Bamboo Lattice from the outside.

bamboo lattice 2
Originally uploaded by touzanka

You can see the bamboo tied on from the outside. The large open space is for a window.

Bamboo Lattice Top

bamboo lattice 3
Originally uploaded by touzanka

You can see a slender piece of bamboo running horizontally at the top. That is to secure the tops of the bamboo strips. That is done when the other horizontal pieces are added.

A detail shot of the verticle bamboo lattice

bamboo lattice detail
Originally uploaded by touzanka

Bamboo Lattice for Mud Walls

bamboo lattice inside
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is the verticle portion of the bamboo lattice work that we put in yesterday. There will be horizontal pieces tied in here, and the mud will be applied. It's almost a waste to cover the walls with mud. The bamboo is attractive.

It is easy to tie on, but it takes some precision cutting to make sure that the bamboo is the right length. It has to fit into the space from top to bottom, but you must also leave about a 3 centimeter gap at the bottom so that the bamboo doesn't bow outward with the weight of the mud.

Mud before mixing

mudbeforeJPG
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a shot of the mud for the walls before it has been mixed with water and straw. It is about as stiff as cookie dough. The little kids didn't sink into it as they stood on top, but I went straight to the bottom.

More mixing

mixmud
Originally uploaded by touzanka

Mixing the mud for the mud walls

mudfoot
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a shot of my foot in the mud and rice straw for the walls of the outbuilding. My feet are still stained with the color of the mud. The kids loved it, totally covered in mud. We mixed in enough water to make the mud the stiffness of bread dough.

splitting bamboo

splitbamboo
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a medium length pole. For the long ones we had to stand on top of the cab of the truck. Sometimes I wished I had a hardhat. Really trusted my partner

more bamboo

splitbamboo2
Originally uploaded by touzanka

split bamboo

splitbamboo3JPG
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This photo is a shot of the pile of bamboo we split. It took most of the day to finish this lot. We had to haul some of the unsplit pieces we had cut out of the woods. Then we got to work on this around 10am. Finished around 4pm with a 1-hour lunch break. Once you get it down it's not so bad. This may or may not be enough for the who place.

Yet more rain, rotten for farmers

Yet more rain today. This has gone on for weeks. The rainy season, which is usually over by now, has dragged on into the summer that is usually sunny and hot. That is bad news for the farmers. Soy beans look like bean sprouts. They've been planted up north, but they aren't growing leaves.

On a more personal note, I need to put up some mud walls, but can't get out with all the rain. If we put them up in this weather they'd never dry and succomb to gravity.

How to Make a "Doma" or Tamped Earth Floor

If you are looking for a cheap way to make a hard floor in a foyer, in a shed, or barn, you may want to consider a tamped earth floor, or what is called "tataki" or "douma" in Japanese. Japanese buildings have all historically been tamped earth or wooden flooring. Some temples have earth floors over huge areas. Kitchens and storage building floors were often made of the material that is cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Recently home builders have been returning the material for its aesthetic appeal, as well as the cost. The floors last for decades with moderately heavy use, are easy to repair if they crack, and can be made smooth or textured and decorated. They are inexpensive, because the materials are available nearly anywhere, and you can do all of the work. Finally, in the end the floors return to their natural condition, dirt.

First you need to consider how large an area you want to cover. If your foyer is three meters square, and you want a floor that is fifteen centimeters thick, then you will have to have about one and a half cubic meters of compacted earth and lime in the end product. I recommend at least fifteen centimeters of thickness for a strong floor. The thing is though that once this is packed down, it is about 1/3 the height of the original materials untamped. That means that you will need to start with about three times the amount of sand and lime to compact for your floor with the desired dimensions. In other words, you will need a little more than three cubic meters of sand and a one cubic meter of lime for your three meter square floor.

After you have calculated the amount of the simple materials you will need, you need to prepare the area that will serve as the base for the floor. The beauty of an earth floor is that you can easily put it right on top of what ever base you have, dirt or concrete. (You cannot make this on top of a wooden floor, because it will crack as the wood floor bends during tamping and after it dries.) If you are making a floor on a dirt base, then you need to also decide whether you want to have hard edges. For example, if you are making it so that your door will close, you need to make a frame that will define the dimensions of the floor so your door will shut. You can do that easily with a stout board cut to fit the width and desired height. If you are making a ramp into a storage facility where you may be rolling in your wheeled lawn tools, then you will need to dig a shallow ditch of about 10 centimeters in depth and the same in width, with the ramp ending at the middle of the ditch.

Mixing the earth mixture is easy enough if you are covering a rather small area, but if you are dealing with a large shed or indoor area, a backhoe may be useful for mixing. Mix the lime and dry river sand together, mixing it thoroughly. Do this right before you are ready to spread and tamp it, because the lime will start to react to any moisture immediately. You can then start mixing in water. You will need enough that the mixture is something like beach sand after the waves have retreated, damp, but water does not drip out when held in your hand. Start shoveling it onto the area to cover and start tamping it.

A tamper can take many forms. In Japan, a wooden mallet was used to tamp smaller areas, and a pine log with four long handles, like shovel handles, for two people to lift and drop was used for larger areas. Pine was used for its weight, but also for its auspicious characteristics in Japanese folklore. For those who are less interested in details or who have an area that is too much to be dealt with by hand, a gas powered tamper will work just as well. As the mixture is compacted, more should be added on top and tamped until it reaches the desired depth. What ever you do, you will have to use all of the mixture that you made that day. It will harden as a pile as the lime reacts with the water, and will not keep.

