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Yesterday, it was a torrential rain.  In such weather, Iya can be a scary place.  Usual roads turn into a river, a pond, or a waterfall.  From out of nowhere small crabs starts walking around in middle of the road.  Whether I'm on the foot or in a car, I have to be careful or I could be washed down the stream.

But the the rain is not all bad.  In such days the mist covers the valley, suddenly making the scene look more like something out of a fantasy or a dream.  It is always fascinating to watch the clouds form in valleys below me, and rise and swirl right in front of my eyes.  And the rain washes away the pollen in the air.

New leaves

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No matter where you are in Iya, it is always such a steep slope, hundreds of meters of altitude difference from the bottom to the top of the valley.  The steep slopes make the living difficult, but there are few goods that comes with the slopes.  One of them can be seen in the picture above.  In Iya, you can see the change of season not just along the time lines, but also along the vertical lines. If you look closely at the picture above, you can see new leaves coming out on the trees near bottom, but not so much on the trees toward the top.  It is a slight joy of life here to watch the Spring creeps up the slope slowly, day by day.  

In the Autumn, it is the reverse.  I enjoyed watching the coloring of the leaves creeping down the slope slowly.  

Unfortunately, much of the surface of Iya is covered by evergreen cedar trees.  I get to watch the colorful change of seasons only on these narrow strips of natural woods surrounded by cedar plantations.  

thatch fertilizers

In the past, the usage of thatch was not just for the roofs.  It was used as a fertilizer for the fields, as a fuel for stove, and as a feed for domestic animals.  The thatch that aged and replaced by newer thatch can be thrown into the field as a fertilizers.  But the stoves do not use plant materials anymore, there are not as many domestic animals as there used to be, and fertilizers can be purchased.  Along with the disappearance of the thatched roofs, the thatch fields have disappeared from the landscapes.

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In Iya, people still use the thatches as fertilizers.  The picture above is the traditional methods people stock the thatch, called koe-guro, for natural decomposition to let the thatch break down a bit.  These cone-shaped thatch piles are seen everywhere in Iya.  In this condition, these thatches are stocked for sometimes several years.

Part of the reason the thatch are still being used as fertilizers in Iya is because local farmers are not thinking of marketing the agricultural products.  Agriculture in Iya was, and is, done on steep slopes unfit for making rice paddies, and the so called "regional specialty" are the buckwheats, which usually indicates that the soil is poor.  The idea of selling the agricultural products are rather foreign to people in Iya.

But these thatches are actually very good as a fertilizers.  Compared to the fertilizers sold in markets, these thatches will create larger particles in the soil, making more empty spaces in the soil that would hold water and let air pass through.  On top of that, covering the ground with chopped thatch has an effect of mulching the ground, absorbing the raindrops and prevents the erosion.  In places like Iya, where the fields are on the steep slopes, erosion preventions perhaps matter more than adding the nutrition to the ground.

But harvesting the thatch is quite a labor.  It certainly is easier to just simply buy fertilizers.  So, as someone who's objective is to preserve the thatch field/grassland, it may be a good idea to try to sell the thatch to the farmers.  Organic farming would add the values of the agricultural products.  If it is done well enough, perhaps the thatch may even revive the local agriculture.

Tulip

Tulips in the Chiiori gardens are finally starting to flower.

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To be honest, we were worried whether these tulips would actually grow.  Look at the picture below:

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Tulips on the right side of the picture are shaped odd.  They were actually the ones that started growing earliest.  And they were the ones that got eaten by deer.  I guess the tulips did not taste so good because the deer did not eat all the shoots, and never came back to eat more.  At any rate, I'm glad most of them survived and flowered.

speaking of the spring

With temperature continuously warming up and wildflowers all over the place, I walk around with my camera to take a pictures of, well, ferns.  First, here isWarabi (Pteridium aquilinum):

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One of the most well known edible plants in Japan.  They seem to be growing all over the village wherever it has good sunlights.  In the past, people kept grasslands as grasslands partially so they can harvest these plants.
Next is Zenmai (Osmunda japonica):

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While warabi is almost always split into three, these zenmai are shaped just like fiddle heads.  Because to eat zenmai you first have to remove those hairs around the tips and such, I hear it takes more effort to eat them.  I have not looked into them and their life histories, but it seems these two species occupy different niche of the environment, for they never grow together in the same place.

