私の週末

このホームページを立ち上げてもうすぐ１週間になります。
この週末は毎週のように朝は庭で草取りをしたり、植物に水をやったりしましたが、
早めに切り上げて、講義のファイルや写真のアップロードにたくさんの時間を
費やしました。ページを増やす方法や、写真を増やす方法もわかりました。
なぜだか、内容を増やすごとに訪問者数も増えているようです。まだ検索エンジンには
あまりひっかかっていないようですが、どうやって私のホームページの存在がわかるのだろう？
今日の午後は、明日の実習の準備が気になったので、しばらく大学の研究室に行ってきました。
必要な試薬はまだありましたので大丈夫でした。ついでに別科の圃場に行って花や作物の様子も
見てきました。念願のながしも完成していました。ホースも取り付けられていました。W 先生が
買って取り付けてくださったものと思います。

Visit the composting facility in Sarabetsu village

Today, I went to Saravetsu village with JICA soil diagnosis course participants to see the composting facility of the village.
The village is located about 30 km south to Obihiro city.
Sarabetsu village started a compost producing project using the agricultural wastes produced in the village around 25 years ago in 1989.
The project has contributed to the sustainable and environment friendly agriculture practiced in the village.
For further detailed information, please see the following documents.

Compost producing facility in Sarabetsu village: power-point pdf

Three weeks

Three weeks have passed since I started my home page on June 23.
Thank you for visiting my home page. Around 1,500 accesses have been counted on my site,
but the actual number of visitors may be one third of this.
Most of the people spend less than 10 seconds to visit my site.
I have to make my site more attractive and comprehensive to be understood in short time.
Anyway I understand that the person who is most happy with this site is myself.
I can also imagine my intimate old friends reading this site. For them, I should upload my bests.

I have uploaded many lecture files, but I have still more files to be uploaded.
Due to the frequent changes made in the curriculum of my university, I have undertaken many lectures by now.
For the lectures before 2005, "Land use science", "Soil Chemistry" and so on, I have no powerpoint files.

The photo below is lavender in my garden. Within July, I can enjoy the beautiful blue color and good smell of the flower.

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ATOMIC MOM

This afternoon, I accompanied my wife to see a documentary film entitled “Atomic Mom”.
It was a story of a lady scientist who have engaged in the study on the effect of radio-activity on animals at the US Navy institute.
She kept secret what she was doing during her duty, but her daughter recorded her mother’s confession after many years into a film.
The daughter was engaged in the business of film production and also have long considered the meaning of atomic bomb development, which enabled the accomplishment of this film.
The daughter also traveled to Japan and had a contact with the atomic bomb surviver (a lady and her daughter) and interviewed them.
Today, the film director, Ms. M. T. Silvia came to the auditorium hall in Obihiro, and we could hear the speech of the director.
Her mother had believed that she was working for the justice and scientific truth while she was working, but after her retirement she regretted her activity on her duty, and thought that
she might have only contributed to the development of atomic weapon.
However, she could tell nobody what she was feeling, because she swore to the US Navy
that she would never tell anything what she experienced on her duty.
I learned that the top politicians of nations are always unaware of the lives of people or animal,
whether they belong to their own nation or to enemy nation. For them, the first priority is to win the enemy, and anything else may be sacrificed for it.
This film can be seen only in a special occasion organized by the people who want this film to be seen by more people.
I was happy that I could see this film today.
I thought the film director and her mother scientist are both great.
I recommend my friends to see this film if they have a chance.

The photo below is gladiolus flowers in the field of junior course in my university.
I visited there this morning.

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Answers for Squid quizzes

Though none of my friends has answered to my quizzes about squids, I give here the answers.

1) The squid has three pieces of very important organ which most of other creatures have only one. What is that? Answer: Squid has three hearts. Two are for sending the blood to its two gills. One is for sending the blood to its body. That is why squids can move very quickly.

2) What is the color of the blood of the squid?
Answer: The color of the blood of squid is blue. It is due to hemocyanine protein, which binds to oxygen through copper atoms.

3) The giant squid was originally a small squid living in a shallow sea. A characteristic which is still remaining on it's body proves that. What is it?
Answer: It is the body color. The body color of squid is half brown and half white. It is the protective coloring for the squids living near the sea surface. Brown color faces to sea surface side and white color faces to sea bottom side, so that squids become hardly recognizable from their enemies, birds from the sky or big fishes from the deep sea.

These quizzes have been given in the briefing of the exhibition through rental audio-sets in the museum.

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Rainy morning

Since last weekend, we have rainy days continuously, but I go out for walking when it is not raining so hard. When leaves and flowers are wet, they are also beautiful.
I am surprised to see the finely woven spider nets. Long threads are connected between very far twigs and poles, I can not imagine how the spider connected it, between far places compared with the very small body of the spiders.