Once you have beaten it to the desired area and depth, you should decide how you want to finish it. If you want a rough finish, that is fine. The tamping should have left marks, and those may work. You may want to add different designs by stamping in a rope to make letters. Some people work in marbles, pretty rocks, or ceramic tiles. Or you may want to make it smooth. If you want a smooth finish, you will need to rub it with a mason's float or trowel. First sprinkle the area you can work on immediately with a little water from a brush. Try a small area first and work your way up. Then with the float, give a small area a beating, and start to rub it with the float. It works best if you lift the leading edge just slightly as you smooth the area back and forth and round and round. The fine, wetter particles will come to the top, and the coarser particles will be worked into the center of the floor. The fine particles with eventually make a smooth surface. If there are areas that are lower than others, fill it it with some of the left over mixture, and beat it into place with the float or trowel.

The floor will dry from the inside out, meaning that the outside will feel wetter when you touch it that it really is on the inside, but you shouldn't let it dry too fast. You will have to avoid walking on it for some time. If you can give it a month, that would be best. If you live in a dry area, cover the floor with a grass mat and sprinkle it with water daily, just so keep it from drying so fast that it gets flaky or crumbly. If you live in a damp climate, like Japan, you will need to keep areas under a roof damp, and areas outside from washing away if there is, for example, a water drain coming off of the roof. After about a month you can use it normally.

As the years pass your tamped earth floor may develop cracks or wear out in spots. Just mix up a little soil, lime and water and pound it down, let it dry, and it will be good as new. If you sprinkle it with water from time to time, it will thank you, too, especially in dry indoor areas. Some people in some areas of the world put oil on their dirt floors. You may want to try that, too, but choose a non-petroleum oil with a smell that you can live with, especially if it will be in your living area.

Earthen floors have been used all over the world for millennia in all kinds of spaces. There are different details in the mixtures. Some places even mix ox blood into their mixture, but what they all have in common is that they use naturally occurring materials to make low maintenance floors that live and breath with you and the rest of your space. They are easy to make, even the kids can be involved in the process. (Keep them away from the lime!) They are beautiful and soulful to live with.

split bamboo and mix mud

bamboo splitter
Originally uploaded by touzanka

Spent the day splitting bamboo and mixing mud for the mud walls. This is what you split bamboo with. You can probably guess how you use it.

Yet more rain.

More rain today, but had to go into work. Doesn't look like I'm going to get to the fields today. Tomorrow is a bamboo hauling day.

Heavy steady rain today

Heavy steady rain this morning. Won't go out to the fields today. Reading about saving tomato seeds in 2009 Farmer's Almanac. Think it may be prudent to start saving seeds. GM0's and "terminator genes" pose a threat to farmers like me and to plant life specifically.

Bamboo for Lattice Work in Mud Walls

Went out to cut bamboo for the walls that we are going to put in the outbuilding. We needed about 80 pieces from between 5 to 2 meters long. The bamboo we cut was on some property next to the home of the carpenter that his helping us build the building, and we got their permission to cut some. We tried to thin out the grove rather than cut everything in one patch. A person should be able to walk through a healthy bamboo stand with an open umbrella, and so with that in mind we cut the plants that were weak and too close to other healthy plants. We loaded it onto the truck, and drove it home, but it was quite a challenge. We took three loads back, and the leaf springs on the truck were flat.

I thought we would see more beasties. As it turned out we only saw one very big hornet. It was large enough that the beating of its wings blew dried out bamboo leaves as it passed close to the ground. Major insect.

Putting in A Beaten Earth Floor

We are in the process of building our out-building. Yesterday we put in our beaten earth floor. Here is how one is made the Japanese way. I guess that some places use ox blood in it. We did nothing that extraordinary.

We have an area about 50 square meters for which we wanted a floor to store our small tractor, other farm implements, and harvest through the winter. We have chosen to build as close to a traditional Japanese "kura" as our time and effort will allow. That means that instead of a tile roof with dirt underneath as an insulator, we are using galvanized metal with a foam insulator underneath. And instead of two layers of bamboo lattice in the walls, we will use one layer of lattice, making the walls about half as thick as the 40cm walls on the real deal.  Yesterday we put in the beaten earth floor, it was quite a workout, but made considerably easier to do with experienced help and modern equipment.

We started by digging a 30cm wide and about 10cm deep ditch 30cm from the where the wall will start. The ditch will serve as a deep spot to keep the floor from slipping  outward. There is also a ramp area in front of the door that will be kept relatively dry with the overhang on the front of the building, for which we dug a deeper ditch, about 30cm deep. We put a wooden frame around the building, just within the ditch. Then we started mixing earth and plaster. We used about three quarters alluvial sand to one quarter plaster with a small backhoe. We mixed a total of about 5 metric tons of earth, and started from the outside, shoveling in the sand and beating it down with hardwood mallets. They were short handled, and the business end was long and rounded. The entire mallet was about 50cm long, and the striking surface was about 30cm of that. We were working on building up about 15cm of beaten flooring, which required about three layers of earth. My guess is that loose earth compresses to about 1/3 of its original depth after beating. The outside floor required hand tamping, because it was laid around the beams of the building and inside the wooden frame. We used two gasoline powered tampers to compress the larger areas inside. The outside floor was nicely polished with a mason's trowel. One of the masons there to help us with the project kindly showed me the method for flattening and smoothing the surface. You must beat it to smooth out the bumps, and then sort of massage it with the trowel. This works the larger particles of sand in and brings the finer particles out, which smooths the floor.

