Author: Sonia Stephens

Birding in Echigo-Yuzawa

On one of the days we were in Niigata, I took the train to Echigo-Yuzawa, an onsen/ski resort town, to sightsee and try some birding. Skiing and hot springs are the big draws here, and I wasn’t partaking of either. The place I’d been intending to go- Yuzawa Kogen– is a ski resort, and in the summers you can buy a ticket up their ropeway and walk around in an alpine park.

Their brochure showed a number of hiking trails- suggestive of a good chance to do some birding. From the website, they seemed to also have kiddie attractions, like go-carts and a small zipline, so I wasn’t sure what the situation would be for birds. But I went anyway, and had a pretty good time (though saw very few birds- if you are more mobile, there are better places in the Japanese Alps for it).

After getting up on the ropeway and walking around a bit (and it was quite steep, even though there was a plateau up there), it transpired that the hiking trails were closed, presumably because of lingering snow. That was disappointing. But I walked over to their “alpine garden” and looked at the sights: a pond and some early flowers. There were a lot of frogs croaking and what looked like egg casings in the water.

yuzawa11 — Eggs of some sort of amphibian?

The garden itself would clearly be pretty in a few more weeks – at the time, only a few things were blooming or even much above ground.

I toodled around for a while, having little success with birds (most were staying in the trees, where the trails were blocked off) and taking some photos.

The peak above the plateau area (where I wasn’t allowed to hike) was listed on the map as being over 2600 meters high; I’d estimate that I was at about 1800 meters on the plateau.

yuzawa10 — My only glimpse of cherry blossoms on the trip- we were too late in the season for the ones at lower elevations.

I eventually went back down the ropeway. I’d noticed a trail to a waterfall- Fudootaki Falls- marked on the tourist map I’d picked up, and hoped that might be a better place for birds.

yuzawa13 — Restaurant Edelweiss- at the resort, so a bit pricey. The restaurants in town were less expensive.

I stopped for lunch first at a burger place (teriyaki burger set) before heading up to the waterfall. It was a good thing, because the path up to the waterfall had a pretty consistent uphill grade. Along the way, it passed through a residential area, where the sound of rushing water was apparent – really, it was apparent all through the town. The snowmelt was filling the storm drains, and in places the drains were overflowing somewhat, though the water didn’t look dirty. So water was definitely a theme in Echigo-Yuzawa.

yuzawa14 — Rushing stream, on the way to the waterfall.

yuzawa15 — More spring flowers in the gorge.

Anyway, fortified by burger and fries, I walked to the stream. It was tucked into a valley alongside the ridge that the ropeway goes up. There was a high dam and a park about halfway along the stream, then the pathway got a bit steeper for a while and climbed the valley wall overlooking the stream.

yuzawa22 — Dam on the way up to the waterfall.

yuzawa23 — Cablecar on the way up to Yuzawa Kogen.

Along the way up, there was an older couple who were also doing the hike. I think the woman saw me looking at the dam and assumed I didn’t realize it was the waterfall, because she beckoned me on up the path. The same thing happened when I was checking out the first cascade, which was apparently smaller than the big waterfall – she asked if I spoke Japanese, I said no, and she tried to explain that the bigger waterfall was still ahead. Rather than try to explain that I knew the big one was deeper in the valley, I went ahead and followed them up. There were actually quite a few wildflowers blooming along the path too.

yuzawa20 — Older couple along the stream. It seemed that they were collecting rocks after visiting the waterfall.

It was clear that the path had only been passable for a little while – the older man busied himself breaking some branches of trees that had fallen onto the trail, probably over the winter. The walls of the valley were steep enough that I bet landslides would be a problem. In some places, there were still deposits of dirty snow with lots of plant matter mixed in with it – even over the lower part of the stream, where there was a bit of an open-ceiling tunnel effect. But it was actually pleasantly warm.

yuzawa18 — Some of the trees were blooming too.

So at the big waterfall, which was back in the V of the head of the valley, there was a rock wall with water dripping down it and liverworts and mosses, alongside a small water basin with a cup. I did drink a bit of the water. The waterfall itself wasn’t super big, but was very pretty. It was quite misty because of the force of the snowmelt, and there were a lot of small flying bugs around, sort of glinting prettily in the light. So it was a pretty cool sight. It was clear that with the spring snowmelt you couldn’t get as close to the falls as maybe during the summer. I hung out for just a bit, then headed back down.

