仔牛近道

とうとう早川町の最北に位置する奈良田にある新居に暮らし始めました。今まで仮住まいさせてもらっていたお部屋は、早川町の中でももっとずっと南にあるので、気温もずいぶん異なります。両側に切り立つ山に挟まれ、日本で2番目に高いという北岳の登山口、また温泉が二つもある、この小さな秘境・奈良田が私たちの新しい住まいです。電気は来ているけれどガスはないので、カセットコンロで料理しています。お風呂もなおす必要があるので、毎日歩いて温泉通いという贅沢ぶり。

学校での刺激的な平日を経て、週末はさて何しようか、と私と子どもたち。（ゆ）は何かと仕事の関係でこの週末はあまり家にいません。ひとまず、近所のおじいちゃんのアドバイスを受けながら、家の前の菜園の準備に取り掛かりました。『ドラゴンボール』に出てくる主人公の修行に見立てて、猛烈な勢いで草を引き、土を耕して、大きな石を除けていきます。気づけば、（す）は自分の気に入った一画だけを整地して、ちゃっかり自分の場所なのだ、と石で囲いまで作っています。この一画に木を植えたいのだと言い張るので、ここは野菜畑だよと説得するのに苦労しました。結局すいかとかぼちゃを植えることで納得するに至りました。愛媛での（ゆ）の印象から、すっかり「畑といえば柑橘やアボカドの木を植える」というイメージでいたようです。お昼は、朝多めに焼いたホットケーキに野菜や卵を挟んでサンドイッチ。敷地内にある倉庫の上に上がって奈良田を見渡しながらのピクニックとなりました。

さぁて、色々実らせていきましょう。新居も、自分たちも、そして野菜たちも。

（わ）




Our vegetable garden


Finally, we have actually moved to our new residence in Narada area, which is the Northern most part of Hayakawa town and located at the bottom of Japan's 2nd highest Mt. Kitadake. Compared to where we were staying as temporary guests, further South in Hayakawa town, we feel the chill in Narada area. Having high mountains on both sides of Hayakawa-river, the sky looks quite narrow if you look up. Narada has only 13 families, including us, and two hot springs. We go to one of them to take a bath on foot every evening since our shower room needs repair. Gas supply hasn't been started yet, so I use the portable gas burner for cooking.

Umeo and Sukla spend exciting time during weekdays at school, but what shall we do on weekends? Yuki had gone out of Narada this weekend for some work, so kids and I had a quick meeting about what to do here. After all, we decided to get our vegetable garden started with 83-year-old-M san who lives two doors next, and he teaches us literary EVERYTHING from A to Z of vegetable growing. With his navigation, we weeded and made the soil soft by digging with shovels. Kids pretended to be some characters of their favorite animation "Dragonball" and enjoyed weeding and digging in full vigor. After sometime, when I looked around the garden, Sukla had made his own section and put big stones around to separate his plot from others. He said he wanted to grow some trees there. Having seen how Yuki took care of his citrus and avocado trees in the fields of Ehime, Sukla seemed to have a fixed image of "growing trees" instead of vegetables. It took time to convince him that this small area was to grow vegetables, and at last he came to agree to grow watermelon and pumpkin there...thank!

For lunch, we made quick sandwiches with leftover pancakes from breakfast and ate them on the rooftop of our garage. We enjoyed looking down at our new born garden and Narada area from the roof top.

Here we are, let us start growing the vegetables, our new residence and....ourselves!


Wakana