We started working on the floor at around 8 in the morning and finished cleaning up and loading the equipment back on the trucks at around 6. Several of our friends came to help, and were happy to have had the experience. They are also working on developing their homesteads, and one family that came to help is in the process of building their own home with wood working studio and extra sleeping areas to come. I'm sure we will use our hard-earned experience with their projects, too.

It was hard work, and I am sore today from swinging those mallets, but we enjoyed the work and companionship, and now we have an earthen floor that will return to the earth, hopefully long after I have.

The Cats in Summer

Couple photos of the cats.

Chikens thriving

After a bit of a rough start, the chickens are thriving. First we had the incident with the older birds pecking the younger ones. We segregated the little ones into an old doghouse. They are well, and then one of the cats got through two layers of fence to grab one of the birds, injuring the chicken slightly. We brought both little ones in and warmed them up in a box with a light attached, and they are now happy and health. We have added another layer of protection to the sides, especially to keep the cats at bay. They are still interested, but can't get at the birds.

Now we are enjoying watching their growth. The little ones are getting their combs, and the older ones are getting wattles.

Students want to diet

My students, most of whom are first-year women, often comment that they need or want to diet in order to lose weight. I tell them to eat well. I don't just mean vast quantities, nor do I mean just expensive food. I mean eat good food that is good for you.

They are poor college students. All the better my dears. They don't have much money, so they need to spend it on good food. By that I mean chemical free, locally grown, high quality grains, vegetables, fruits, and meats if they're into them. Let me take meat for example. We are close to some of the highest quality beef grown in the country, Matsuzaka beef. It is beautiful and a meat eating experience like no other (if you're into meat), but it is expensive as blazes. No student could afford very much or very often. That would be the way to go. If they limit themselves to quality food, they will get less in grams, but more in satisfaction and health. Brown rice costs more than white (for reasons I can't explain), and chemical free is even more costly. Chemical free fruits and vegies are hard to find, but available at a higher cost. Everything will be less affordable when buying quality, but will satisfy and less is more when you want to lose weight in a healthy way.

If they eat this way, they can also be healthier than if they go for quantity rather than quality. When the buy for quantity, they get large loaves of white bread or white rice, lots of sugar and chemical additives, as well as more salt than they need.  I hear students say that they had instant noodles for breakfast. They will crash long before lunch, they will binge eat large quantities of crap, and then then they will feel bad. Why bother? Have some brown rice in your rice cooker and a kettle the stove for a cup of quality instant soup (not the variety that they sell at supermarkets), and a cucumber, and there is a breakfast that will stay with you until lunch.

Since many of my students are women, so they want to eat sweets (a phenomenon that I was not aware of in the US) often in the form of cake. I tell them not to bother with hormone tainted cream cakes and white sugar when confections made with tofu cream and raw sugar are available at a few good cafes around the area. Granted, they won't be filling up on cake at the prices that quality sweets cost, but they will enjoy themselves and get something good for themselves in the process.

Don't know how many students take my advice, but if they are happy with themselves and healthier, we'll all benefit.

Sinus infections and allergies

An acquaintance is suffering from allergies and sinus infections, and I wanted to scream at them to change their eating habits. It happens to millions every year, and it used to happen to me. The weather changes; the flowers bloom and their heads swell to twice their normal dimensions. It would happen to me, too. To the extent that I am sure that sooner or later, I would have died either in the spring or the fall due, at least in part, to my conflicted breathing situation. The ironic part is that those are my favorite seasons, and I had come to dread them.

If you are suffering now from some kind of seasonal health issues, you don't have to. Of course see a physician for sinus infections. They are nasty. And then do this.

• Stop taking milk, yoghurt, ice-cream and other dairy products
  
  
  
• Switch from white bread to wholemeal and also begin to take brown rice, wholemeal noodles and other wholemeal products
  
  
  
• Eliminate red meat
  
  
  
• Eliminate white sugar and products containing sugar
  
  
  
• Eat lots more vegetables and fruits
• Eat less quantity overall all the time
• Eat better quality food
  

 Watch the pounds disappear, and your health return. It may take a year to notice any results, and it is especially important to continue these eating habits when you are not being dogged by these problems. Like in the summer and the dead of winter. It is tempting to think that the problems have subsided, when really they are getting their energy to reemerge from the food you build your body with in the problem-free times.

Ageing Japan's fertility rate up but population falls | Reuters

Japan's fertility rate up by 0.03 points, below the estimated 2.07 needed to keep the population at current levels. There were 51,300 more deaths than births.

Can't help but think this is a trend that the whole world should be reflecting, lowering human impact on an already over-burdened earth. Current economic dependencies on ever-increasing levels of consumption of cheap junk have to change to quality, long-lasting necessities.


There's lots of gloom and doom reportage here, like the phrase, "The low birth rate threatens to squeeze the economy by shrinking the labour force, which could weigh in on its GDP and leave fewer workers to support a growing number of pensioners." The paradigm here is that we need more and more workers churning out more and more crap to support old people. Why not fewer, more highly skilled workers turning out quality goods, and earning more to support pensioners. Either one is equally imaginable, but the former is just easier to accomplish. Business as usual laziness will accomplish that.


