Winter vegetables

Winter vegetables are ripened at the same time. This big chinese cabbage was a main material for hot pot dish and also was used for a dish of pork.   

A huge green lettuce. Of course, it was featured for fresh salad with the very last lot of tomatoes, sliced persimmon, boiled beans/broccoli and other stuff.

White radish or daikon radish is productive this winter. Dozens of them are growing. I will try to get them buries in the soil and preserve them for a few months. This is a dish of sliced daikon radish with bacon seasoned with sesame oil and salt.  

I used to ask myself, as I have written here in the past, if it was my work worth spending retirement. Nowadays, concentrating in farming and cooking, I find myself forgetting every worry etc and feel happy in a sense.

Time goes on.

 

A new variant Omicron emerging

A new variant designated as Omicron by WHO yesterday was reported from Rep. South Africa.

BBC news says it is a heavily mutated variant with 50 loci of mutation. Among them, 30 are related with S protein and 10 with the receptor binding domain. Delta strain has only 2 for the latter domain. It seems mutation is remarked at loci involving infectivity of the strain. It is not clear yet whether it could evade immunity or not.

In a province of RSA, this strain has replaced Delta strain in a couple of weeks. There are already 2 infected in Hong Kong, who seem to have been infected through airbourne infection. Keep it in mind both of them have been vaccinated twice. There are no epidemiological findings reported on this strain yet. We should be careful about it possibly with even more contagious characteristics than previous strains.

As stated above, WHO has categorized this strain as VOC with the nomination of Omicron.   

We should not be panic with this strain emerging in RSA. But, since it is getting into winter in the north hemisphere now, a season of vulnerability to viral infections, we should be even more conscious about precautions against COVID 19. 

The final drive on my Nissan

 In this week end, I would say farewell to my car of Nissan, which I have been driving for the past 10 years. It was just after the big earthquake. It is a medium sized sedan with hybrid system. I loved its smooth run and comfortable devices including HDD. Commuting to and from the work on this car, I have listened to a lot of music with it while recording them into the HDD. Possibly more than 200 CDs.

It still runs fine. But I am concerned about the gas mileage and its size, both of which are not suitable for a retired person. Compact cars run at much lower gas mileage while they are much easier to drive in the crowded city area. Those are the reason why I decided to change the car to a compact one. Thinking of my age, wondering if I should get a new one or not, I have made up my mind that way.

For the last long drive on this car, I have gone to Abukuma Mtns, north east of here, along the Pacific Ocean. It is the place where I have taken my family for drive a number of times and have already previously posted some photos in this blog. It took me a couple of hours to go there. The traffic was not crowded at all among the mountains.

Hananuki Valley among the mountains has welcomed me with the colorful trees. It was always in summer when I visited this area. I have never seen this beautiful clors in the forests there. Even on a plain week day, there were a few tourists for viewing fall foliage. The small river was running rather vigorously. This river runs only 13 or 14 miles from the origin in the mountains and had caused flood frequently. There were a dam constructed in it mainly for flood control, which has made a small lake there.

This is the car I say goodbye soon. For the past 10 years, I have had a lot of life events and have driven it whenever they happened to me. It may be a bit funny to the others but I could not help feeling emotional at this farewell. It has made me relieved with its coziness. 

  

43rd anniversary

 It will be our 43rd anniversary tomorrow. There will still be a lot of steep slopes ahead of us. As we promised in the engaged days, go on through them supporting each other however hard it may be.

As this poem of Robert Browning, quoted a few times in the past, says, I would go forward with Chiaki;

 Grow Old

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in His hand

Who saith 'A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all nor be afraid!

At the medical school campus where we served residency. In 1980. 

Vegetable farm and intruder

Tatsoi, lettuce and white radish etc are growing. Typical fall/winter vegetables. Cabbage and chinese cabbage are ready to ripen soon. Broccoli and a variety of beans are prepared for the next spring. 

This is a corner of the garden farm, a tiny farm. You may realize there are a lot of metal supporters stood around the farm like a fence. A intruder has come in the farm and left footprints everywhere. I have set them to avoid it coming in.

It is our cat, Hikaru, who does that mischief. He doesn't understand that he won't be welcomed in the farm however comfortable it may be for him to walk in the soft soil of the farm.  The supporter fence did not work.

I have given it up to train him not to invade the farm. But I have decided to plant more number of vegetables. It won't disturb us so much even if he harms some in a large number of plants grown.

After harvesting the last lot of tomatoes, I have taken away all the tomato plants. Getting older, I find myself feeling sad to such plants finishing their lives.? Sentimentalism? Maybe, that's right. Anything mortal draws my interest and makes me feel sympathetic to it. It is a fact that we belong to such nature mortal.

Reading the last chapter of "Jean Christophe" by Romain Rolland recently, which was a favorite novel in my teenage days since it was recommended by a teacher at elementary school days, I was again touched with the last scene that Christophe meets a child who answers Christophe he is the day to be born. We are in or a part of the flow of life which goes from the past to the future, unknown to us. In the very last day of life, it is questioned if I could tell myself about own proper engagement in the flow and if I have lived it as it was required.

I would cook chicken and egg plants with the white radish harvested in the garden farm this evening. It is seasoned with vinegar soy sauce.

National election

It was the election held in our country yesterday. 

Even though there have been a lot of serious issues to be discussed before it, the government as well as the mass media were not willing to do so. The turnout has resulted in quite low. I believe young people and the unorganized part of the people have lost interests and have not voted in it. 

In such a case, the ruling party, LDPJ, does pretty well with the aid of the party of Komeitou, which owns its strong support base of Soukagakkai, a cult religion. LDPJ was supposed to lose in the election due to the recent policy failure especially for the COVID19 pandemic and to a lot of corruption cases for the past 9 years. Their loss in the election was minimized.

Even worse, a regional party ruling Osaka, named Ishin, has increased the seats four times more than before and has become the 3rd "opposition" party. It is the political faction which jeopardized Osaka in the pandemic apparently due to the policy of neoliberalism. This party is essentially a fascist faction as well. It is never an opposition party.  

The recent article on Ishin by the Guardian is here; https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/01/japan-election-rightwing-populists-sweep-vote-in-osaka

It was only a few weeks prior to the election that the opposition parties could form the united front. It has not fully worked this time. There was something suggestive of the tricks to reduce the voter turnout that the government and the mass media allied to the former had plotted. One example was that the voting hours were shortened by 1 to even 4 hours. In the election campaign period, the mass media have, if not all, neglected programs which could have aroused discussion in the public. Remember the freedom of the press in our country remains being only in the 67th in the world, which is comparable to that of undeveloped countries or of the countries of dictatorship. 

I am disappointed at this result. It should be criticized that the government has made corruptions or falsification of public papers or of public data in administration. The ruling party should have been eliminated in the politics. Politics based on hoax and corruption could never be lasted. The present situation reminds me of the USSR in the last years which was losing its sovereignty.  

It depends on when the unorganized people realize the situation and go for voting that this country could fix and straighten its way to go. The mass media should play the crucial part. But most of them are threatened economically being deprived the income with advertisement by the internet and would ally the government and the financial circles on the background for economical benefit.