April 3: A log house in Kujyu
by Mie
Mr. and Mrs Yamaha are the lovers of the log-house.
They at last built a wonderful log-house, imported from Canada, in Kujyu plateau in which they have been fascinated so long time. After the retirement of Mr. Yamada, they moved here about a year ago. Today, we were invited to stay here. There is a wonderful stove in the living room. It is my dream to have a stove like this in my house as well.
 "The log-house is warmer than I had first expected", he said and put fire on it all the way for a demonstration for us, despite the it is not so cold outside.
 He sets up firewoods and insert hardly-twisted newspaper for ignition, then put some pieces of thin firewood on them.
 After the ignition, the stovepipe is opened to burn the wood.
 By adjusting the opening of the stack, temperature of the top of the stove goes up to 400 degrees C in 15 minutes, then finally reaches to 700 degrees. The whole room is already warm enough.
We went out for a walk in the wide open grove with a dog. The dog suddenly started digging, he must have found something good. There are many round dung of hare (right.) Mr. Yamada said there come many hares and foxes in the grove.
I enjoyed a wonderful dishes in the dinner prepared by the Yamadas. The "Tempura" fried on the table was really tasty: the ingredient are, from foreground, rape flower, field horsetail shoot, strawberry geranium, Shiitake mushroom, and butterbur sprout. All of them are filled with the flavor of early spring.
The sunset of Kujyu, viewing from the balcony of the log-house. The red sky at sundown promises us a fine day. after dark, we went to a drum performance held in Kujyu public hall.

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