Otsukaresama is a Japanese term used after some task has been completed. I first encountered the term when I came to Japan and was encouraged to say the term at the end of the day at the English school where I worked to the staff who still remained at the office, or to staff who were also leaving at the same time as myself. My understanding of the term was to mean that we had worked hard together that day, to acknowledge that fact, and to state that we were now finished and leaving the work situation to go home or elsewhere.

I believe the term can also be used to describe an event that took place today at my house.

Today’s weather was sort of a mixed bag. It started sunny, then turned cloudy and cool, and then it became sunny again and pretty much stayed that way for the rest of the day.

Later in the day, finding that I had some free time and the weather was nice, I decided to tackle the job of breaking apart some of the bigger pieces of wood we have so they can fit in our wood stove.

I use the term ‘breaking apart’ because chopping doesn’t really describe the action very well. The wood in question is Japanese Cypress wood or hinoki (檜). This wood has an interesting smell to it that is almost minty. It burns well, perhaps partly because of whatever substance inside the wood that has the interesting smell. Unfortunately, the wood structure is something like a net or web. The grain does not run smooth and straight throughout the wood, but instead turns and connects laterally, making chopping a difficult task. With small pieces, roughly 10-15 cm in diameter it is possible to chop through the wood if the length is not very long.

The pieces I have remaining of this wood are roughly 40 cm in diameter and have been drying for over a year. The wood is strong and can dull my chainsaw quickly, so I often resort to physical labour to make the pieces smaller.

The picture shows the results of about 30 minutes of work. Slowly, pieces from the outside were broken off with the axe. When the piece was about half the starting size, a combination of the wedge and the axe, hammered into the wood finally split the wood in two.

That one piece, now split into many small pieces can be used to heat our home for at least one day (we only need have a fire in the evenings now).

To the piece of wood now burning in my stove, we worked hard, you and I, today. I thank you for your gift. Otsukaresama!