Mona Pulls Her Weight

NOTE: I highly recommend that some people (such as mom) clicks on the photos to see the larger version.

We have spent the past few days trying to make it look, to my parents who will be visiting next week, that we actually do something here. Our mochi rice field is a lost cause. soooooo many weeds. We are going to scythe them all down and plant soba instead. The rice is doing amazingly well. I say "amazingly" because it seems that we have finally figured out how to handle weeds. We have less than our neighbor who uses chemical herbicides (though we spend much more time). I attribute it to finding the nice hand-pushed weed tiller at the dump, but it might be because we are learning.

The other day we took Mona to one of our fields where we planted more beans and pumpkins (too late, according to the neighbors, but we'll see.) I also planted many chili peppers. Mona was a big help, as were the new Lucies.

Mona was pretty tired after a long day's work, but after a good night's sleep she was ready to help mom with the bee box. Chances are that we will not get bees to make it their home this late this year, but we fell behind. No harm in trying though. In the Photo Tomoe is painting the inside of the box with molasses and booze. We are going to put it near our raspberries which seem to be the most bee-iest place in our garden now.