Saturday busy buzzing

Saturday was way busy around our home and garden. At the edge of the garden there is a utility pole, and early morning I heard the sound of too many trucks on the road for our quiet neighbourhood. There were three or four truck from the electric company, and they proceeded to set up to adjust the tension in the power cables. They first installed bridging cables, when there was some buzzing as the connections were made, when the air became tainted by the smell of electrical burn, weld. Then the cables were cut, shortened and connectors fitted, with the cables reconnected, and the bridging wires removed. It took them 6 hours to achieve all of this for four cables. Here is a photo of them working with the bridging cables.

Bread baking

On Saturday we baked a batch of bread in the wood fired oven. This turned out quite nicely as the photo on the left suggests. Unfortunately photos do not capture the music of the bread as it cools, crackling crusts, nor the aroma that filled the garden as it cooked and then the house, or the flavours as we ate them.
This bread was made from type 55 French flour, salt, a little sugar, some polish starter dough, and 60% hydration of water only. We shared some of the bread with neighbours and friends.

Fennel and... companions

Companion gardening wisdom is that fennel is a no no for growing along with other plants. As luck had it, some carrots appeared in the midst of my recently planted fennel bed. The fennels are mature enough to be approaching their second harvesting. The image to the left shows a carrot harvested on Saturday that was growing cheek by jowl with a couple of fennel plants, there are others still sitting there. The coin next to it for scale purposes is a 5 yen, which is 2.2 cm in diameter, sorry I forgot to measure the carrot and it was eaten on the day of harvest, delicious. The only problem was, as can be seen, some splitting, which is the result of uneven watering, i.e., a dry spell followed by lots of rain. I will harvest more carrots soon...

5 yen coin:
http://braesidecottage-garden-music.blogspot.com/

Floating Worlds Tour

This is a photo of a reflection of Ab on the lid of a grand piano.

Floating Worlds Tour

Here is photo of Ig proper, with Ab's hands playing clarinet in the foreground.

Floating Worlds Tour

Here is a photograph of Ab Baars, shakuhachi, and Ig, viola. Enjoy, the music was as angular;-)

Floating Worlds Tour

I have been sooo busy with the Floating Worlds Trio concerts on top of all else to be able to post. Now I will begin to post some of the photos I took of their concerts. The first concert was performed at the Kumamoto Street Artplex Extravaganza festival, where they performed in the Contemporary Art Museum. Attached is a photo Ig Henneman playing viola to the audience.

Kikuchi Gorge

Over the September break, known here as Silver Week in contrast to the May Golden Week, we took a trip to Kikuchi Gorge and Mt Aso, with its active volcano. The day was overcast, not providing the best light for photography, but I think I succeeded to capture a few nice images here and there. Here is a photo of life in the crevice of black wet rocks in the coolness of the Kikuchi Gorge. The gorge is densely foliated and boasts a wonderful torrent of water that feeds into the Kikuchi River.

Summer Okinawa, Minna Island

A couple of days before we arrived a typhoon swept over Okinawa islands, dumping salt laden water all around which damage the leafage on much of the vegetation. Some trees were as good as stripped of the leaves, and were sprouting new ones. Here, the choral landscape in miniature is scattered with leaves fallen from the vegetation running along the edge of the choral bay.

Summer Okinawa, Minna Island

More landscape in miniature; a chasm that is about 15 cm deep, with the residue of a salt water lake in the bottom, with the sun descending to the left generating shadow and texture to surfaces.