The day after I took these shots, I had to buy the warabi-mochi, a sweets made from the starch extracted from the roots of the warabi.  Making the warabi-mochi myself was a bit too much of an effort...

pets at earthquake afflicted area

A blog I accidentally found, http://banbihouse.blog69.fc2.com/# (only in Japanese, sorry).  Apparently, many of the dogs and cats were left behind in the evacuation area because the place people evacuate to usually do not let people bring in their pets.  Even though it was supposed to be a temporary evacuation, as days go by people still kept from returning home, those pets are suffering from lack of foods and water. 

People have suffered enough already, loosing family and friends, and now they are about to loose their pets as well.  I have pets as well, and loosing them would be just as painful as loosing any other members of my family. 

I know people are having hard time, but because of that we should be also trying to save the lives of dogs and cats at the same time.  There has been more than enough tragedy already.

Basking in the sun

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I see these skinks often recently now that it has gotten warmer.  Often is perhaps too weak a word for it.  They are all over the place.  Well, perhaps that was too strong a phrase.

I found this lizard sticking out its upper body out of the small cracks of rocks, basking in the sun, right in front of the house.  If I approach it carelessly it will hide in the crack immediately, but if I approach it slowly and not startle it it just stays there.  Must be really warm in the spring sun.  I want to do the same, but if I bask in the sun the day will be over before I know it.  Being a mammal, I cannot quite live like the reptiles.  Unfortunate.

More and more Spring

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Past weekend I had to leave Iya for a while.  In other parts of the world cherry blossoms were in full bloom, and in some cases already past the full bloom and petals were falling.  In Iya the blossoms were just the buds still.  Seasons were moving on without me knowing about it.

But when I returned to Iya it was full bloom here as well.  Spring is a pleasant season by itself, but it is more so the harsher the winter is.  This past winter was the harshest winter I have ever experienced so far (water frozen, below freezing temperature inside the house, roads covered with ice so that I could not use cars...) so this spring is going to be really great.  But, with the spring comes the pollens in the air, and in Iya where there are so much plantations the pollens are so much harsher.  Things never go all pleasant at once I guess.

Kanpo, thoughts on tourisms

When I climbed Kanpo, even though it was a weekday there were 3 other groups of 3 to 4 people each.  All of them have either been there before, or were led by someone who has been there before.  Which seem to confirm my belief that to develop tourism in Iya, mountains are the vital resources.  At least, I do not know much other places in Iya that I would want to visit repeatedly.  Well, I did repeat Chiiori visit before.

But there are problems.  These mountain climbers do not leave any cash behind when they leave Iya.  There are no mechanisms or systems in place for these visitors to pay money to Iya community.  They come with their own cars, and they leave the same day.  Perhaps they stop by at Onsen, but that is about it.  On Sundays, when I would expect most number of visitors come to Iya, even the gas stations are closed (if you plan on visiting Iya on weekends with your own car, make sure your tanks are full).  They don't even leave behind gas money.  Residents in Iya are completely unconcerned about such "trivial" matters.  There is no way tourism can be developed here at this rate. And if it does not lead to monetary profit, protection of rare and threatened species, such as the Fukujuso flowers, would be lacking in motivation and unlikely to happen.

But there are opportunities as well.  As I said, I wanted to walk from the summit of Kanpo to the Ochiai pass, but I had to get back to my car.  There is something very dull about walking back the same way I came.  If there was a business in Iya that would take me to the start of the trekking route of Kanpo, and pick me up later at the Ochiai pass, it would make the whole experience much more enjoyable.  There are at least 3 other courses in Iya that I would want such business.  Plus it would make me feel safer knowing that someone is waiting for me at the end of the walk, because if I do not show up at the pick-up spot in time, they would know something has happened to me and likely to call for help.  If there was a souvenir shop by this, let's say, "taxi service" selling postcards, I'm sure some people would pay for such souvenirs.

The fact that there were only those who has been there before or led by people who has been there suggest that there are demands for guide business, and also indicates that to get new visitors to those mountains guides are important.  Let's say for the Kanpo, a guide can make story for each floral community as he/she climbs the mountain, starting from old-growth trees around shrine, to well kept cedar plantations, abandoned cedar plantations, natural woods in secondary growth, old-growth natural forests, young woods that used to be grasslands, and the field of dwarf bamboos.  Because the main selling point of the Kanpo was the rare flower that grows in certain floral communities, those stories become more meaningful.

