Persimmons

Today is Culture Day in Japan. It’s a national holiday, so most of my family had the day off from work and school. My older son’s high school was having an open house, so he had to report for duty, and my wife went in the afternoon to observe some of his classes.

I woke up yesterday morning and promptly got a migraine. I don’t suffer from them frequently, but when I do, it’s usually at the end of a long day when I’m tired and/or have been staring at the computer screen for too long. Having one set in upon waking up is a first, and I hope it’s not a new, recurring feature. I went to work but threw in the towel in short order, canceling my class and retreating back home to rest.

Migraines are usually two-day events for me. The headache on the first day is followed by a hungover, tired feeling the second day. As such, I spent most of the day in bed yesterday and the first half of today lazing about on the couch watching the Boston Bruins and slipping in and out of consciousness.

My great accomplishment was harvesting the rest of the persimmons from my persimmon tree. The tree’s getting pretty tall now, so a lot of the higher-up fruit was a bit of an ordeal to retrieve. I bought a “fruit basket” the other week, which is a metal basket with claw-like extensions on top that, theoretically, can be used to pluck ripe fruit from the branch. I attached it to the end of a long plastic pipe, but I didn’t have much success initially. In the end, I was able to use a combination of the fruit basket in my left hand and extendable pruning shears in my right to harvest the majority of the persimmons. Unfortunately, a fair number missed my basket and plummeted to the sidewalk below, splitting beyond salvation.

I’ve planted an astringent variety of persimmon, so they are not good to eat at this stage. They are meant to be peeled and dried, a process which turns them into super-sweet shriveled sacks with a delicious, gooey center. Hoshigaki, as they are known in Japanese, are a common winter food here, and you can often see them strung up on balconies, carports, and other sheltered spots this time of year. I was able to harvest about 30 viable persimmons this year, so I’m very much looking forward to snacking on them in a few months.

Fall is nearly in full swing here, and it was a lovely day. The sky was full of various types of beautiful clouds, and the mountains are beginning to show a little color.

I took a drive to the beach this afternoon. I love having it so close by. This is a pier at the entrance of Mikawa Harbor onto which one is technically not supposed to venture. There’s a section of the fence that has been peeled back, however. I really like this picture.