Greetings from Hokuto in Yamanashi

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MickByrnes1969
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Greetings from Hokuto in Yamanashi

Post by MickByrnes1969 »

Good Morning/Good Afternoon/Good Evening or maybe just a basic Hello
My name is Michael Byrnes as you may have guessed from my highly original Username. I'm an English teacher living on Mt Yatsugatake in Yamanashi with my wife, son, daughter, cats and chickens.
I own a modest sized plot of land with a small `lake` at the foot of it.
I try to grow vegetables every year, now potatoes, aubergines, tomatoes, corn, chillis, sweet potatoes and probably a few things other family members have planted without telling me.
I keep 4 chucks, 2 arakana (no idea of the spelling here) and 2 ukoke (small white girls with blue faces) which give me a few eggs a day and eat a lot of bugs over the weekend when they are released.
We live in a log house with a maki stove which is a pain sometimes in winter to feed but keeps us all nice and toasty.
I hope to connect withsimilar minded people, trade stories and find out where I'm going wrong with o so amny things in my garden.
I also hope to find a good source for new chicks as I wouldnt mind expanding the egg production to provide for my elderly neighbours who supply us with seasonal veg year round.
Thanks for the add,
Talk soon
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Zasso Nouka
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Greetings from Hokuto in Yamanashi

Post by Zasso Nouka »

Hi Mick and welcome to Japan Simple Life, we appreciate you taking the time to sign up and join our little community.

Sounds like you've got a nice setup there, I wanted a log house as I love the look and they seem so toasty and warm for the winter but unfortunately The Boss nixed that idea :(. Is the lake yours or can you swim in it ? Must be nice to cool down in summer.

Nice selection of veggies you have growing and lovely to have generous neighbours willing to share what they've grown. I think that's one of the really nice aspects of living in the countryside having neighbours pop around your house with little gifts like home grown veg and then being able to return the favour later on.

Now I'm going to go out on a limb here and this will probably come back to bite me, it invariably does :oops: but do two of your chickens lay blue eggs ? If so they might be Arakuna's from Mexico but that might be spelt wrong :lol:

If you've got any specific questions feel free to add to a topic if it already exists or create a new one, whichever suits you best. If you just want to shoot the breeze then Free4All is a good place for stuff that doesn't fall under any other categories.

Once again let me thank you once more for signing up and hope you enjoy your stay here.

MickByrnes1969
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Greetings from Hokuto in Yamanashi

Post by MickByrnes1969 »

Thanks for that, my arakuna do indeed lay blue eggs which are great for breakfast.
The 'lake' (not mine but literally at the bottom of my driveway) is one of those man-made jobbies you see all over the country-side that were built to feed the rce-fields below. But apart from one small concrete bridge it looks pretty and is fed by clear snow melt. We are about 2 klicks from https://www.yamanashi-kankou.jp/kankou/ ... _4936.html and have fireflies around it every summer.
I'll enjoy perusing the contents here at my leisure thanks.
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Greetings from Hokuto in Yamanashi

Post by gonbechan »

Hi Mick, great to see you here.
Looks like you are living in heaven and look forward to house/veggie/chicken piccies in the near future.

A log house must be so much cooler in the summer (and of course warmer in the winter).
How much maintenance does it take, settling, caulking, treating etc? Enquiring minds wish to know :D

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Post by MickByrnes1969 »

Log house maintainance isnt so bad.
The settling took place mainly in the first 10 years and meant every so often we had to unscrew a few panels and tighten up some nuts here and there.
I paint the house every four years, two sides this year, two in 2023. The pain is inside. My wife insisted on a wooden bathroom/shower room. so I need to prepare and paint the walls and floor every other year. This Golden week I also emptied downstairs of sofas, TV, tables etc, while my wife and daughter visited my son and sanded and painted/waxed the downstairs floors.
The chimney needs cleaning out every year but that isnt too bad as I'm not that bothered about heights.
This all might sound like a lot of work but its quite satisfying.
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Post by Zasso Nouka »

MickByrnes1969 wrote:
Mon Jun 14, 2021 7:35 am
The chimney needs cleaning out every year but that isnt too bad as I'm not that bothered about heights.
This all might sound like a lot of work but its quite satisfying.
Do you burn mostly softwood or hardwood and do you use a creosote remover ? I used to clean ours twice a year but one handy use I found for our drone was chimney inspection :D so now send that up a couple of times a year to check the state of the chimney. Saves clambering up there and risking coming back down the quick but painful way :eek:

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Post by MickByrnes1969 »

probably 50 % pine the rest oak or various bits and bats from a decking company nearby.
I add some cleaning powder to the fire about once a month as per the instructions and the chimney cleaning doesnt give me a huge amount of soot in the bag but I always feel its better to be over cautious and clean every year when I can becaus knowing my luck if I forget then the next year Ill be using the fire for a few months longer and either damaging the pipes or clogging them and poisoning the family.
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Post by Zasso Nouka »

Better safe than sorry with these things. I remember some friends that moved into a new place and lit a fire without checking the chimney and after the fire brigade came and put the burning chimney out by pumping a huge amount of water down it they came back a few hours later to repeat the process just to make sure. The whole house was flooded on the ground floor but at least it didn't burn down so a win I guess :doh:

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