But current Iya would rather make concrete walls and roads.  One of the visitors I met was complaining that that concrete road that crosses the trekking route were not there before, and how terrible and ugly it is.  If you consider mountains as Iya's wealth, for attracting tourists for example, then Iya is practically throwing away their own wealth.  How can we change this whole situation?

Kanpo

Wednesday is a weekly day-off for Chiiori.  Now that it has gotten warmer I've decided to go trekking to a nearby mountain.  I heard that a flower called Fukujuso (Adonis amurensis) is in full bloom along the route to the summit of a mountain called Kanpo, so there I went.  I hear the name Kanpo (寒峰), written as cold summit, comes from the summit being open grassland and the wind is blowing through constantly.

The trekking route starts at a shrine.

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Going through the gate and walking past the shrine, I enter into a cedar plantation.  After walking for a while, I encounter a wall.  Concrete wall.

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A road was built there newly, and on the side of this road was a following sign,

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The sign says "starting point for the Kanpo trail."  Although my mountain guide book says the trail starts at the shrine, apparently with this new road the trail starts here.  I saw few cars parked nearby.  I'm guessing almost everybody felt rather disappointed when they saw this "entrance."

Walking on.  I encounter a field of yellow flowers.  It is the main selling-point of this trail, the Fukujuso.

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These flowers are on the "threatened" status.  Apparently one of the problem for their survival is  that people take these flowers home.  So there is a concern for me to put their information on the internet, but since they are already on the mountain guide books I guess it is more important for me to spread information about their problems.  Even if you think taking one flower is not going to affect the species survival, if 50 other people think like that then it is a significant threat to their survival.

Another reason for their decline is due to the environmental factors.  The reason they flower at this time of the year is because leaves have not formed on the trees yet.  They photosynthesize and flower in the short period of snow melt to leaves forming on the trees.  Which means they cannot grow on the forest of evergreen trees.  With most forest converted to cedar plantations, their habitat is definitely on the decline.

Walking some more, and I start seeing lots of snows still.  Especially on the northward slope.

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Almost at the summit,

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As I heard, it is an open grassland.  Of a dwarf bamboo.  In the past, I hear there used to be thatch fields along the ridges of this mountain.  Near summit there were many places where trees were still young and many thatch and bamboos growing underneath, where it must have been a grass field in the past.  Near the summit, the bamboos still dominates probably due to constant winds.

Looking toward the Ochiai pass from the summit.  These mountains form the Iya valley's northern boundary.

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Lunch at the summit.  I went American style with lunch, peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.  Even though the name says it is a "cold summit," With cloudless sky and nothing to block the sunlight, it was very warm.  I laid down and it felt extremely good, I could take very good nap there.  But with nothing to block the sunlight, if I take the nap there I would have to deal with very painful sunburn.

Getting ready to head down, I look down and felt peculiar sensation.  Something was out of place. A very bright red maple leaf was on the ground.  In April, on a bamboo field, it should not be there.  I look closely, and it was made of plastic.  Must be from someone's lunch box.  sigh.... I picked it up and took it home as a trash.

With breaks here and there, the whole walk from shrine to the summit was about 2 hours and 10 minutes.  The slope was steep here and there, but distance-wise it was an easy walk.  I could walk along the ridge toward the Ochiai pass, but according to the map that would take more than 3 hours one-way.  I have to get back to the car, so I walk back the way I come from.  Maybe next time I would park the car at the Ochiai pass.

It has been a while since I have climbed a mountain last time.  At the summit it was almost a totally different world from the messy, crummy world of below.  From Iya, going to anywhere feels like it is a long way, but at least there are many good mountains to walk on nearby.  I better start taking advantage of that.

Thoughts

There may be quite many who feels odd about me talking about conservation of grasslands that can exist only under human management.  When I say that these grasslands will turn into forests once out of human hands, it may sound like it is returning to natural state.  Why not let it return to nature?

