It is day three of the enforced ban on heavy work.  Very bad headache yesterday (Tumulkin Day) but fortunately today there have been no problems…just a gnawing inner feeling that the brush really, really does need to be cleared since it is perfect dry season weather for it.  Munchkin won’t budge and won’t even allow an elixir tasting to happen (The irony of life:  when I want to sit around and do F-all, she can’t wait for me to work…when I’m dying to get off my butt and do something, I’m not allowed…).

So, I’ve permitted myself to be overwhelmed by Miso Madness:  I just realized that the test gallon we made is only going to last 28 days!!!  That means we have to make at least three pig-tail buckets a year in order to eat miso every day.  The frenzy that this knowledge engendered inside my gnomish heart (the Munchkin’s too but she won’t admit it!) got us into town at 0800 on a non-town day to purchase 50 pounds of rice and 50 pounds of black beans…to find out that the Chinese wholesaler was still closed!!  We ended up going to Quality Chicken instead and thankfully they were open…BZ$72.50 for 50 pounds of black beans and BZ$44.00 for 50 pounds of rice later, our happy humanoids were rushing home (BTW no diesel in town today)…

We’re going to start with some shinshu miso first and that means making rice koji.  Time to wash some rice:

Have to get all the starch off of the rice so it doesn’t get gummy and sticky at steaming time tomorrow when we enter day 2 of making rice koji…