Japanese Garden Tools

With the rain this past winter, the grass in our backyard is growing like crazy. Here's a photo below...



I was looking for a "tool" to help me clear this grass. Yes, in Southern California, there are fire regulations to clear hillsides -- even though, the green grass looks quite nice to me.

In Little Tokyo (downtown Los Angeles) at the Anzen Hardware store, I found a solution that I couldn't find at Home Depot. It's a Japanese garden tool called a "kama" (sickle). I tested it out, and it worked perfectly for me. Also great for harvesting vegetables.



I'm not a fan of noisy weed wackers; it's a grate on my nerves. I have one, but it's messy, and I can picture the grass getting tangled up in the machinery.

On the other hand, a quiet "hand-powered" tool like the kama is a beautiful optimized technology that's been around for hundreds of years. It's hard to improve it. In a meditative work sort of way, the experience of cutting grass with the kama could be "relaxing".

Anyway, now that I have "the tool", I need to get busy!

Raindrops on Peach Blossoms

There could be a poem I could write about the beauty of the peach blossoms on our tree after a California winter rainstorm, but maybe a photo will do instead.



Sorry, I haven't been posting much on our blog lately, but as you know, sometimes life gets busy. However, I've been doing some backyard work lately, so hope to add some new items.

One new addition to our backyard is a blackberry plant. It's a thorn-less variety called "Navajo". It has a Native American name because blackberries are native to this land. It's supposed to be able to tolerate heat. Sort of an experiment, so we'll see how it likes growing in LA this year.



Blackberries for me bring back childhood memories (with scratched up arms), since they used to grow wild behind our home. For this plant, I paid $6 at the local nursery. Seemed like a little too much for what used to grow like a "weed" in my parents' backyard. Blackberries are loaded with Vitamin C and antioxidants, so I'm looking forward to seeing this bush grow up.