An Amateur Farmer

From a clip in Youtube, I have learned how to germinate a seed of pumpkin. Cutting a small portion of the edge of a seed, it is placed in a wet atmosphere put in watered paper. It is kept in a plastic box in 2 or 3 days.  

Then a tiny bud comes out at the edge cut in the beginning shown as above. Isn't it lovely?

The germinated seed is planted in a pot. Commercially available culture soil is not used but compost rich soil from our garden is put in the pot.

Now it is growing like above. I have grown 4 of them at the same time. All of them were successfully germinated and are grown in pots. 

I am again impressed at this process of germination. It occurs as scheduled in the gene of the seed under subtle change of balance of hormones according changing environment. Just a materialistic process. But it is still moving. Something beyond our intellect is working there.

As written before, I am seriously afraid we will have shortage of foods or at least higher costs of them in the near future. I have decided to grow such as potatoes, sweet potatoes or this pumpkins in addition a lot of seasonal vegetables. Rice planting requires watered paddy and further harvesting and rice milling machines even though it is still our main food and growing it is favorable for us. I am learning the plants and vegetables are growing under very delicate and complicated balances of environment and/or nutrients. Farming is much more profound than I expected. If not using chemicals like herbicide, it is even more obvious to us. The more challenging it is to grow them, the more fun I am feeling with it.   

So I am more of a farmer now. It has something common with pediatrician doing with lives.

Visiting a museum in Nagano again

Several days ago, I have been to Mugonkan in Nagano, a museum for those young painters or art majoring young students died during the WWII, which I used to visit 4 years ago as in this post. Through the pandemic, I knew it had been in hard time with much less visitors. I wanted to know how it was getting along. Of course, it has been my hope simply to look the paintings exhibited there again. As always, it was already around noon when I decided to drive there. I arrived there late in the afternoon.

The museum building was standing on a hill overlooking the suburb of Ueda city, one of the major cities in Nagano. Among the trees on the hill, we could see the farms there. There were cherry trees along the entrance road to the building. Flowers were almost fallen on the ground. However, close to the building on the north side, there were a few cherry trees still bearing some flowers. 

The building was smaller than I imagined from the memory of the visit 4 years ago. It was exposed with concrete on the outer as well as inner wall. It looked like a church in countryside. Simple and austere outlook. "Mugon" means no words in Japanese. A gorgeous building won't accord with its intention and aim. 

There were only very few visitors in the museum. Looking around the paintings, a mature lady clerk apologetically asked me if I would go on watching them. Yes, it was almost the time of closing. There were no one in the exhibition area of the building. I apologized her and would go out then. At the exit, where the visitors are to pay the fee, I asked them if there had been so many visitors as in the pre-pandemic era. Of course, the answer from the clerk was no. He was asking me where I came from. Only we were talking in the quiet counter. 

After the last visit, I have donated a bit of money to this museum. I have received a hand written mail of thanks from the director later. I found an art book edited and written by him at the exit place. The title is 100 selections of paintings of life. It is composed of the paintings selected and the explanation by the editor. The editor says these paintings are asking us how we are living at present. 

Each painting won't grab our mind and asks us, as the director says, how we are living our lives. Most painters would not stop painting these works immediately before being recruited to the army. 

There are a lot of paintings of self portrait, beloved ones and family members. This painting showing the painter's family and the painter himself, as the painter's brother told, was not real. The family was too poor to have such a time of sitting together at a room. It was what the painter would like to have with the family members. 

On the way back home, I wondered what it attracted me so much. Their arts produced in extremely inhumane situation are really speechless protests against war. Even without considering of the historical situation, they have left those arts as a result of or a process of self-realization which they fight for within limited time span in their lives. In that respect, we are asked by them as for how we have lived and how we are going to live. 

It was worth visiting there again. Maybe, I will do this trip again and spend a full day to watch all the paintings thoroughly. 

The 11th Anniversary of Mother

It was today 11 years ago when we received the sad news of our mother passing away. 

A week prior to her passing, we, the brother 3 years younger and the sister 4 years older than me, have visited her at the hospital. She has welcomed us with a brilliant smile. Her dementia has forced her to ask us about our families and our father, who already died several years before, again and again. She also wanted to return this place where she had spent years together with us and our father. It was the only moment when her countenance looked grave and worried. Later, brother has written to me that she was exceptionally pleased to have three of us visiting her at the same time. Leaving our hearts behind with her, I and my wife have departed back home while listening my sister singing a hymn for her at the room.

As reiterated in the past posts, she has spent the very last part of her life with progressing dementia and loneliness having lost her spouse, that is, our father. I am at the beginning of that age bracket. I wonder if there was anything I could do for her. And her being encourages me to spend the time like she did. 

Azalea along the entrance is in full bloom. Sitting on a stony low fence at the exit, facing to the street, she often spent sometime in the afternoon looking at people and cars as if she had waited for someone. It must be our father.

In this weekend, we will have our brother and his wife here. We might have a heavenly time with them having dinner together. A lot of pleasant memories. We still, however, miss her and father again.

A form of childhood fulminant hepatitis in epidemic in UK etc

Novel hepatitis in childhood has been reported mainly from UK since this January. 

A report from the UK government; here

A news article by Reuter; here

From January to April, there have been 130 cases reported. Among them, 108 cases are from UK. All children. 

It should be concerned that 8 cases have been undergone liver transplant procedure. It means the clinical feature at least of these cases was that of fulminant hepatitis, which progresses to liver insufficiency quickly. A case was dead.

The etiology is not definitely known yet. But 77% of cases show laboratory data of infection with Adenovirus. Adenovirus is a kind of the genre of enterovirus and causes common cold. Rarely it won't be the pathogen for fulminant hepatitis in childhood. It prevails among children mostly in summer. Adenovirus is so common that the apparent relationship with this hepatitis could be just coincidence. 

