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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Hey guys, so we're around the back of the old Japanese farmhouse and there's a
00:05corner over here that we've been neglecting. There's a few herbs and
00:11things growing in there but what happens is the water runs off the roof up there
00:18there's no gutter, water gutter and it just comes down onto the ground there
00:23and then washes around the corner through this garden and then passes
00:28along that wall taking all sorts of dirt and sand with it and then goes along
00:35that wall there and off into the distance there to the stormwater drain
00:41so you see all the sand that leaves behind so not a big deal but it's just
00:47one of those things that just keep looking at. The other thing is between
00:51the house and that brick wall that belongs to the neighbors it's very
00:54narrow gap usually we don't go in there but for generations people have been
01:00throwing broken pottery and pieces of concrete and all sorts of random stuff
01:06in there so we have been too just because it's just a good place to do
01:11that because it sort of helps break the water up when the water comes off the
01:15roof and rather than having mud so that's a stormwater drain there takes
01:19away stormwater drain and also the bath water so just check that make sure it was
01:24alright and then just put a little filter on it just to stop stones and
01:28things going in there and that tin that's actually the back of the well
01:34some of you would have seen the video we put a camera down the well the wells
01:37actually in the workshop but that's the back of the well and it had a huge piece
01:41of tin hanging off it that they put there to protect the well for some
01:44reason so it was no need for it to be that long and every time we went past it
01:49you risk being cut on it so cut that shorter and now just removing weeds and
01:55little bits of paper and rubbish that's blown down there over the years and some
01:59polystyrene that was actually on top of the air conditioning compressor but it's
02:02sort of broken up so I'll take that away too and then the plan is just to bring
02:09out the bigger pieces of concrete and brick because they might be able to be
02:13used somewhere later and then the smaller bits just break them up and make
02:17them smaller so the thinking is at the moment when you walk up there you risk
02:22getting cut on something cut by something something sharp sharp and
02:26pointy notice two there that's the water pipe that's the main water pipe to the
02:31left there you can see the water meter and then the main water pipe to the
02:35house is that pipe that runs along parallel to the wall keep that in mind
02:40we'll find that again later so usually don't have to go in here only if we have
02:47to do something to the air conditioning compressor I had to go in there to paint
02:50the wall I had to go in there to replace the wall at the other end the wall of
02:56the house not the concrete not the brick wall so usually don't have to go in
03:01there but it's just one of those things it's just a no-go zone pretty much so
03:06the idea is just to make a little bit more reasonable also to give the water a
03:11better chance of making it up this end to the stormwater drain rather than go
03:15out the other end so that's the plan so this was this day was like 35 degrees
03:21and about 65% humidity and in between that tin wall and the brick wall there
03:26was no breeze at all it was just hot so cleaning up the compressor give it a bit
03:33of a clean it was pretty good condition actually we put pieces of polystyrene
03:37over the top of the compressors and it keeps the Sun off in summer and it keeps
03:41the snow off in winter and it helps the compressors be more efficient so give it
03:48a bit of a clean up while we're in there and measure it up for a new piece of
03:51polystyrene so you remember amongst all the weird and wonderful things that we
03:55found at the old farmhouse was a mountain of polystyrene an absolute huge
04:00mountain of polystyrene some of which we've kept and has been extremely handy
04:04so sure enough there was a piece just the right size and a smaller piece just
04:10to put underneath just to make it sort of a bit of an angle so the rain and
04:14snow can fall off could go a bit of snow at the moment it's been so hot so this
04:25end pretty well in there this ends a little bit wider than the other end
04:32fortunately that other end is so narrow really hard to work in there this ends a
04:36little bit wider so the plan is just remove the weeds remove bits of rubbish
04:43and then just break up all the bits of pottery into smaller pieces you can see
04:48there's some quite big pots there you always wonder in our garden whenever you
04:52dig a hole you always find pottery doesn't matter where you dig you always
04:55find a piece of pottery a little pieces usually little pieces but it always
04:59makes you wonder you know is this just 50 years old or is this 500 years old
05:04you just never know or older could be older so you just never know but I mean
05:09it's just pieces it is broken pieces so nobody would care really so just break
05:16it all up really small that takes away a lot of the danger and makes a smaller
05:27smoother surface to walk on this part of the job was good because it was free
05:37didn't cost any money at all jobs like that are good achieving results with zero
05:42cost nothing better than that so I just could have that surface there too when
05:49that water comes off the roof when we get really heavy rain it really buckets
05:53down you get a real torrent through here so rather than just have mud having
05:58having material in there like that just sort of helps stabilize it a bit and now
06:05that it's tidied up a bit more the water is going to go the other way now and go
06:08down to that stormwater drain
06:15here we go that's better
06:22so there are actually two unskilled gardeners in this household and one of
06:29them gets occasionally inspired to do something in the garden in this case it
06:34was planting some herbs and then no more was done so that happens sometimes
06:40someone gets inspired to do something in the garden sort of start something and
06:44then never gets back to it so then the other unskilled gardener comes along so
06:50in this case just cutting it back getting it under control a bit
06:53that's more herbs than anybody could possibly eat anyway surely so you can see the
