KUROHIME, Japan - The suzumebachi has a large yellow head with 5 eyes, a black thorax and gold and tan stripes on its abdomen. The world’s largest hornet extends its 4-inch wings, ready to launch a stinger capable of inflicting paralysis - even demise - and then a bug zapper smashes down, and the insect splatters on a novel penned by its killer. KUROHIME, Zap Zone Defender Japan - The suzumebachi has a giant yellow head with 5 eyes, a black thorax and gold and tan stripes on its abdomen. The world’s largest hornet extends its 4-inch wings, able to launch a stinger capable of inflicting paralysis - even loss of life - after which a bug zapper smashes down, and the insect splatters on a novel penned by its killer. "My son-in-law virtually died from a sting," C.W. Nicol, the bushy-bearded explorer turned writer, explained. With spears, bows and pronged ninja sais within reach in his cluttered study, it’s surprising he didn’t use one on the hornet.

The workplace can be residence to keepsakes from a vagabond life in the Arctic, Africa and these distant mountains. Late-Edo-interval scrolls and woodblock prints of English troopers, a devil-horned Japanese spirit mask, a strip of bowhead whale scrimshaw, books starting from shipbuilding guides to his personal writings, walrus ivory and soapstone carvings from Canada, coral fossils, a giant 4-foot-long seashell combed from an Okinawan beach. His first novel was "Harpoon," and an actual nineteenth-century one hangs on the mantel. "It’s junk that’s collected," he laughs. Nicol, 77, settled on this Japanese highland hamlet in Nagano in 1980 with his wife, Mariko, a classical composer and painter. Her large watercolor of dancing winter sparrows hangs in their residing room. Nicol, a shotokan karate knowledgeable and maker of nature specials, is most happy with his Afan Woodland Trust, a living assortment and a legacy: a 150-acre forest that is his dwelling and houses nearly one hundred fifty varieties of trees, uncommon species that includes forty five kinds of dragonflies, work horses and a stable made from reclaimed birch designed by architect Nobuaki Furuya.

Some furnishings - and the firewood - are made from false acacia culled from the forest. "We brought back a lifeless forest," he says proudly. He did it with out utilizing any heavy machinery beyond two horses and elbow grease, he says, pouring a gin infused with sansho berries from his yard and chilled with what he swears is 10,000-yr-outdated Antarctic ice. The man has always relished extremes: leaving his native Wales to affix an Arctic expedition at 17, killing two polar bears in self-defense while wintering on Baffin Island, ZapZone Defender arresting 244 suspected poachers and Zap Zone Defender bandits as Ethiopia’s first recreation warden. Now, Zap Zone Defender Device Nicol hopes to persuade the government of the importance of defending forests. These are edited excerpts from the dialog. A: The one which has the most important story is that old kudlik oil lamp in my study. I discovered it on a small island in Cumberland Sound, Canada, Zap Zone Defender in 1966, in a collapsed Inuit hut.

In the ‘30s, there was an influenza epidemic, so the whole camp died. I used to be with an Inuit on the camp. He stated there have been ghosts there. But he told his mother and father, who had household there, that I used to be praying. That impressed them and so they requested me for tea and so they stated "it belonged to our ancestors. Would you like it? " They told me it was over 1,000 years outdated. Even damaged, they nonetheless used it for Zap Zone Defender years, lashed along with seal leather. They let me have it, so I brought it home. A: These are all from Cumberland Sound. I lent them to an exhibition and they misplaced the tusks. They’re all from Nunavut. A: When Perry’s black ships came, they issued a three-quantity report in 1854. I bought one set for $1,000. There was another set that had been damaged, so I purchased that, too, and that’s one in every of the images from it. A: Prince Charles came in 2009. The following year, I used to be invited to his place in Britain, Highgrove. A: When i came here I wanted to study these mountains, not just as a mountain hiker, however I needed to know the legends and the place the bears hibernated and so forth. I received a Japanese gun license, which is tough, and that i walked these mountains with the local hunters, learning the legends. During that point, I found so much reducing of old-development forest by the government. So I decided, if I may depart behind even a small forest, I’d do it. Copyright 2025 New York Times News Service.