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Benchmark stone

Yesterday afternoon, I walked to downtown to have a drinking party with my students. I passed the road in the field of Obihiro Agricultural High School, because it was the shortcut. Along the road there was a bench mark stone showing the latitude and longitude of this place. Several years ago before I live near here, I noticed this stone, but I have forgotten it. It is interesting that our place is almost equally far from eastern and western big cities of the world. I might feel as if I were in the center of the world.

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Flowers of August in my garden

After rainy days, we have mid-summer again in Obihiro. Various flowers flourished in my garden. Lilies are most majestic, but small flowers are also cute.

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Flowers in late August

In the gardens of my house and of the junior course in my college, dwarf cosmos, zinnia, and dahlia are blooming. Abutilon had been transplanted from the pot in my office to the field, and now it has many flowers like a hat or lantern again.

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Students' holidays in September

From the middle of August to the end of September, we had a summer vacation in our college. We, employees of the university, had to attend the office even during the vacation time, though we had no classes or practice for students.

From September 10 to 14, I travelled to Nagoya to attend the scientific meeting of the Japanese Society of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition.
After coming back, I had spent my time mostly in my laboratory and in the field. In the laboratory, I did the analysis of sugar composition in the fermentation residue of biogas plant. I am familiar with the routine method of this analysis. However, the routine method is very tedious and many purification steps should be followed. Because I have so many samples now, I intended to simplify the procedure. I have spent too much time to elaborate the new method, and I almost felt that I should have better followed the routine method. On the last day of September, I could have satisfactory results in a new rapid method for sugar composition analysis.

From October, I will be busy again giving lectures, practices, and seminars to students.
In the field, I continued the yield survey of tomato grown with or without FA application. I am growing adzuki bean and carrot also in the field and their yields should also be surveyed soon.

The Japanese Society of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition was held in Nagoya University, where I spent my undergraduate and graduate school age. I worked there for six years as an assistant professor. However, twenty-four years have passed since I left the university.

Many things have been changed there, and many beautiful and majestic buildings have been built there. It is thanks to the four Novel prize awardees from the university, two organic chemists, Prof. Noyori, and Prof. Shimomura, and two physicists, Prof. Kobayashi and Prof. Masukawa. We have to remember that their works were not accomplished by the abundant budget but they were brewed under the democratic atmosphere of the faculty of science.

I visited also the Faculty of Agriculture building, and confirmed my former laboratories and small rice field where I used to work.
The photo in the lower left corner shows the two laboratories: the left one is the C13-NMR laboratory where my wife used to work, and the right one with dark window is the X-ray diffraction laboratory where I used to work. It is interesting and funny that we were working in the neighboring rooms while we were studying at Nagoya University.
At that time we did not know each other.

The most important key word in the JSSPN meeting was the "frayed edge of clay minerals" which combine very firmly cesium ions in soil. I did not know the technical term. I have shown such structure of clay minerals in my lecture of Soil Science for Crop Production for many years, but I did not know that the site combines cesium. The pioneer scientist for this phenomenon is Dr. Maes in Belgium. I met him in 1990 when he attended the International Humic Substances Society held in Nagoya and the International Convention of Soil Science held in Kyoto. I talked with him at that time because I was one of the organizers of the IHSS meeting. I have forgotten that I met him long ago, and was surprised to find his name on the famous paper on the behavior of frayed edge.

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Two stories for Children in England

In a waiting room of a clinic, a few months ago, I found a book of “Lion, witch, and wardrobe”, one of the “Chronicles of Narnia” series authored by C. S. Lewis of England. As I had not read the book, I started to read the book, and finished reading it during my two visits to the clinic. The waiting time in the clinic is usually very long in Japan.
Anyway, I found the book very nice. The description of seasons changing from winter to spring was very beautiful. Because I liked the book very much, I wanted to have my own volume of the book. I went to the book store, but I could not find the book there.
Instead, I could find a book entitled “Travellers in Time” authored by Alison Uttley, an English story writer for boys and girls. I bought the book, and found the book very nice, too.
To read the book, the reader needs the background information of the Queen of Scotland, Mary Stuart, who was executed by the Queen Elizabeth in the end of 16 century. A small girl born in an old family was given an ability to go and come back to the age and communicated with the people who were fascinated in the Queen Mary Stuart and devoted their lives. Description of the nature and life in a rural village in the central England was very beautiful.
The style of story, in which the characters of the story come and go between the real and imaginational worlds was common between the two books. I feel, it would be very nice if I can also travel between two different ages. I want to visit the age of long long ago.

