Raspberries and Stag Beetle Babies

Haven't gotten much done in the garden yet, but got a lot of compost spread in the rice field. I intend to do a much better job of detailing the "rice story" this year, and have already spent many hours over the winter writing down details from last year. Look for it soon, but not too soon. :)

In our backyard garden and mountain field the only thing happening is that we spent a day building a nice three tier compost box with old wood, and only realized too late that it was too big for the backyard. I dragged it up to the mountain field and we built a smaller one for the backyard, which we only realized too late, is too small. Now we have to build another. Our neighbor is strongly suggesting that we use the plastic one that got completely crushed in the snow. She doesn't say why, but we think it is because she doesn't like looking at the wooden one.

The komatsuna and nozawana and spinach planted last year have sprung back to life. The raspberries are threatening to take over. The rhubarb is looking tasty, and my baby gumi tree was all but destroyed by the snow and my neighbor's snow plow.

Oh, and we got our first asparagus for the year. Mona can't wait until she is old enough to partake.

While we tried to spend some time taking advantage of the wonderful weather yesterday, our neighbors also took advantage to come and goo and ga at Mona. I feel bad that so much attention went to her and not to her future friend and neighbor Shyu, the boy riding the back of his grandma. The little girl is infatuated with "momo-han" (Mona-chan). I am amazed that she knows her name. I think I wrote before that very early on she was able to call my name "bebin" (Kevin), and recently she calls me "bebin-han", and yesterday was the first time I heard her call Tomoe by name.

Anyway... thats all.

Oh! I almost forgot about the little friends we found in the compost heap from last year. Stag beetle babies. I am not an expert, so I don't know what kind of beetle these will turn into, but some sell for a hundred dollars or more in Tokyo.