Often the term "nature" means something opposite of "artificial."  It is quite common for people to think that "nature" is something that humans have not touched, and therefore conservation of "nature" means putting stop in human activities.  But in reality, humans have existed for thousands of years in most areas of the earth, and have influenced the surrounding environment in one way or the other.  Humans were part of the nature, and if we define "nature" as something that humans have not touched on then I am not really overstating to say that there are no such thing as "nature" on earth.  For better or worse, "hands off" policy toward the nature is itself one way for us to impact the nature.

In a way, it is more of a human arrogance to think that "nature" exists outside of "human activities," because that suggest that we humans exist independent of "nature."  Of course, "hands off" is one possible management policy toward nature, but it is still a form of human "management." One way or the other, we will make influence on the nature and we have to manage the nature.  So what kind of nature should we aim for?  What kind of management should we practice?  We all have to think about these questions.  I cannot say that after thinking about these questions we would arrive at conservation of grasslands.  But I do think that that is an option.

Ochiai pass

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A picture of Ochiai pass taken December last year.  Even though it says Ochiai pass, it took nearly half an hour of driving from Ochiai hamlet.  And the road was terrible, narrow and full of potholes, not the kind I would want to drive again, though I probably will go there again anyways.  The "pass" itself was very beautiful, and combined with a fine weather it was one of the best moments of my time in Iya so far.

I visited the pass partially because on the mountaineering guide book said the pass is a field of thatch grass, and I was looking for thatch fields.  Unfortunately, the pass was actually covered with dwarf bamboos, and thatch was growing on the gaps of bamboos.

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In this picture you can see the bamboos better.  I later learned that there has been repeated studies on the plant species composition of this pass since 1960s, and it clearly records the shift from thatch to bamboos.  In the past, people burned the field every few years to keep the pass open, and to collect edible plants and medicines.  Now a days, the constant wind blowing over the mountains and the covering of the ground by bamboos keep the trees from taking over the pass, keeping the pass as a bamboo grassland.  But these bamboos flowers and then dies, all together, every once every half a century or so, and at that point it is likely the field with be succeeded by forest community.  Even now few trees are seen in the fields.

Back in the 1960s somebody has claimed this pass one of the best grassland in the prefecture and potentially a great tourism resource.  Even now, the bamboo field is quite beautiful and can probably attract lots of tourists.  But what will it be like in the future?

Spring

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Almost immediately after I saw that lizard out of hibernation, the temperature started rising and butterflies appeared everywhere.  As if the lizard coming out of hibernation was the cue for temperature to warm up, instead of the other way around.  That lizard was ahead of its time.

Timing is extremely important for the survival.  If an individual comes out of hibernation early and gets a head start, it has more time to gain food and longer growing seasons, and overall stand advantageous against its competitors.  But if it comes out too early then it would spend more energy to fight off cold, and stand at disadvantage.  The competition for survival is a tough one.  But that lizard came out at the most ideal timing.  It is just simply amazing how the nature works.

Unfortunately, I hear the climate change is causing troubles to these timings.  For example, a migratory birds judge timing based on the position of the sun and the length of the daylight hours. Insects hibernating in the soil has to judge the timing based on the temperature.  The climate change is making the insects come out of hibernation earlier, where as the birds that used to migrate just in time to catch these insects are finding themselves short of food.

On the side note, I am not that knowledgeable of the insects.  I do not know the names of the species of those on the pictures.  When I was a small child I used to look at the books and guides about insects as well, but sadly I forgot most of it....

Landslides

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Above picture was taken this winter.  During the winter, the water in the cracks of rocks freeze and expands, and when they melt landslides occur.  Because of this landslide the road was closed for several days.

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Looks like there was a landslide here as well.  At the bottom of this runs an old path, which disappears right where the landslide occurred.

So, I understand the needs to prevent these things from happening, and I definitely do not want to be crushed by those rocks.  But, having said that, I feel like the whole of Japan, not just Iya, works too hard to prevent landslides.  So much of the roadsides and riversides are completely covered by concretes, and not just on the steep slopes but on the flat areas as well.  And there are dams built deep in the mountains where small amount of water flows through and nobody lives nearby and rarely anybody comes by.  Concrete surface of course alters an ecosystem, a concrete covered riverbeds and riversides disintegrates and simplifies the ecology, for example, and only few species dominates in otherwise an environment with high biodiversity.  And it just simply looks ugly.

I understand it is necessary to some extent, but are there not a smarter way to do it?