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Messengers of autumn

Around one week ago, whitish pale pink flowers came out from soil. The flower looks weak and shy. It has no leaves.
The flower is called Colchicum. It is toxic to animals due to its poisonous constituent, colchicine. The flower reminds me every year that it is already mid-autumn, and frost is coming soon.
I have also found a butterfly called "Inachis io", or "Peacock butterfly" in Japanese. They survive until late in autumn. It was busy collecting honey from Zinnia.
The larva of the butterfly has eaten the leaves of elm and nettle which are very common in our place.
. Bees are also busy collecting honey and pollen from cosmos flowers preparing for the long winter.

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Mushroom from my garden

Mushroom came out from the soil in my garden. I neither know its name nor whether it is edible or not. One should be very careful when he consider to eat unknown mushroom... However, we have eaten it at last. It was delicious!
My wife has cooked it. It had good flavor and taste. The mushroom was boiled with rice and carrot spiced with leek and soy sauce. We had it for our evening dish. The soup was cooked with egg and "Shiitake", very popular mushroom sold in market. Another dish is fried eggplant also from our garden. Transparent liquid is Japanese Sake. We still do not know the name of the mushroom from our garden. Maybe it is a kind of "Shimeji".
Our digestion system or neural system showed no problem after the dinner. I admire the braveness of my wife who decided to cook it.

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Long-legged wasp was my room mate

    Long ago, while I was a high school third year student in my home town......

  On some day in spring, I found a long-legged wasp making a small nest under the eaves of my parents’ house. I can not remember whether my parent ordered me to remove the nest or not. Anyway, I removed it, but after some consideration I brought it into my room and attached it on the ceiling of my room with an instant glue.

  I left the window of my room open. Soon after I put it in my room, the owner of the nest came into my room and continued nest making. Though the wasps are considered dangerous, I considered that if I do not irritate them, they will not bite me. Therefore, I started to raise wasps in my room.

  The nest became bigger day by day, and the number of wasps also increased. I never closed the window of my room, so that wasps can go and come back freely for hunting. At that time I was allocated a small room in the second floor, and my family members seldom came into my room. They said nothing for raising wasps in my room. In summer, wasps were very active, and room mat below the nest became dirty, and I removed it and put it aside. I slept not below the nest, but at the edge of the room. I behaved always calmly in my room. I had to prepare for the entrance examination of the university, and all I had to do was reading text books or writing or calculating exercise problems.

  After fall, the number of wasps decreased, and in winter only a few wasps remained. In mid-winter they did not go out from my room and attached to the sunny window glass. In the early spring of next year, I passed the examination of the university. I considered that I can not take care of the wasps after I enter the university. So while the wasps were out of my room, I removed the nest and I put it again on a tree twig very far from my house.

   During my trial of wasp raising, I did not take the record of the behavior of the long-legged wasps, because I raised them only from my curiosity, and I was busy preparing for the entrance examination. The wasps never stung me while they nested in my room. I heard that long-legged wasps are calm charactered compared with vespine wasps. Maybe it was possible under very special circumstances between a calm boy and a relatively calm wasps.

   In Hokkaido, we can not find long-legged wasps. Instead we see only dangerous vespine wasps, honey bees and bumble bees.

   The lower photo has no relationship with the above sentence. The wasp in the photo is a vespine wasp which attacked my student long ago. It will be another long story.

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How grapes grow

    I have a grape vine in my garden....

  It was given to us by our neighbor aunty. She shared us a portion of grape stubble in her garden three years ago. We planted it near the lattice of dog-run in my garden, so that the grape vines can be supported by the lattice.

  Three years have passed since we planted the grape. We had a good yield this year, and we could enjoy the harvested grape with our grandsons. Our house is built on a stony lowland along a big “Satsunai river” in Obihiro. Therefore, the soil contains a lot of round shaped gravels and is not so fertile, but I have heard that grapes are adapted to such stony land.

   I have taken the photos of our grapes from time to time. It started to bear buds in the end of May, flowered in early June, had a green bunch in August, and become very sweet in November. Now grape vines are released from the lattice, and put on the ground so that they can survive the severe coldness.

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Before and after the snow

  In the middle of October, we had an irregular snow, and one week ago we had a regular snow in the end of November. The season has just turned from autumn to winter in Tokachi.
  Before snow I walked in the campus of my college, and found swans feeding the fallen seeds of dent-corn. Some edible mushroom was growing on the root of white birch, but I did not harvest it because many people have already noticed it.
  All crops have been harvested in the field and plowed for the next season. Winter wheat has formed rosette and are ready for surviving the long winter under snow.
  Many wild ducks were gathering in the biotope pond, but I do not know how they survive the mid-winter.

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