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Hard to believe perhaps but some people are just so impatient for the snow to melt!

 

Farmers, hey?! :doh:

 

Always looks funny when they go round with diggers breaking it all up so that it melts quicker...

 

What was once pretty snow covered rice fields is now an army of rampaging snow monsters, perhaps escaped from Zao.

 

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My family is farmer in Gunma, Katashina town and they do this around this time year.

During season they want much snow, but around now time if there is too much they want it to disappear.

I feel it is never right condition! :lol:

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There's lots of peer pressure to do things a certain way in the farming world. Obviously no-one would have done this back in the day before machines. Round here that would be the 1950s/60s.

 

We can still get ground frosts in early May, so there is only so much you can do in April even if there is no snow left on the ground.

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There's certainly a lot though this year.

Round the back of my house there's one area that's higher than me, over 2m.

That will be untouched so it will be interesting to see when the last of that melts away.

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Around Niseko some farmers put ash on the snow a few weeks ago. The theory is that this makes the snow melt more quickly because it will reflect less sunlight. I don't know if it helps, but it certainly looks ugly. We also had a good dump of snow last week which covered all the ash so maybe they were a bit premature.

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As much as I love the snow and cold weather, if it continues into April, it does become a pain as I do farming, and in fact up until Monday we had been getting sharp frosts virtually everyday, making it difficult to set much outside without tunnels or some sort of protection.

So I can understand why the farmers are keen for the snow to melt.

Having said that I really wish we could skip summer here, that is just punishing!

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Oh don't be so childish! :slap:

 

:lol:

 

But seriously, this year it really isn't melting away quickly at all.

 

There's one road near where I live and I remember last year I was riding my bike on it late March - the snow had gone naturally without any help from diggers.

Today there's still close to 1m there and it's still blocked off.

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A mate took this pic yesterday at Niseko. You can see many of the fields around Kutchan have a grey tinge to them. The farmers spread black ash on the snow to try and get it to melt quicker. Looks like it's going to be a little while yet though...

 

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Nice.

I don't think they do that here, can't recall seeing it.

They just break the snow up like in the pics above - loads more of that this year as it doesn't seem to want to melt away!

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You can see many of the fields around Kutchan have a grey tinge to them. The farmers spread black ash on the snow to try and get it to melt quicker. Looks like it's going to be a little while yet though...

 

What do they do just empty out the ashtrays from the local bars? ;)

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I was just about to suggest extra large hair dryers.

 

Though, on careful reflection over these last 5 seconds, with the "save electricity" thing still in our minds perhaps it is something they considered and rejected.

 

Other reasons for rejection of that idea also include:

 

- lots of hair dryers needed

- positioning of plugs

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I was just about to suggest extra large hair dryers.

 

Though, on careful reflection over these last 5 seconds, with the "save electricity" thing still in our minds perhaps it is something they considered and rejected.

 

Other reasons for rejection of that idea also include:

 

- lots of hair dryers needed

- positioning of plugs

 

Don't they have plugs in Hokkaido?

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I haven't actually been to Hokkaido, but I imagine they do have plugs.

 

But I'm not sure that many sockets will be in the right places for the hairdryers to melt the snow away from fields etc. Extraordinarily long cables and extensions would be needed, itself posing a problem!

 

Ideas are all well and good but sometimes the execution of them poses all sorts of practical problems!

 

:friend:

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they could perhaps re-use your domes that the beaks in charge in Fukushima refused, stupidly, to utilise. Then they could attach a long plastic tube from the back of it to a guy with a hairdryer, who could then fill the dome up with very hot air a-la bouncy castle stylee!!

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How long does snow usually last on top of Yotei?

 

The top slopes of Youtei lose it pretty quick through May except in the deeper gullies. The higher slopes above the treeline are very exposed and the snowdepth doesn't get as deep as lower down on the mountain. So the exposed ridges up high become snow free even though there's still snow right to the base. It remains in some of the deeper gullies until into July and up in the crater patches can last into August.

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