Ageing Japan's fertility rate up but population falls | Reuters

chicken coop door from outside

chicken coop door from outside
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a shot of the front door that will lead to the fenced-in outdoor area where the chickens can move around outside. All of this will need to be weather proofed and painted nicely. My son has promised to do the art work.

chicken coop roof

chicken coop roof
Originally uploaded by touzanka

Another shot of the roof of the coop.

chicken coop door from inside

chicken coop door from inside
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a shot of the door from the inside. I may need to reinforce the top of the door later.

chicken coop side

chicken coop side
Originally uploaded by touzanka

I used this wire mesh on the sides to keep the birds cooler on hot summer nights. In the winter I'll cover those over with an opaque plastic sheet. You can also see the plastic roof that I put on the top.

Our Daily Bread: A movie review

"Our Daily Bread" had been staring me at the DVD rental shop for months, and I kept rejecting in favor of something else, because I had a feeling I knew what would come, a full on indictment of industrial food production. I rented it Friday, and that is what I got. A kind of Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance experience completely about the industry that manufactures much of the food we eat without the cool Philip Glass music. In fact there is no music at all; the only speaking one can hear is the very quiet speech of workers from a distance, and there is little other background noise other than machine or animal sounds.

The blurb for the movie says:

OUR DAILY BREAD is a wide-screen tableau of a feast which isn’t always easy to digest - and in which we all take part. A pure, meticulous and high-end film experience that enables the audience to form their own ideas.

We may have been enabled to form our own ideas, but the images left me with very little wiggle room. My conclusion is that if the results of the industry portrayed in this film were my only source of nutrition, there would be no need for my continued existence. Fortunately I have other sources, and am struggling to create my own, so I still have a place here.

The food industry degrades the existence of everyone that comes in touch with it. There is often a disclaimer at the end of movies, something to the effect of "No animals were harmed in the making of this movie." My son chuckled that the disclaimer at the end of this one should read something like, "No animals were unharmed in the making of this movie." From birth the babies were raised to live the most miserable lives imaginable, only to be killed in the end so their bodies could be consumed by humans. The humans involved faired only slightly better, the odds being good that their lives would not end at the hands of another person, and less likely that their bodies would be consumed by canibals. Thier working lives were either as drones serving the mutant plant food, or right out of the first ring of circle 7 of Hell in the river of blood to which we are all doomed if Dante was right. This Hell in Phlegethon is Dante's name for the river of hot blood that serves as the first ring where spillers of blood themselves, violent offenders are submerged to a level corresponding to their guilt.

My convictions about the food industry and my choises were reenforced, and it was ironic that today a friend questioned my decision not to feed my children meat, as they ate spaghetti with "meat sauce," whatever that may be. I wanted to tell them about the film, but didn't think it would be a good idea to ruin their meals. I just said that I don't want to feed my kids the industrial food products any more than I want to eat it myself. 

roof and roost from front

roof and roost from front
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a shot of the roost and roof from the front. It is getting heavier all the time, so I hope it is still mobile in the end.

roost

roost
Originally uploaded by touzanka

The roost. Hoping it will be long enough for three birds to hang out on.

coop roof

coop roof
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a shot of the roof. I made it a kind of lid that will fit neatly on top so as not to blow away in the early spring winds, and to allow it to be lifted off for added ventilation in the hot summer.

LancasterOnline.com:Lifestyle:Pint-sized 'guerilla gardeners' sow seeds

Great! Kids using seed balls, ala Masanobu Fukuoka to grow flowers in empty lots.
LancasterOnline.com:Lifestyle:Pint-sized 'guerilla gardeners' sow seeds

Assembled frame front

frame1
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a photo of the assembled frame from the front.

This is all I could do with the time that I had today. Gotta work sometime. I will continue to photograph the progress here and keep updating this project.

Assembled frame 2

frame2
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a photo of the assembled frame, with triangular supports on the front end of the play area.

coop parts 2

parts2
Originally uploaded by touzanka

These are the two sides of the coop with the lateral supports in the middle.

coop parts 1

coopparts1
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a photo of one of the sides fitted loosely.

Mobile chicken coop plan

plan
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is the plan for the chicken coop we are working on. In the upper left corner, you can see the measurements and the numbers of the main beams for the main frame. We used 4.5x4.5cmx4m lumber for the main frame, and put it together with wood screws. Guess it may save some time in maintenance.

The newest swine flu isn't as new as you might think, and is a direct result of the way we grow food

According to an article in The Charleston Gazette, a newspaper from my home state of West Virginia, the new strain of swine flu is not new, and came as a direct result of the way we grow our food.

From a link in the paper, one can read at The News and Observer site

"This virus was found in pigs here in the United States," Rabadan said in an interview. "They were getting sick in 1998. It became a swine virus."

 Then from the Gazette article itself you can read

And therefore you’ve got a lot of hosts available to exchange a pathogen, which is one of the processes by which viruses and bacteria evolve and acquire mutations. And then the way in which these operations are run – and I want to stress that this is a worldwide issue, it is not peculiar or restricted to Mexico.

People have also isolated influenza virus from the legs and feet of flies in the vicinity of these operations. This was noted in some outbreaks of avian influenzas, for example, in Japan.

This new disease is neither new nor inevitable. We can start to change this global health issue ourselves by changing the way that we choose the food we eat. Eat locally grown food from farmers who use sustainable, humane methods.

Public transportation is poor choice for some

Have to go to Kobe today, so took the train to work. Walked for 35 minutes, rode for 50 minutes, and waited for trains for 35 minutes. Cost 600 yen, about six dollars. In cost effectiveness, public transportation comes in last. Next is a car, costing about $2.34 in gas round trip and less than one hour one way. Next would be a scooter with 67cents in gas and one hour. Bicycle is number one! No gas, one hour.