Along the way, I saw a dipper-the avian kind– which I’d been wanting to see for some time. Dippers are cute chubby birds, not particularly graceful fliers. This one wasn’t “dipping” in the water (which is where they get their name), but stayed visible enough that it was clear what it was. So that was neat.

It was about 2 at that point, and I was a bit tired. I walked through town a bit. The train tracks were pretty far overhead part of the town because of the steep terrain, and it was interesting to see that houses were built under them. This reminded me of many Final Fantasy games, where there’s a similar urban setup – not something I’d encountered in the US where space isn’t generally a premium.

I caught a train back to Niigata around 3:15 or so, and managed to find a seat. I must have dozed off, because while I thought I was paying attention to the station announcements, I thought the next was for Nagaoka (which came before Niigata), before being alerted to the fact that it was actually Niigata by the slightly different announcement and the rustling of everyone who was preparing to leave. Maybe it’s lucky that my stop was at the end of the line!

Florida gardening

Harvesting some plants

Yesterday was pretty exciting- we got to harvest our first batch of mature pak choy, along with some radishes, and eat them!

Our pak choy (which I’ve also probably called bok choy- anyway, it’s the green-stemmed variety) is growing pretty densely, so it was definitely time to thin it out a bit. We collected about four bunches, and it really barely made a dent in the amount that’s remaining.

IMG_20121113_171746 — Pak choy- getting big!

The other vegetable we collected was some radishes. These were planted in rows with the carrots, because radishes mature earlier and the carrots can continue to grow while the radishes are being harvested. They should probably have planted in separate rows, rather than together- I think the radishes overshadowed the sprouting carrots. The lighter plants in the foreground and in the curve in this photo are radishes; the darker ones are collard greens:

IMG_20121113_171803 — Radishes are growing strongly, too.

Here’s the day’s harvest. As you can see, the pak choy is the size of the “baby” bok choy that you’d find at grocery stores. The radishes could have been left in the ground if we wanted bigger roots, but we wanted to clear them out of there to make room for the carrots which are starting to come up. Plus we eat the greens, and clearly these are some happy greens. I think I’d like to get a cute basket with a handle to harvest this stuff- clearly the clamshell arugula container we were using wasn’t big enough, and the canvas bag we put the overflow in got pretty muddy.

IMG_20121113_172529 — Yesterday’s harvest.

The misome is also ready to be harvested. We’re really curious to try this new veggie for us, which we picked because it was fast-growing, and there’s really no way to go wrong with a stir-fry veggie like this. Though I suppose there’s some chance that it will get bitter if we leave it too long. Maybe we’ll try this later this week.

IMG_20121113_171821 — Misome, with tarragon and mint.

So that’s the harvest for yesterday. Last night, the pak choy went into stir fry with garlic (yum!). Today, the radish greens will be cooked and go into a pinto bean dish. We might just eat the radish roots or make a quick Japanese-style pickle with them. And of course Noe got to sample both types of leaves.

gardening

Post-election gardening

After a very long weekend leading up to the election, I finally got back into the garden to check on everything. I was in last week to mulch the second border path, do some weeding, and fertilize with bunny poop, but had not time to get in there since.

I’d last been in to look at things about five days ago, and I was wondering how the plants were doing. Because the community garden has a sprinkler system and deer fence, we have a lot less to worry about than most gardeners in this area. One thing I was wondering about was whether we’d have to think about thinning the bok choy again… and it seems we do.

20121107_3749 — Two vibrant rows of bok choy!

We planted seeds a bit more than three weeks ago, and most of them have really been doing well. The bok choy’s nearly at the stage where it’ll have to be thinned again. It seems that the beans that were planted by the previous tenant have finally about had it, but I did manage to get a few pods from them, which I’ll eat tonight.

The misome is also doing really well. It’s had less insect damage than the bok choy, and has these lovely dark green leaves. It sure looks yummy.

