Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Das Boot, Hakoda, and the Hitchhiker


Step 1, The Making of a Masterpiece: I've finally shunned my laziness and decided to put in some time and effort on my boat in the making of a duck blind for this season. I was able to buy everything needed at the local home center. Reluctant to say, I scrapped most of my original idea of a lay down blind for something I could sit up and drink coffee in. Thankfully I took Kazumi with me to run ideas by, and this is what we collectively came up with.


We decided to go with a bamboo frame and vegetable field arcs for the roof. Everything is zip-tied and pegged and comes apart in three pieces. It takes about 5 minutes to set up.



Shown above is the finished product. I have a pretty good view in front and can flip up the top for overhead pass shooting. I have also installed several plastic tubes to act as reed holders. I think this should do the trick for our defense of the ill willed vicious hoard of migrating fowl this year.


During my commute home, I sometimes stop off at "Hands". Hands is a community farm project worked by mentally handicapped folks who grow veggies and raise livestock. They have a roadside shop that sells some of the best pork I've had. Above is the view from the Hands parking lot at sundown. The mountains in the backdrop is of course the Hakoda Range (The Aomori Alps)


Above is the Hatchimantai National Forrest Park. The kids from a couple of local elementary schools were having a field trip to the park on a perfect day. We stopped off here on our way to Hakoda Hot Spring. At the Spring we were able to reserve a private hour in the ramune yu, a natural carbonated sulfur spring.


On a brief stop off at a local grocery store, Kazumi stopped for a moment to talk to an elderly women sitting on a bench outside the store. The older gal explained that she had taken the cheap bus to town for a shopping excursion at the supermarket and was waiting for the return bus back home. She said that the bus should be by in the next two hours and 42 minutes to take her back. She tried to sleep for a while on a bench next to the bus stop but awoke after only 4 minutes (she was always very specific about her time frames). Lucky for her (and us), she lived near our house and Kazumi invited her to join us on the ride home.

Once at her abode, she promptly dug two pair of old rubber boots from the shed, cleaned out the spider webs and instructed us to grab the nearby homemade ladder, don the boots and follow. She led us to a nearby chestnut tree, handed us a plastic bag and walked away. The chestnuts were boiled and eaten once we made it home and were awesome.


After the chestnut harvest, she had us drive her to her pumpkin patch and allowed us to take our choice of her finest pumpkins. Kazumi ended up sauteing the and sweetening to pumpkins and we ate these for desert for a few nights.

She instructed us that from this point forward, we were allowed to be her friends, provided that we never quarrel, which we agreed. Does this mean we always have to do what she says? Anyway, we had a great time and made a new friend.

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