well hey ! 

Phil's bread oven is up and running , mighty fine . It really does work a dream . simple and smokeless ( properly dried wood and the correct internal proportions result in perfect combustion ) , very efficient with delicious results . We can recommend a boycott of the electricity monopoly immediately .

mighty loaves . rumi-chan the head ched of yojooen ( a healing center in Nagano . http://www.yojoen.com/ ) is trying to defend them from Michi , the humble genius of the natural building

 Sharing the oven with the local kindergarten . little hands making little pizzas .

and big hands saving little pizzas from certain incineration

ok , so the childrens edible playground project is finally under construction . 

with the ground still frozen , its been a bit of a trial achieving anything , but we couldn't wait . 

we just love working in sub zero conditions . nothing planted yet - that will be in late April or May , 

but the hut thing , the paths , the fall in hole , the big tree animal play object are up. ish .

here is the team . mighty hard workers to the last . 

we didn't have time to put the soil on the green roof on yet . or the safety rails ... but we assumed that no one would be up there until it was finished anyway . wrong . it took about 30 seconds after we put down out tools , and there they were , right up on the edge , happy as larry . safe as houses .

its quite an amazing structure , the columns sit on some mighty big stones , the wood is locally sourced , mostly waste wood from forestry . the construction is an earth bag rear wall ( this will be rendered in earth with a built in bench warming radiant heat stove ) and the trees have been sculpted to snap together like a puzzle ... by the rather fine and talented Michi . ( the chap in the black , leftmost in the group photo above . he built the structures at the healing center in Nagano http://www.yojoen.com/ ) )

well , as you may have seen in our original notes , we promised a large tree play animal thingie . Yoshiro in his infinite wisom managed to pull this off . it sticks off the back of his 4tonne truck a wee bit . good times and close calls .

removing the bark so the insects wont burrow in

well needed afternoon naps

and voile , there you go ! its a monster . a happy monster . is it a swing ? a climbing frame ? a deck ? lord ! who knows where it will go .

here , a good view of the fall in hole , and the chip path was laid down ... 

tune in next month , when things might get a little more finished ... current plan is for a xylophone bridge for kids to bang their heads on when falling into the fall in hole .
waiting in anticipation for the next installment of kamaishi cosmos volunteer efforts ... what would they do without us !