On "How to save the world: One man, one cow, one planet"

Peter Proctor is a farmer in India using Biodynamic farming techniques to help people everywhere. He has seen first hand how the agrichemical based farming has ruined huge portions of India's farmland, and he has lived the good news of how organic/natural/biodynamic farming can produce sustainable yields into perpetuity.

The documentary "How to Save the World: One man, one cow, one planet" is a terrific introduction on how "The Green Revolution" in India was really chemical warfare on the earth, and how he has dedicated his life to building sustainable farming in India based on the work of Rudolph Steiner and Biodynamics. Biodynamics is really a comprehensive lifestyle that incorporates and sustains communities. This is the kind of future humankind can have.

I was also impressed by a quote by Ghandi that appeared in the film, and it sums up how this kind of farming is also a political act, supporting a democratic future.

Ghandi's view of Democracy

My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest should have the same opportunity as the strongest... No country in the world today shows any but patronising regard for the weak... Western democracy, as it functions today, is diluted fascism... True democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the centre. It has to be worked from below by the people of every village.

Honeybee shortage worries Japanese farmers : Read Pesticides killing off bees

I always wondered about this. I mean pesticides aimed at bugs kill bugs. There is probably some fine tuning one can do to limit collateral damage, but if you spray for insects, you will probably kill insects. Farmers spreading tons of insecticides are killing off the bees that they need to pollinate their crops. Then they blame it on Australian disease or ticks that have now become resistant to the pesticides that are supposed to kill them. It is all too ironic.

The answer is to farm with nature rather than against it. It may take time and effort, and much economic discomfort to the agrichemical industry, but it's possible.

04/19/2009 - Honeybee shortage worries Japanese farmers - STLtoday.com

'Natural patterns' of farming touted in documentary - USATODAY.com

If I have a hero, it would have to be "Joel Salatin: Lunatic Farmer."

'Natural patterns' of farming touted in documentary - USATODAY.com: "'Joel Salatin: Lunatic Farmer.'"

Four articles in the international press on younger people in agriculture in Japan

Four articles recently in the international press about young people getting intersted in farming in Japan. Most of the articles give the current economic conditions and concerns about food safety as reasons for the move.

Christian Science Monitor, Donga, Wall Street Journal and New York Times all give accounts of people heading to the countryside to work on farms in various capacities. I am intersted in how they are making it considering the relative difficult system of acquiring farm land. They will also have to bring creativity along with their strong backs to make a living, as prices of everything is dropping and the government is less and less willing to subsidize farmers.

Overall it is a great move, and as in all things, the tough will stick with it and potentially be very successful. If I were thinking of doing it all over again, I would certainly think about farming. Right now I would be working on growing organics and developing new distribution systems.

G8 Warns Food Crisis May Become Permanent

The solution looks obvious to me, but agrimonopolies probably look at it differently.

To meet this challenge, Rev. Beckman emphasized that more resources should be made available to small subsistence farmers throughout the world. "Subsidizing corporate farmers who manage thousands of acres in Iowa will feed hungry people. But putting resources into the hands of small farmers can enable entire rural communities to thrive by providing jobs and generating income to stimulate local economies."

G8 Warns Food Crisis May Become Permanent

World Tea News - Teatulia Hits Ground Running in U.S. Expansion

This tea product company uses tea grown with natural farming techniques. Cool stuff. It is so funny. I went to a tea shop here once and asked for organically grown tea. The grouchy old guy who ran the shop said that there is no such thing as organically grown tea, and if they say it is they are lying. I get that kind of reaction alot when I try to explain to people what I want to do.

Anyway, would sure love to support these tea growers, but my guess is that they won't be coming here anytime soon.

World Tea News - Teatulia Hits Ground Running in U.S. Expansion

planted half of a paddy and worked on making a place for the chickens

Went out this morning and planted rice in half of another paddy. Didn't really want to plant that much, but have so much seed left over, just decided to do it. Next year I'll do the calculations on how much seed to buy myself, and plant it. I will also plant the wheat in rows. Broadcasting it was easy to plant, but the weeds are going to start to compete here pretty soon, and It will be impossible to get between the plants.

Went to a friend's house to give him the seed if he wanted it. He took some of it, but he plants field rice (rikutou) not paddy rice (suitou). I think he wanted it to make his rice a little tastier. Rikutou isn't as good tasting as suitou.

I am also going to get a couple of chickens from him. He keeps about a dozen hens and a couple of roosters. I haven't built my coop and pen yet, but have some ideas about how I want to build it. I want to make a mobile coop and attached pen so that it can be moved around my fields, letting the chickens eat the bugs and grass while their deposits will improve the fertility of the soil. He feeds them wheat, imported as animal feed from the US, rice bran, and vegies. He said he used to feed them corn, again imported from the US, but they aren't importing it much now, or at least he isn't able to get it from the supplier he used to get it from. He also uses rice bran on the floor of the coop to absorb the droppings and make it easier to spread as fertilizer. That is a great idea, as the bran absorbs the moisture making really easy to clean up and the smell inside the coop is only of rice bran, doesn't smell chickeny at all.

I think if his place had rice paddies it would be ideal. As it is, it sits on a hill, and he would have to rely on tap water or well water to irigate the paddies. Not the ideal situation.

