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Monday, October 29, 2012

Baba’s Garden

One particular highlight of our trip to Japan was returning to my in-laws place after being away for 18 years. I’ve always found their place to be absolutely fascinating. The family home has been owned and lived in for several generations.

They live in the countryside so they have quite a large garden. My mother-in-law who we call Baba has always been a keen gardener but now that she’s in her 80’s she has not been able to care for her garden the way she used to. It was sad to see her garden looking so overgrown and uncared for.

So what better job to occupy myself with than to get stuck in and tidy up her garden. The challenge was: What could I do in the short time I was there?

BEFORE


DURING



AFTER




Some interesting aspects of the project were, finding all the tools I needed...


...helping my daughter to appreciate some of the joys of gardening...


...and finding ways of overcoming the language barrier...


This is me pictured with my brother-in-law Kazuharu, who was very grateful for my help tidying up his parents garden. He knew it needed doing but just didn’t know where to start. I was glad to be able to help.


Plus it seemed I even provided some entertainment to some of the locals – 
including the postman and a few nosey neighbours.


Watch the video I made about Cleaning up Baba's Garden








2 comments:

  1. I really like the style of the house Dave.

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  2. In Japan they do most things quite differently to what I'm used to. One thing I don't like about this house is that it doesn't seem to have any windows. It actually does have windows but they don't use windows the same as we do in NZ. They often cover them up so you can't see in our out.

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