If Adenovirus is involved in this hepatitis, there should be changes in the pathogen, the host or the environment. The virus could undergo genomic variation, which leads to more virulence. The patients have been isolated from the group with the same age and have been infected much later than the ordinary natural infection. It could cause different immune response to the virus. SARS CoV2, the pathogen of COVID19, has been reported to alter the immune system. Co infection with SARS CoV2 may occur that change which should be responsible for fulminant hepatitis. The patients have not been immunized with COVID19 vaccine, so that it should be ruled out for the cause.    

So far, the number of cases are not large and they are limited only to UK etc in distribution. This is be most likely an infectious hepatitis. In case of gastroenteritis patients in childhood deteriorating to liver dysfunction rapidly, they should be suspected for this fulminant hepatitis. 

This has reminded me of Reye Syndrome. I used to see such a case when I was a resident at a med school hospital. 

Fresh spinach with beef, growing summer vegetables

Spinach is a difficult vegetable to grow for an amateur farmer. One reason is that it requires alkaline soil for the ground. How much magnesium lime should be given to the ground is a bit tricky question for me. I should have got a measure device for acidity of the soil. Last fall, it was not a fault but should be called success. Some of them have germinated and have grown. Without much fertilizer given to them, they have not grown big enough in the winter. However, they finally grew as it got warmer. I finally harvested some of them and cooked them with beef seasoned with oyster sauce etc.  

　 

It is just a stir fry. What I intended to with this menu was not to cook spinach too long. Only for shorter time than doing with the other materials. It was to keep spinach fresh in the dish. Has it turned out to be successful?

Broccoli are almost all harvested and started bolting with beautiful flowers. Almost all winter vegetables are over. It is time to germinate summer vegetables at present. It is sometimes getting frosty at present. It is making me puzzled when I should sow the seeds. In case with tomatoes, I would have the fruits grow before the rainy season starts in June. For that purpose, early sowing seeds is necessary. I have already planted tomato seedlings bought at a store and sweet potatoes to obtain the seedlings. This weekend, it is forecasted we should have frost. I should have take a maneuver to have the seedlings survive through it, covering them with grass mulching and/or putting non-woven fabric sheets over them.

A few kinds of vegetables were already sown in pots indoor. But these are not successful so far. I may need a green house.

This series of success and fault is, however, a process of learning and a pleasure for me. 

Low activity in JIDX last week end

Early evening on the last Saturday, when I was calling CQ on 40m as usual, I was called by a guy in California. He apologetically asked me about my prefecture. It reminded me that it was the week end of JIDX contest. Yes, he has been an avid contester and I have "never" met him without in contests. I have spent a few hours eavesdropping and have actually given a number to several friends on 40 and 15m.

Again, I realized there were less numbers of contesters joining it. Compared with several years ago, there had been very few club stations this year. Where have all the university clubs gone? JA3YBK, JA9YBA, JA2YKA or JA7YAA etc. At least, while I was listening those bands, I could never hear any of them. It has been a long time since I heard a local contest station JA1YPA, which had been built in the mountain area and operated by local hams enthusiastic for contests.  

The university clubs used to be cradle for young contesters and a few CW operators back in '80s through '00s. Their inactivity may mean there won't be serious contesters and CW operators born among the next generation, I am afraid. I heard some of old calls which had been famous for their efforts in contests for the past decades. They must be around their 70s of age or even older. 

In contrast with this paucity of young contesters in our country, there were a bit of more activity in East and Southeast Asia like BY, HL, HS, DU or YC etc. Is this reflecting that amateur radio activity is generally lessened greatly in our country? Or is it inherent to the less activity in contests? I don't have any demographical date regarding this point. Will the activity in the other parts of Asia compensate the deficit in our country?  

I am concerned more of the future of conversational CW in our country. Quite some radio amateurs are enjoying it in Japanese Morse code. Most of them are retirees and may disappear from this hobby so soon. What is responsible for this change? Is there anything we could do against this trend?

Vegetables and flowers

Getting warmed all around through a day, it is the time to have vegetables germinate and to plant them. This year, I would more involved with growing those for main crop. One of them is sweet potato. The seedlings are sold at stores but only for a short period. Learning how to grow them by myself, I have kept this sweet potato in soil for a few weeks. I got this one from a super market. It has finally germinated. 

I am always much impressed when a plant or its seed bud out. It is a real miracle of nature. The recent studies have revealed there are hormones in plants working to antagonize each other for germination in complicated pathways being stimulated by the change in environment. Its balance leads to germination as they say. But it is still a wonderful system human could not completely reveal. It is embedded in gene. The gene function is modified and controlled by epigenetics. What a precisely constructed system!

My surprise may be dramatized by pleasure I could grow sweet potatoes using the seedlings from this. I hope the other sweet potatoes in hydroponics may give more seedlings.

Doesn't this look like a baby starting to grow? 

So are the gingers budding as well wrapped with wet paper in a plastic box.

The potatoes are starting to germinate in the farm. I have been looking forward it for a few weeks. It is a good timing for we are not supposed to have frost any longer this year. In case of frost forecasted, I would cover them with non-woven fabric.

The flowers belong to my wife. Tulips are coming out beautifully. I don't know why but pulling weeds there is my duty. The azalea behind may bloom soon.

Tatsoi have bloomed before they were harvested. Can we get the seeds from them? It was a useful vegetable last year. I would seed them this fall. 

 The news say that some of the wheat grown in the vast field in Ukraine could hardly harvested. If harvested, they could not export to the other countries where people need it for their life. In some countries in Middle East and North Africa, a bad deficit of wheat has started. Remembering of those people in war and hunger, I should appreciate being able to do some farming here.