Finished planting one paddy

Finished planting one paddy yesterday, and we have 2/3 of the seed left. I went to the farming cooperative and asked how much seed they recommended for the area that we are planting. They told me, and I bought it. We only used about a third of it on the one paddy we expected to plant. We will use up the remaider on the paddies that aren't planted yet and give some to friends, but I'm really surprised that we had so much left over. Beautiful day for it, though. Really pleasant day.

april wheat

april wheat
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is what our wheat looks like right now. The beautiful green part is where the wheat is flourishing. The brown patches are where it ain't. Either way, it is a great place to hang out and watch.

Shrine as the Cherry Trees Bloom

hirohata shrn
Originally uploaded by touzanka

Breathtaking, isn't it? I was really blown away by this. Usually I see shots like this in travel brochures and stuff, but rarely in real life. Real life is way better.

Experts have second thoughts on Japan's falling food supply capacity

This article looks at Japan's self sufficiency from yet another angle, providing more perspective on the issue. Basically, "Yes Japan says it produces only 40% of its food supply, but at the same time it is exporting more agricultural product than it did a year ago, and plans to increase it in coming years."

The 40% number is a straw man, and I wonder who's interests it serves. One talking head posits, ''The agriculture industry's potential has been underestimated,'' he said. ''I suspect that the ministry is trying to maintain its reason for existing under the banner of protecting poor farmers.'' My guess is that this argument would also scare the populace into fearing for the other 60%, and approve vast quantities of imports, which would appease some politicians' Washington DC, and agribusiness handlers.

Also, as I have written before, this 40% isn't even close if imported petroleum consumption is factored in. We'd need two Japans worth of land if it were.

FOCUS: Experts have second thoughts on Japan's falling food supply capacity

Of Jar Gods and Biodynamic farming

Several of our friends and acquaintances through the Steiner school have been very interested, even insistent on using Biodynamics for farming that we do with the children. I don't disapprove entirely, but I think farming principles don't necessarily translate. For example the horn-manure principle. In Biodynamics, there is a method of improving the soil by diffusing cow manure that has been buried in a river bank for some time. Cows and the use of cow manure is a concept that may resonate with Western or more specifically German mythology and spiritualism, but it does not here. I say mythology and spiritualism, because this horn-manure has no fertilizing ingredients as measured by modern agricultural science. I am not so narrow minded as to believe that this science can explain all things, or that there is a lack of evidence that Biodynamics works. What I am saying is that the context is different and that instead of building a context for cows and bovine products that we adapt what we have to the process.

There are two artifacts that explain the mythical creation of Japan, the Kojiki and the Nihon Shoki. In these stories are tales of "Mika" or Jar Deities. In research by William P. Fairchild, "'Mika'-Jar Deities in Japanese Mythology," he makes these conclusions about Jar Gods.
a. According to mythology, jars were important in food production even before agriculture.
b. Jars became integrated with fertility rites and shamanism after the introduction of agriculture.
c. Jars were buried in river beds and in the ground to divine and fertilize the soil. That is why archaeologists find jars in agricultural areas.

It is apparent to me that instead of importing some kind of mythology based on cows and cow manure, that indigenous mythology and systems should be employed to the same end. I offer jars as one possible alternative based on Japanese mythology.

Japan must aim to be rice exporter: expert | Industry Summits | Reuters

This could have the benefit of making farming profitable and attractive to younger people.

Japan must aim to be rice exporter: expert | Industry Summits | Reuters

Neighborhood cleanup and compost

Yesterday was neighborhood cleanup day in town. That means that in every neighborhood in town, the residents pick up their shovels, rakes, brooms and saws and clean up litter, clear out obstructions, and clean out ditches. Our neighborhood is in a rural area, so there are lots of tree limbs and leaves in the ditches, but I was also amazed at the amount of just plain junk that people come and dump in our area.

Several of the folks in the area have access to large trucks, and we loaded all form of junk on there, old rusty tanks and barrels, rain gutter, broken sliding glass doors, fiberglass tanks, a rusty bicycle or two, and furniture of various sorts. Since this is a rural area people come and dump their garbage instead of taking it to the dump and paying the fees. We sort it out into metal and plastic and take it to the dump and pay the fees.

I took advantage of the goldmine of leaves that got scooped out of ditches. After the cleanup I went around in my truck and picked up the piles of leaves that were lying around and took them to the compost pile. I was surprised that no one else was taking advantage of the opportunity. Our area is full of avid composters. The only other person I saw was a woman out digging for bamboo shoots. Guess it's that time of year.

Neighborhood clean and the compost pile full. Pretty satisfying.

Biodynamics and Steiner Education

My family is active in the local Steiner school, Niji Gakko (Rainbow School). Yesterday we watched a twelve-year old documentary on NHK about a Steiner school in Nuremberg, Germany. I will certainly watch it again. It was about a Japanese woman who had graduated from that school. She and her mother were both featured in the show. As a child the woman had gone with her family to Germany, and while she was there, she was enrolled in the Steiner school. She was there for a couple of years, and her family returned to Japan, but the girl wanted to return to school in Germany, so in the sixth grade she returned. She graduated from there and pursued a career in music, among other things. The school had changed since she left, had become quite grand really. Beautifully designed, the school and surrounding facilities were ideal from my perspective.

They had a number of special needs children at the school, and they all worked and lived closeby. Their farming was all Biodynamic, and they had quite a facility. The school was pretty much self sufficient, and Steiner philosophy had spread well beyond the school and farm to banking and healthcare in the area. Brilliant experience for children, I'm sure.