20121107_3750 — Good-looking misome. Our fennel and small eggplants are on the left of the photo.

The radishes and carrots that we planted from seed are also doing well. Though we double-planted the rows and the radishes seem to be shading the carrots quite a bit. Some of them will be ready for harvesting in a few days- we like to eat the leaves as well as the roots, so even if the early roots are small they’ll be appreciated. I did peek at the top of one of the radishes and it looks like the root’s attained about a 1-cm diameter. So a bit soon for harvesting.

20121107_3751 — The radishes are growing really well. They must love the bunny poop!

Out collards and kale are also doing really well. We planted those from seedlings rather than seeds, so they’re further apart.

The herbs that were already in the plot are doing fine- since fertilizing, one of the mints (peppermint I think) seems really happy. There was also a fennel and small eggplants that are going quite well, though the last two older eggplants may have had their day. But I kind of like the aesthetic of having some taller plants in there, so don’t want to pull them just yet. Plus they’re flowering, so attract pollinators. So far, I’ve seen five or six different kinds of butterflies in the garden, which is neat.

20121107_3752 — Baby lizard on bok choy.

bunny

Friday bunnyblogging

Noe had to have her ears cleaned out today. As you can imagine, it’s a traumatic experience.

pouty — Later, she had to nap on the chair farthest away from the cruel human in order to express her displeasure.

She got a bunny biscuit and a carrot afterward, but she’s still pretty grumpy about it.

Japan travel

Soaking in the atmosphere at the Dune of Literature

Post author By Sonia Stephens
Post date October 31, 2012
2 Comments on Soaking in the atmosphere at the Dune of Literature

On one of the days we were in Niigata, Yan had a half-day at the conference. I spent the morning trying to figure out how to do laundry, and finally succeeded thanks to a very nice cleaning lady who found me struggling and helped me. (As a side note: if you plan to do laundry in Japan and don’t read kanji, you may want to check to see whether your phrase book can help you with this ahead of time.)

While it was pretty drizzly out, Yan and I decided to walk around town. We headed across the Bandai Bridge toward the Sea of Japan, through downtown Niigata. This area is quite low, topographically speaking. In fact, the major streets are named for the canals that used to run through here a few centuries ago. Much of the area is essentially fill, which can’t be good when big earthquakes occur.

bandai-toki — Toki mural seen from the Bandai Bridge.

Downtown Niigata is essentially on a peninsula- the Shinano River separates the two built-up sections of town. There are some hills- actually, old sand dunes- along the shoreline. Part of this dune area is a park, so we walked there for a while.

One of the parts of the park-like area is called the “Dune of Literature.” I think this is related to an author or poet who used to come here for inspiration.

It was rather a nice place to take a stroll, and look for birds.

lit — Scenic spot on the Dune of Literature. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)

The beach itself wasn’t very scenic. Grey sand, lots of breakwaters and jetties. We assume this is for tsunami protection. We sat by the water for a bit, and made sure to dip our toes into the Sea of Japan.

We tried to get a glimpse of Sado Island, which lies some distance off shore. But it was too overcast, and we probably didn’t have enough height to see it. Ah, well.

seaofjapan2 — Sado Island would be off in the distance here.

On the way back to town, we stopped briefly at Gokaku Shrine. This modern temple was an interesting contrast to all the older sights we’d seen in Kyoto recently. Definitely more recently built, and in a pretty setting.

gokoku — Gokaku Shrine. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)

gardening

Thinning the sprouts

About 11 days after planting the bok choy, misome, and radish seeds, the seedlings were ready for thinning. The carrots were just starting to peep up above ground at this point. These photos are actually from about a week ago, so stuff is even larger now. But more on that later.

This first photo is blurry, but you get the idea. The bok choy sprouts are about an inch tall. We thinned them to about 2″ apart. This is still probably too close, but we wanted to try to harvest some intermediate-sized ones. Because baby bok choy is delicious.

sprouts3 — Bok choy sprouts, all in a row. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)

While one of the rows of radishes + carrots is growing quite well, the other two rows seem to be getting a slower start. This could be for any number of reasons- most likely watering issues, but also possibly because bugs have been eating the seeds in one part of the garden (fire ants will sometimes do this). You can see the vigorous row contouring the edge of the plot. The other two rows should be near the bottom of the photo.

