Ground Breaking Ceremony

alter w:offernings
Originally uploaded by touzanka

The bank want us to take out insurance on our house and by health so that in the event of disastrous event, they will still get their money. We went to a higher authority yesterday to insure us against bad things, but to also confirm that good things come our way.

We conducted the ground breaking ceremony yesterday for the construction of our house. The ceremony is called a "Jichinsai" in Japanese, and it entails the fashioning of a mound of earth, which represents the plot of land to be built on and farmed, and a shrine alter. On our alter we placed salt, sake, rice, konbu, vegetables, fruits, and squid. We asked a Shinto priest to come and officiate. He came and invoked the appropriate gods, after which he blessed the four corners of the property with prayers and salt. Then at the mound with the bamboo stalk the property developer that we are consulting with about the house symbolically cleared the land by chopping the bamboo stalk with a wooden scythe. Then I symbolically prepared the land for planting by striking the mound three times with a wooden hoe. Finally the priest asked the gods to protect the property and family from pests, natural disaster, accident and disease, and to bless the people with happiness and prosperity.

It was a good investment in our property, if not only for the spiritual assurance to us that we are at least covered by the local deities.

mound

mound
Originally uploaded by touzanka

How To Build a Chicken Coop from Lightweight Cattle Panels

I'm thinking of raising a few chickens when I get some space, but I don't have any experience, so I've been looking around at how to house them. There are several homes in our area with chickens, and their coops/tractors/arks, whatever you want to call them look interesting, but this seemed like a simple, interesting design.
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