It was a bit of a stimulus overload, as all of the ideas were just so profound. I'll be happy to see it again, but I was impressed by how mature that society was compared to what I see around me, unfortunately.

Honeybee shortage threatens fruit and vegetable producers in Japan

I had heard about this problem earlier, and it sounded much more acute the first time I read about it. It is a very real problem which probably has its roots in social trends. It doesn't seem that market forces are enough to encourage people to enter certain areas of labor. The media is full of stories about people who have lost their jobs because of the current economic condition, but at the same time there are whole areas of the economy that are begging for workers. One of those areas is agriculture.

JA was anticipating people would want to become farmers in this economic climate, but they are as yet underwhelmed. A bus company in Kyushu advertised for drivers, who they would train and employ, but no one showed up. While at the same time a small municipality advertised for 5 public servant posts, and got over 900 applications.

People seem to want to avoid "three K" jobs, kitsui, kitanai, kiken, or tiring, dirty, and dangerous. The bee shortage seems to be a similar problem

The honeybee shortage is attributable to a sharp decrease in the number of those kept by beekeepers.

I just don't think the Japanese population is hungry enough yet. Look how much of what they have they waste.



Honeybee shortage threatens fruit and vegetable producers in Japan

Korean firms head to Japan food expo - INSIDE JoongAng Daily

This article says that last year Japan bought 33 percent of Korean farm goods, fisheries, and food.

This food expo is the Japan Foodex 2009, and is held in Chiba.

Local firms head to Japan food expo - INSIDE JoongAng Daily

"Aji to Kokoro" is one great company

My family orders some items from this company from time to time, and I recommend it highly. You can get basic necessities like soy sauce, miso, and dashi in addition to a ton of other basics. The products are great quality. The staff at Aji to Kokoro is friendly, and the products come nearly as quickly as if you had bought them yourself at a supermarket. We ordered some things yesterday afternoon, and they were delivered at around 10 am this morning. There is also a beautifully hand written, yes, hand penned letter in the box saying thank you for buying and some seasonal message.

This is a company I would recommend to anyone living in Japan.
おいしいものい〜っぱいの白だし屋さん【味とこころ】

Japan loves wasting food | The Japan Times Online

This is staggering. I had no idea of the waste. I always thought Japan was rather frugal.

Japan's agricultural ministry estimates that 23 million tons of food was discarded in 2007, about ¥11 trillion worth, which is the monetary equivalent of Japan's annual agricultural output. Moreover, it cost ¥2 trillion to process that waste.

In Tokyo alone, food accounts for 30 percent of all household waste. That's about 6,000 tons a day, which is enough to keep 4.5 million starving people alive for a day.

Japan's 40-percent food self-sufficiency rate is the lowest of all G7 countries, which means the bulk of Japan's food supply is imported. And yet a third of that food ends up in the garbage.

Japanese restaurants throw away 31 percent of the food they prepare.

I don't know the statistics on other countries, but this is a shock. I grew up learning to clean my plate, and I still do. My whole family does, but we are also very choosie about what we eat. We choose to buy food without additives, without animal products in them, without sugar, and as much as possible, locally grown. That limits what we can get pretty much, and we have similar standards when we eat out. We don't waste much of that.

The scale of the waste is appalling.
Japan loves wasting food | The Japan Times Online

Positive Economic News

I'm so tired of the doom and gloom, fear mongering media! Good stuff is happening! Get out there and be happy, dammit!
Positive Economic News

Panel says meat from cloned animals safe : National : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)

Safe to eat dead, cloned animals says "a government panel." Forgive me if I give this a pass, way ahead of bee larvae or even mozuku. I think the government panel should go right ahead and indulge themselves.

The language is even a little scary, "meat from cloned cattle and pigs is as safe as that from animals born through conventional reproduction techniques." My guess is that conventional reproduction techniques don't include anything so low-tech as actual mating.
Panel says meat from cloned animals safe : National : DAILY YOMIURI ONLINE (The Daily Yomiuri)

Hokkaido city grows hemp to promote economic development › Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion

A great place to start!

Hokkaido city grows hemp to promote economic development › Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion

More shock media: Japan's Economy Shrinks...

Sorry, not helpful at all without some context. Bloomberg.com's headline on this is just a sample of the fear mongering that is out there, and it is just not helpful at all. Here is some context.

Japan's GDP for 2007 as listed by the World Bank was 4,376,705 million dollars, number 2 in the world after the US and Eurozone. If we take those figures and say the GDP has fallen 12.7% from there, since I didn't see 2008's numbers, that means that this year's GDP will be something like 3,820,863.4 million dollars. That would mean that Japan would still be number 2 in the world according to the 2007 figures, ahead of Germany with 3,297,233 mil. dollars in 2007. It means that in the biggest economic bust in decades, the country is still pumping out products and services to the tune of 3,820,863.4 million dollars.

If you want to see some of the bright points of this current decline, give a look at this,
'Liar's Poker' Author Sees Upside To Market Crash.
Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

Going green in India, and hopefully in Japan someday

Yesterday I turned in my 水稲生産計画書or something to that effect to the farming cooperative, which shows how much of what and where I plan to grow in my rice fields this year. There are several columns, the main two of which show what you will grow in the winter and one what you will grow in the summer. I had entered that I am growing wheat now, and that I intend to grow rice in the summer. The gentleman who accepted my form gently led me to another room and told me that it was physically impossible to do both. I disagreed and told him how I would plant rice under the ripening wheat, which would keep the other weeds at bay as the rice germinated, and then would flood the fields after the wheat was harvested. Though he was not convinced that such a system was practical, he let that go and suggested that I start by using herbicides. He suggested that in his experience that he has never seen such a scheme work, and that using herbicides was the only way I would see a crop of rice. He also suggested that modern Japanese herbicides were in no way harmful. I assured him that I would be successful in growing rice without chemies because others have before me, in fact the whole country did before WWII.