You can also see that the collard greens that we planted as seedlings are doing well. The remaining eggplants actually seem to be doing better now that they’ve been fertilized and had weeds removed. You can’t see in this photo, but they have quite a few blooms.

sprouts2 — Radish and carrot sprouts. (Photo: Y. Fernandez)

While thinning plants is somewhat sad (though I’m sure we’ll get over this), the benefit was getting to eat the thinned sprouts! Here’s the pile of sprouts that became destined for eating sooner, rather than later. We did not share with Noe this time, though she’ll certainly get to share later.

bunny

Friday bunnyblogging

Rabbits are ground-dwelling animals, right? They like to be able to run in any direction, so they’re cautious about their surroundings, right? They have poor eyesight and easily-damaged backs, so don’t want to risk falling…right?

climb1 — Hmm. This is an interesting perspective on my hay pile.

Noe is such a jerk at times. She doesn’t actually jump from this height, but there’s always the chance that she’ll get startled and make a stupid move.

climb2 — Arthritis, you say? Why should jumping from heights be a problem for me?

…And yes, after this photo was taken, she did start nibbling on the poster on the wall.

Florida gardening

In the garden: slime molds

Post author By Sonia Stephens
Post date October 25, 2012
No Comments on In the garden: slime molds

I want to take more photos of the garden and post them soon, but for now, here’s a photo of one unique garden denizen that I saw last weekend:

This is a slime mold– a type of large protist that is not related to mold (which is a fungus), though they can look slimy. Slime molds are pretty cool critters. Plasmodial slime molds have two stages in their life cycle: the plasmodial form, which moves around and feeds on (generally) decaying matter, and a single-celled resting form, which is formed when the plasmodium runs out of food or environmental conditions are too harsh.

While other slime molds come in very different forms, the plasmodial slime molds (myxogastrids) are pretty distinctive in their multinucleate feeding form-these are single-celled organisms, with many nuclei, that are visible to the naked eye. These covered an area a bit smaller than the size of my palm. And they’re all one cell!

I’m not sure what species the one pictured here is. Slime molds are fairly common in temperate areas, and it’s a bit hard to tell them apart if you’re not an expert. I found these on some wood chips in the mulch. When I went back on Monday, they were gone. Either they oozed off somewhere else, someone moved them, or they broke up into microscopic spores. Regardless, they’re probably still in the garden, waiting for conditions to be right to nom on something else.

Japan travel

Ueno Park, Tokyo

Armed with window seat reservations for the 9 a.m. shinkansen, I headed from Niigata to Ueno Park. The park is literally across the street from Ueno station (though navigating the station itself was a pain), so I reasoned that it would be fairly easy to get around. That turned out to be true, after leaving the station.

ueno temple — Kaneiji (?) Temple, in Ueno Park.

I went to two museums- a natural history museum and the national art museum. The former was larger than expected, and the latter smaller (though one of the buildings was closed for repairs related to last year’s Sendai quake). In a somewhat ironic gesture, the National Museum of Nature and Science has a giant whale sculpture in front of it (which, of course, I did not take a photo of). Though I suppose it’s fitting with the reasoning that Japanese whale hunting is conducted for supposedly scientific purposes…

The museum itself has two buildings: the entry (which is older) has exhibits on Japanese flora, fauna, and ecology, Japanese contributions to science, and a special exhibit on photography of skeletons of Ainu and Yayoi (indigenous and prehistoric peoples of Japan, respectively). While the signage in English was very limited, the arrangement of many of these things was standard, and knowing some scientific names also helped (yay, use of Latin!).

hydrosera — *Hydrosera* micrograph, in the algae display. Yes, unicellular algae had their own display. Go diatoms!

The Japanese science exhibit had quite a few telescopes, maps (including celestial maps and globes), globes, and microscopes, but signage was really mostly in Japanese. Dates were also given according to the Japanese calendar, which is based on imperial dynasties – which made interpretation harder for me.

Various schemes for organizing life into kingdoms and domains.

