Amado (Rain Door) and Engawa (Veranda) 1

Hearth - Fireplace (irori 囲炉裏) from Nihon Minka-en 3

Hearth - Fireplace (irori 囲炉裏) from Nihon Minka-en 2

Hearth - Fireplace (irori 囲炉裏) from Nihon Minka-en 1

Foundations 2 from Nihon Minka En

Foundations 1 from Nihon Minka En

Nihon Minka En

I am going to show in the next posts some of the most difficult photographs I have ever had to obtain. After asking a few folks who had been to Japan, and a few folks in Japan, I just gave up. These were taken at Nihon Minka En on the outskirts of Tokyo, Japan. I will start with the foundations in the next post, and work up to the roofs. These houses have been moved in from all over the Islands and seem to be set up on more modern concrete pier foundations instead of the traditional piled stone.

Update on Lack of Progress

I haven't posted an update in over a year. I have dealt with allergies (food and sinus) my entire life, last year I had to add Asthma to that list. I have halted outside work for the time being, as I have also accumulated a sunlight allergy. I have been seeing a specialist who diagnosed me with a few more specific allergies, and put me on allergy shots. I have been trying to avoid certain food, pollen, and dust, until I can get my coughing under control. I am recovering, lungs heal slowly and before treatment mine were functioning at a little less than 40% of capacity.

I had a few more problems before the last posting obtaining bandsaw blades for the mill. I was trying, like most folks, to do business with local-ish people. At the moment I don't where the next blades will come from, but it won't be from Cook's Saw in Alabama. I had problems with resharpening, and had sent back some defective blades I bought new from them, shipping overcharges, prices changing from what was agreed, and timeliness of services. I had already been warned on a couple of forums about them, had to go ahead and buy that lesson on my own though.

My Wife and I had both been through Japan several times, but neither of us had ever departed the Airports. Last March we made our first formal visit of Japan on our way back to her hometown of Surabaya. We stayed in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo for two nights, made our way to Kyoto for a couple of nights, and back to Tokyo for our departure. I had barely enough time on my last day in Tokyo to go to the Nihon Minka En Museum. It was getting dark and almost closing time, but I made a quick run through and snapped over 500 photos in less than an hour. As time allows, I will get some of these up and document them the best I can.

I have in the past few years acquired a vast amount of tools, and several books. I plan to document these in a separate blog located here. After selling some of my tools on ebay, I couldn't help but think about any research I had done on them being lost. I had sold an Nakaya Inosuke Ryoba Nokogiri, and done vast amounts of research on it, most of which was scavenged from sites in Japanese. I hate for that effort to be wasted, so some of the tools I no longer own will be posted up to for reference.