Another peaceful day

It is a quiet and a bit hot day today. Still crisp and comfortable. I have spent all day at the garden. A few azaleas were damaged by powderpost beetle and have been cut in the garden. There are more area which we could plant some flowers and trees. Before doing that, I have been eagerly pulling out rhizomatous weeds. It is almost imossible to eradicate them since some rhizom is so deep underground that we could not access to it. Reducing the size and amount of such weeds is important to plant other kinds of plants. i don't feel bored with that garden work.

As already written in previous posts, while sitting on the garden and concentrating the work, I often recall my parents. They were often doing the same thing in this property. Living with my family with grandchildren and without any worry about living, they might be in the most peaceful days in their lives, I believe, even if I am not sure I have done best for them. 

My parents have known each other during WWII at the sanatorium, that is, very same place as we live right now. I have reiterated about that story a few times in this blog. They have married after the war and built their family with 3 children. They got through the hardest time in their lives then. Threatened to death in the war and poverty beyond words for sometime after the war. However, they got it through.

Now we are getting into the hardship in life we have never experienced during our lives. Economically, our country hit the highest nominal GDP while the real GDP remains the same. And the long term national bond is charged with the highest interest rate. These mean our country will suffer from further inflation. Takaichi administration is heading to further military buildup changing the constitution to throw away its pacifism. The social security is being cut and more self pay is being introduced. The gas and food crisis due to the war in the Middle East messes it up further. 

Spending elderly days in this situation is surely a challenge for us. Privately, we have own problems for our age as well. It is equivalent to WWII and the post war era for my parents. i won't complain of that but would live with hope for the future as my parents used to do.

My wife has prepard a gorgeous sushi dinner for my 77th birthday. A rewarding day.

My mother, maybe in her 70s, and my wife. A photo taken about 35 years ago. At a park nearby.

 

A peaceful day

It is getting even 30 deg C in the mid day here. Quite unusual temperature for this time in a year. Weeds won't wait for us tu stop growing. Both I and my wife have been cutting/pulling the weeds in the garden. Half an acre lot is a bit too much for this old couple to care for. My wife is only a part time gardener as well. 

I still sit on a small chair and run  a small sickle with single-minded concentration. Sometimes, a question why I should do this comes up in mind. I tell myself this property has been inherited through ancestors for centuries or at least from my aunt and caring for it is an honorable duty for me. It always goes on without such a self dialogue. Only being absorbed in it. After working too long, I often have some lumbago but taking a nap for an hour or so always alleviates it. 

Another question sometimes occupies my mind. It may sound a ridiculous question. Isn't it correct to get rid of weeds or unwanted plants in order to have certain plant like lawn or a vegetable grow from the ecological point of view. Isn't it an egoism for human being? Natural farming tells us to grow vegetables together with weeds so far as the latter won't disturb the former. It is sometimes surprising the latter is helping the former. On the other hand, we want our garden to have only lawn grown. Our life is disturbing the nature, isn't it? 

Considering of such a thing, I know it gets lunch time.  

Some vegetables are ready to be harvestd soon. Onions are grown. I found their leaf could be cooked and taste good if it is fresh. Dosens of them will be dried and stored to be consumed in the coming months until next spring.

Potatoes are growing as well. There are two other beds with them. Seriously, they are for the possible poverty life in the coming months.

A couple of years ago, I have planted a tree of iyokan orange at a corner of the garden. Sadly, the tree seemed to have withered in the cold weather of winter. I still found "basal shoots" at its base. I told my wife of that. In her calmness, she answered to me that it had been grafted and the rootstock grew the basal shoots. Unluckily, her observation seemed right.

Chating such a thing while pulling the weeds with my wife may be the best part of life so far. If the invasion to Iran by the US and Israel would not be ceasefired, the world, especially Asian countries, may suffer from teribble stagflation. Our administration won't prepare for that catastophic condition. The government put subsidy to the gas, not telling the people to refrain from using it. And, having intervened in the exchange trade, they have wasted the important reserve. They aimed at stopping lowering of JPY. Without improvement in the fundamentals, cheap JPY won't be normalized. So I could not help being pessimistic for the future but may enjoy peaceful days like today.

 

 

Diagnosed as spinal canal stenosis

 Having had neuralgia on lower legs and lumbago for the past few years, I had worst neuralgia this winter. A local doctor recommended me to take an MRI. The result was spinal canal stenosis of high severity. Since I have only neuralgia and backache, no bladder rectal symptom nor palsy/intermittent claudication, I would go on with only conservative treatment. Luckily, Pregabalin medication, a drug specific for neuralgia, turns out to be pretty effective in my case. In addition to this med, I would try to exercise to strengthen the paravertbral muscles and those supporting the vertebrae.