The other, newer building had more general exhibits: one big area highlighting ecological diversity, another emphasizing evolution, fossils and geological time (with a display on human evolution that had a signed photo from the Hokule’a crew!) This section was much easier for me to appreciate, because the focus here was on a familiar topic. There was also a floor that had an interactive kids’ area, and another that focused on physical sciences – chemistry, astronomy, and physics. There was no English signage on this floor, so I basically just walked through it. I did make out a big see-through lucite H-R diagram, and a display on SI units (how much volume does one mole of oxygen take up, that sort of thing).

There seemed to be quite a few middle-school kids around, on field trips, but few unattached adults. Until I got to the gift shop. That had lots of people. They did have some stuffed Cambrian-era critters which I was really temped to buy, but I couldn’t figure out what I’d do with one of them. There also were vending machines – the kind you put a coin into and then take a chance on what trinket you’ll get out – with a really cute toki statuette. But I reasoned that my chances of getting the toki were only 5:1, and I’d probably wind up getting something lame like a model of the museum, so I passed.

I also passed on the cafeteria, reasoning that there would be something to eat at the art museum for lunch that was better (I was also really trying to avoid curry rice), but that turned out to be a mistake. Both art museum cafeterias were sit-down, and there was a long line of retirees with their names on a list outside each one. So no lunch there. But I did not know this yet, so headed over there.

So the Tokyo National Museum was smaller than I expected, but did give a good introduction to a variety of Japanese arts. Unfortunately, I was hungry and a bit footsore at this point. There were various statues and temple bronzes (a bit anticlimactic after being in Kyoto, where these things were still being venerated in their traditional contexts), paintings and scrolls, pottery, woodblock prints, and kimono. One of the giant folding screen paintings – several yards long and perhaps 2 yards high- was quite impressive, of Mt. Fuji, surrounded by clouds, with a gold leaf background.

I finally broke down and bought a mystery item from one of the vending machines. It turned out to be a pot with a face on it from the Yayoi period. One of the things I was most excited about seeing at the museum was the exhibit with prehistoric (to historic) artifacts. This included pottery from the Jomon and Yayoi periods, as well as more recent stuff. There were some terra-cotta statues from burial tumuli from the Nara region, which was cool, though I didn’t remember the name of the tomb we saw and whether any of the artifacts were from it. After having seen these things, I decided to go back to the gift shop and buy a set of mini prehistoric terra-cotta figurines. These included two haniwa dancers, as well as a bell, and a few human figures, etc. Though there wasn’t a pot, so I felt a bit better about spending 400 yen on the plastic vending machine figurine of chance.

figures — Ueno Park souvenirs, back at home. The black figurines are terra-cotta with wood ash- they smell pleasantly woody.

At this point, I think it was about 2:00, and I was really quite hungry. I looked around the park for cafes, and again most of what was there was sit-down, with long lines. I eventually wandered downhill toward the pond, and found a place to buy food – you paid first at a vending machine, then got a ticket to take to the counter and order. But as at Fukushimagata, I was approached by a somewhat weird guy who decided to try to chat with me (though in English) as I was contemplating what to get from the vending machine. His girlfriend also showed up, and I told them to order first, and pretended to be indecisive. I wonder how many of these interactions Yan and I missed as a couple, compared to as solo travelers…

So I ended up getting fried saimin (complete with dried fish flakes) and sitting by the pond for a while. At this point, it was only about 3, and my train wasn’t till 4:30. I did a bit more wandering, and then went to the Hanazono-Inari shrine. I wanted to buy a little charm, but through miscommunication the priestess ran up to their other office to get two of the little fox figurines. They were 3000 yen, but at that point I sort of wanted them, so I bought them. My bag was getting pretty heavy…

Other sights in Ueno Park included quite a few homeless people (this seems to be where they congregate), some Peruvians selling Andean music, and a baseball game being played. Pretty footsore, I caught the train back to Niigata. A long day, but some interesting sights.

bunny

Friday bunnyblogging

Noe had her semi-annual physical this week, and came back with a clean bill of health. Her arthritis seems to have stabilized, as long as she gets medication every other day. Her vision’s not too great- which unfortunately makes her more prone to being startled from sleep and dashing off stupidly. But she’s doing pretty well while entering her second decade.