07:06problem there all that dirt there was just running straight oh that's a
07:09grindstone so we've got a few things like that in the garden grindstones and
07:14and and stone bowls and all sorts of old stuff just randomly lying around the
07:20garden cool isn't it so grindstone for grinding grain of course so yeah using
07:26little tools digging along here with good reason because it was suspected
07:30there was a water pipe in there and there was and after finding that found
07:35this there was actually two so guessing one of them probably that top one they
07:43see that runs along from the other end there where we mentioned before comes
07:47along under the ground here and then runs under the concrete over there and
07:53one goes to the kitchen there on the corner and then through the rest of the
07:56house and then the other one probably runs over where there used to be a tap
08:00there and I took the tap away so guessing what happened is the same thing
08:04we had happen at the front a pipe was leaking underground so we had to
08:09disconnect the tap some of you might remember that project had to put a tap in a
08:13different place so that's what's happened here speaking of which just
08:18realized we could put a tap there couldn't we if we wanted to tap out at the back
08:23there because there's the pipe that would be too easy wouldn't it so $2.50
08:32250 yen for that plastic some of you might remember that from the project at the
08:36front so that's all we've spent so far 250 yen for that and then just cut it
08:41around so it doesn't damage the pipes oh yeah another sharpening stone just
08:47in the garden it was so we've got about eight or nine sharpening stones now the
08:52old guy had never had one of anything he always had a few of everything including
08:57sharpening stones apparently so yeah it was a hot day it was a really hot day
09:03needed that umbrella it was really hot so I had an off cut left over from the
09:09job at the front so just shaping it to make a nice fit against that brick wall
09:15there to stop the stones and things washing through that works that's good
09:25material that it's it's sold at the home center and it's usually farmers and
09:30market gardeners that buy it people don't usually use it in their gardens
09:34but it's brilliant $2.50 and it's it's designed to be able to be in the
09:40weather forever you know so it's good stuff some sort of PVC you'd guess
09:45wouldn't you so it's good stuff and had a bag of pre-mixed concrete left over
09:51from that from that job at the front so broke that out
09:57concreted it up so again same all the jobs we do at the farmhouse you know
10:06inside or outside nothing square around the house because it's all old you know
10:11nothing square nothing's perfect so it doesn't have to be but anything that we
10:16do if it sort of makes it a bit better it's worth doing and in this case so far
10:20we've spent $2.50 so that's pretty good isn't that oh by the way too that
10:25plastic interestingly we found the concrete doesn't stick to it which is
10:29really good because that means that when you're doing this job like this if you
10:35get concrete on the plastic doesn't matter you wait till the concrete dries
10:37and you just hose the plastic and the concrete hoses right off the
10:42little bits and pieces that are on there so those trees that we had in these pots
10:47and we planted out the front of the house when we first first moved in were
10:51the wrong trees we've seen them around the city other people have had them
10:55around town and the insects eat them they seem to be very vulnerable to the
11:01weather they seem to die randomly so they're just a bad tree so it was a bad
11:06choice it was a really bad choice that we used them at the front of the house
11:09and we used them here so since then we've discovered maki trees so
11:13particularly rakamaki trees a really good hardy tree the insects
11:20don't eat them they're evergreen so they're a bit expensive though the like
11:25one or two meter high ones are like $150 each but we found on Rakuten
11:30online shopping we found these rakamaki trees for $4 each 400 yen each for a
11:39box of 10 so I thought we'd give it a go and they've turned up and they're
11:44excellent so $4 each once they reach in so you might remember we've got about
11:4912 of them out the front of the house and they're just bulletproof that none
11:54of the insects eat them they just seem to thrive any sort of rain and water is
11:59enough rain and Sun and they just power and so they're the right tree that's the
12:05tree if you want a tree in central Japan get a rakamaki you'll love it it's
12:10really good there's a few different types of maki trees the rakamaki has got
12:14a smaller leaf and they're more bushy so they use them for hedges so this these
12:19will grow these will grow to one or two meters high and really bushy so they're
12:24really good I was just putting some fertilizer in there too so we're up to
12:28the before and after already so that's what that looked like before a piece of
12:33metal there behind the well to cut yourself on and random things to break
12:38your ankle on or cut your cut your leg on there this end was the same weeds
12:46growing all over the place it was a mess wasn't it all right so now that's better
12:52you can actually walk from this end to the other end now I mean it's still
12:56tight between the wall between the wall and the brick wall there it's still a
13:00bit tight but but much easier you don't have to worry about your footing anymore
13:04so you can go all the way through that's good not that we ever do but if we need
13:10to if I need to get to that compressor I'll be able to or one day I might have
13:13to do some more painting in there that's probably inevitable that's what
13:16out here looked like sort of bit barren wasn't it just concrete so that's what
13:23inspired the rakamaki see put a couple over there see there's three over there
13:27they'll grow and get bushy they'll break it up a little bit and then a row of
13:31them over here and again they'll grow so the neighbors have planted those trees
13:35you can see over the fence there very very good trees so these will grow up as
13:40well so just sort of breaks it up makes it feel a bit cooler and bit shadier and
13:46bit greener much tidier isn't it so very satisfying job happy with that just got
13:57to give them water now and keep them happy it's all good anyway we enjoyed
14:04that hope you did too more videos coming soon