Our intern Carol has begun teaching stained glass workshops for guests. Here is Eric joining her in the greenhouse to make his masterpiece. Eric is one of our original guests, having attended our first event, the Fujiesta Earth Networking Weekend way back in 2001. The stained glass workshops are available through June 2009. Hope you can join us.

当社のインターンキャロルゲスト用ステンドグラスのワークショップを教え始めている。エリックは、温室での傑作を彼女に参加しています。エリック自分独自のユーザーのことです私たちの最初のイベントは、 2001年の地球ネットワーク週末Fujiesta帰りに出席した。ステンドグラスのワークショップは、 2009年6月までご利用いただけます。ご希望に参加することができます。

Our eco-home building partners at Honka and BeBorn let me take this little Italian beauty for a test drive. The fully electric Girasole seats two and had no problem riding around the back roads of Lake Yamanaka as we looked at some land on which to build our next demo eco-home. The top speed is 65 km per hour (41 mp/h) and travels distances of up to a 120 km on a full battery, so it wont be driving us down to Tokyo, but seems good for getting around town and turning a few heads.
At first in trying to figure out the switches, I couldnt get it moving and fully depressed the accelerator quite hard. Then when I finally got it moving, the accelerator was stuck on full speed for a few seconds and I had to grab the emergency break to keep from hitting one of the Honka log homes. So still a few kinks to work out, but generally glad to see these little guys coming on the market.

more info at http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/the_girasole_an_1.php

Our new chickens have arrived, a beautiful bunch of white Ukokes, donated by the Kawaguchiko Town. Here Matt is making friends with the default leader of the chickens, whom we have dubbed Twisty, because the poor guy cant seem to hold still and his head is constantly twisting from side to side, and usually leading him around in circles. When we were selecting chickens to bring to our farm, most tried to run away, but Twisty-san just ran in circles at my feet, so he was the first to get caught. He is actually very friendly, and kept Matt company all day while he was working on painting our new signs.

On a small farming expedition to the fields of Kofu, we were surrounded by a bunch of rogue samurai loyal to the Takeda Shingen clan. It looks like a bad situation for our peaceful team. I wont go into the details, but suffice it to say that Shingen and his boys are ancient history, and the Earth Embassy team is still going strong.
(pictured left to right, Matt, Jake, Emiko, Chris and Shawn)