My father used to suffer from ossification of posterior longitudinal ligament in his late years of life. I might have inherited with the same disease or trait. At this age with the same kind of issue, I could fully understand what he has thought about. I should have been more thoughtful and compassionate for him. He used to come to help receptionists at my office during the lunch time when he was at my present age. After a couple of hours of lunch break working at the reception, he came back to his car and headed home. From my own room upstairs, I often saw him walking slowly with a cane across the parking lot toward his car as if dragging his legs. Time has passed. It would be my turn to spend time as he did then.

I am not sure how fast this pathological condition progresses or if it remains stable for me. It won't be fatal to me. However, it seems to be the right time for me to prepare for end of my life now. I should get things ready for my wife and the other family members after I am gone. I would prepare a farewell message or something like that. A lot of things to think about and to determine where items like my important cello etc should go. 

I should spend everyday in even more thoughtful and careful way than ever.

PS; Reading back this post, I have found a lot of typos. It tells me how I have become senile! Always check the sentence before uploading it. I should be more careful!

The 3rd movement of Brahms' 3rd symphony

Brahms is a remarkable melody maker in addition to renovating classical composition technique.

One of his melodies most impressive for me is this 3rd movement of his No 3 ymphony.

It was featured as the main theme of the movie, "Say Goodby Again", after the novel, "Aimez-vous Brahms?" by Francoise Sagan. Building up a simple audio system. 6BM8 single stereo amplifier with a pair of coaxial speakers in homebrew speaker box, I have started listening a lot of music. Yes, I was mostly indulged in movie music at first those days. It has not taken me a long time to start journey into classical music, though. I had not known this music from that movement of Brahms' symphony. I have never seen the movie itself, either. I was in the low teen days.

The university orchestra I joined as a cellist was practising this symphony. At the summer camp I was pratising cello outside as a beginner, I often listened to this music. The melody is started by celli followed by 1st violins. Cello part sings the counter melody to the 1st violin, which is even more impressively beautiful than the front melody. Listners are totally fallen in love with this melody when it is reproduced by Horn and then by strings. 

At the summer camp, the melody was coming on a breeze blown down from the mountain nearby. It has ushered in the early fall.

An unforgettable melody for me. 

A pianist Luke Faulkner has arranged it to solo piano. This rendition is also a memorable one. I am sure Faulkner has been fascinated with this music himself. This must be composed by Brahms with piano in this way.

 

The meaning of death and aging from a biological point of view

I have listened to a lecture on line regarding the meaning of death and aging from the standpoint of biology by Prof. Takehiko Kobayashi of Tokyo University. To be short, death is a result of destruction of DNA. It will work for variation and evolution. We should die for the generation ahead.

It was more interesting to me on the meaning of aging. 

Old age, defined by post reproductive age, is unique to human being. Most mammalians except for human being and few exceptions would die as soon as they finish reproducng the next generation. For human being, old age lasts long or decades. The reason of existence of old age is as follows; human being gets born without "fur" on the surface and babies won't live by themselves for the first 3 years. The new borns require "grandma" caring for them. And when we get old, we could be free from egotism and could behave in altruitism. It is a widsome of "grandpa". Whether male or female, we could live for the next generation. Proessor Kobayashi says the meaning of old age resides in that altruitism. 

Some old people, expecially those in political power, behave the opposite to this nature of the elderly. They pursue endlessly own power and fortune. Some of them behave like a saviour in the world as if a religious icon. They seem to believe they were immortal. They are often backed up by some kind of cult. People in the cult support enthusiastically such a dictating politician as if he was a saviour to the world. The supporters could not understand  what their behaviour leads them as well as the other people. Such dictating leaders lead to collapse and perish of the world. It may be due to loss of "grandma" as well as "grandpa" characteristics in humankind.

A kind of garden tree has been perished at our home possibly as a facet of the global warming

Japanese ekianthus is a popular garden tree in our country. We have had them for hedge and also solitary garden trees since we moved here about 40 years ago. They always bloomed with tiny light pink flowers at the same time of budding. In fall, they were beautifully colored like the photo below. This photo of them hedging the street was taken almost 20 years ago. 

For the past 2 or 3 years, all of them have been eated by longhorn beetles. It has ruined most of them for now, even though we have given pesticide for this pest. This pest is originally in the tropical area. Even without any scientific evidence, I suspect it might be settled down here due to the global warming. It coincides with occurrence of extreme heat in the summer here. 

The larva of this pest invades and damages the trunk of such as Japanese ekianthus or other hardwoods. It lasts for 10 months in a year. It could also damege the wood of building materials. This pest has not attracted much public attention yet. But who knows?

   

I might have taken photos of them blooming in spring. So beautiful. I am sure I have taken but they have been lost in the vast collection of photos in HDD. Too sad. I should make it sure that every photo has been stored in an external HDD. 

 I have also read about the deranged circulation of seawater in the Atlantic Ocean. In the global warming, the ice in the north pole has been thawed and poured into the Atlantic Ocean. The seawater has been lowered in density and prevens its normal circulation between the surface and the depth. It could cause the abnormal weather and the reduced production of fisheries industry. We are quietly and secrety going through a tepping point in this manner. 

This is a tiny and possibly definite experience of the same global warming at our home.