.

I doubt that I will be sharing this new venture with many of my Japanese friends.  They already think I am weird because I had chickens and ducks in the US without being a farmer.

This was definitely a memorable Mother's Day!  One that I will be able to reflect upon for a very long time.

*****************
If you are interested in vermicomposting, I learned everything from the book "Worms Eat my Garbage" by Joanne Olszewski and Mary Arlene Appelhof.  It is an amazing resource!

A kind offering

While on a bike ride with my husband and son, we passed by a bean shop.  I love these stores, filled with all sorts of bulk beans.

Since we are really trying to support local shops these days, we decided to stop and buy some beans.  It also helped that we didn't need to actually enter the store.  We just stood at the door and told the owner what we wanted.

Unfortunately he was almost out of chickpeas.  Instead of telling me tough luck, he kindly gave me what he did have (about a 1/2 cup) for free.  This always impresses me, as I would like to think that is how I would run a business if I had one.

The man was overjoyed to sell us some of his goods.  As we wrapped up the transaction, he took two disposable masks from a package and put them into a plastic bag.  He handed it over and told me "presento, presento!"

I was so taken aback by his kindness.  Masks are still in high demand and low supply, so to give them away to his customers was extremely generous.  It is little actions like these that keep my faith in humanity.

Sign of the past

My husband likes to watch Nerima Hotline, a television show about Nerima.  He's learned lots of things about our area.  It has given us tips about great restaurants, cultural events, and things to go see.  Even though it is a bit cheesy, it is also interesting.

He recently found old shows on YouTube.  One of those episodes talked about the history of Hikarigaoka Park.  We did not know it was an American military housing complex for over 20 years after World War II!  When we first moved here, we were told the promenade was originally an airport runway called Nerimasu Airfield.  But we didn't know anything beyond that.

The show had lots of photographs of the area, which we found to be very interesting.  Known as Grant Heights, the area was a "town within a town."  When it was given back to the Japanese government in 1973, the name changed to Hikarigaoka and the park was created.  It turns out that there is only one sign remaining of the park's days as a base - and it really is a sign.

After watching the show (which my husband translated for me), we decided to seek out the sign.  There is a gated area in the park where an old building once stood.  The "no parking" sign is almost hidden near the fence, facing out toward the park.  The English letters are almost illegible, but it still displays a bit of local history.

I was so happy to learn something new about our neighborhood.  There's always new-to-me factoids to acquire.

Grow your own forest

Since we can't reach very much nature these days (in order to reach a space that we don't have to share with thousands of other people, we have to get on a train, which we are not doing these days - weird to realize it has been probably 2 months since I last got on a train...), I decided to make some of my own.  I'm not talking about the garden outside.  Instead, my son and I are trying to turn the spare room into a forest.

We started by painting a tree on paper and affixing it to the wall.

Next we decided to employ crayons for a second tree.

We've begun making a third tree with mosaic "tiles."  We'll have to finish this one tomorrow.

I'm sure this project will take us several days.  Regardless, we are having fun and my son is already brainstorming what creatures he will pretend to be inside the magical forest.

Last night the school district sent the official email that school would be out until at least May 31st.  We do have to stop by the school next week to pick up additional schoolwork.  I hope it is more than they gave us last time!  Although I do have to say my son's reading in English and Japanese has greatly improved in the last seven weeks, as well as his addition and subtraction.

Regardless of school, I doubt we will be having visitors anytime soon, so I'm glad to be using the space!


****************
If you have ideas for methods to make trees, please let me know in the comments below!

None of your beeswax

Going back to my resolve to reduce, reuse, and recycle, I decided to make some beeswax wraps.  They can be used in so many ways in the kitchen, greatly reducing the need for plastic wrap.  It doesn't fully replace it, but it helps nonetheless.

Over a year ago I bought three beeswax wraps.  At first they just sat in the drawer, but over time I've used them more and more.  I finally got to the point that I wanted a few more sizes in my kitchen to expand how often I can use them.

I ordered the main supplies on Amazon, except for the fabric, which I just used various pieces of cotton from my stash.  I needed some beeswax with pine resin and coconut oil.  I also ordered beeswax pellets that didn't contain the additional ingredients, but I read that the wraps might crack and not hold up as well without the resin and oil.  I recently broke my grater, so I was fine with using it and I already had the parchment paper.

Grating the bar of wax gets you a nice size to melt.  The hard bar was a little nerve-wracking to grate, so I heated it a bit in the microwave.

The process was very easy:

• Put some parchment down
• Set up the fabric with some grated wax and/or wax pellets on top
• Place another sheet of parchment on top
• Iron to melt the wax
• Once the melted wax is evenly distributed, wave it for a moment to cool it.

Repeat on additional pieces of fabric, as desired.

Since making these, I have put them to great use.  It has been so nice covering leftovers and wrapping cheese.  It's even better knowing I'm reducing my trash load.