Then I read articles like the one attached, and I feel vindicated.

Seventynine-year-old Balwant Singh of Khanora village is one of the first farmers in Patiala district to opt for organic farming. "People try to discourage you but you have to override this negativity to start off on the road to self-discovery," he says, adding he grows organic produce on six acres.

A fine article describing the struggles of the Punjabi farmers to start growing organic.

The Tribune - Magazine section - Saturday Extra

Canada declares Food Freedom Day

Food Freedom day is the day on which the average Canadian disposable income (income after taxes) earned by this date is sufficient to pay for him or her pay their food bill for the year of 2009. That is nine days later than in 2008 for Canada, and about 11.7% of the year. According to the article, Japan spends 35.7% more. That would mean that we will reach Food Freedom Day here on June 24. That's much later in the year than I could have imagined.
canadiancattlemen.ca - Cattlemen magazine is Canada��s publication and web site for cattle farmers. - Cattlemen magazine is Canada��s publication and web site for cattle farmers. - 2/12/2009

Sustainability and Self-Sufficiency in Japan | Japan -- Business People Technology | www.japaninc.com

Some great perspective on the myth that Japan has generates 40% of its food supply. Not even close, but it also highlights ways to decrease the size of the "footprint."

Sustainability and Self-Sufficiency in Japan | Japan -- Business People Technology | www.japaninc.com

Japan struggles to boost homegrown food › Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion

A good article about a way of thinking that could move Japan in healthy directions as far as their consumption is concerned.

Japan struggles to boost homegrown food › Japan Today: Japan News and Discussion

december fields

december fields
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a view of the fields from the roadside. You may be able to see some green mixed in with the dried out grass. Some of it is wheat, and some of it is other.

december wheat

december wheat
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a view of the wheat sprouting in our rice field. It looks really heathy and lush in this spot, but in others there isn't that much growth. I'm not sure why.

1% Increase in Local Food Self-Sufficiency Would Bring 19 Billion Yen Annual Gain | Japan for Sustainability

1% Increase in Local Food Self-Sufficiency Would Bring 19 Billion Yen Annual Gain | Japan for Sustainability

An increase of sustainability sounds great, but if it comes through a greater dosing of the earth with petroleum or splicing in genes from somewhere, I'd say we should rely on the declining birthrate to lower population. That should bring about the same effect.

rain after seeding

Today and yesterday we have had some rain, so the seeds aren't going to get dried out.

wheat planted

Yesterday I got the fields all ready and the wheat all planted. The field was mostly covered in grass, unfortunately not rice stubble as was planned, so I had to cut the grass and move it off the field. My children and I broadcast the seed by hand and then covered it with the grass that we had moved off to the margins of the field.

We planted "Ayahikari" variety wheat, with 30 kilograms of seed for all four fields with the following amounts for each field, moving downhill. 7.8 kilos, 9.5, 9.5, and 3.2.

The most significant threat to the crop will come from wild pigs who may gobble up the seed before it sprouts. Fungus and other disease may be a problem, but nothing really compared to the pig issue.

cut and stack grass

Spent 3 hours in the rice fields today, cutting grass and stacking it. Found that since the grass is all laying one direction you can roll it into a pile neatly at the end of the field. Works great.

Tomorrow some of the guys are coming around with the Biodynamic preparations. I think they will use "500," which is a concoction of cow manure that has been placed in a cow horn and left by the bank of a river over the winter. There is so little of the substance used that if there is any effect, it is the positive ministrations applied to the field rather any results any of the substances may have.

wheat plant

wheat plant
Originally uploaded by touzanka

We are getting around to planting wheat. We broadcast the wheat sead and cut the weeds on top of them. The weed cover was so thick that we moved most of it off to the sides. This was probably a mistake, and will first cut and remove weeds, broadcast the seed, and then cover the seed with enough grass to discourage birds.

Masanobu Fukuoka moves on

Masanobu Fukuoka, author of "The One Straw Revolution," the book that I would rank as the most influential book of the 21st century (because it is my ranking and a book I didn`t meet until recently), moved on Saturday.

Thanks for the inspiration, Masanobu!

Japan: Government plans low-cost rice straw to biofuel production process

Kind of an interesting idea, but the idea that straw would be free is kind of strange. The only reason there is so much straw to begin with is that Japanese agriculture is so petroleum-dependent in the first place. No one has to worry about returning the straw nutrients to the soil, because petroleum-based fertilizers will keep the system in balance. There is no way that, given current farming practice, there would be anything like a sustainable volume of biofuel. There would instead be a continuous drain of nutrients from the soil that would eventually lead to sterile farm land.

Why don't they work instead on ending their dependence on oil?

Automotive World - Japan: Government plans low-cost rice straw to biofuel production process

tractor

Although I plan to plant rice without cultivation, I was offered a small tractor, a "kounki" (耕うン機）in Japanese. It isn't a riding tractor, but one you walk behind. One of the reasons that I am going to plant without cultivation, aside from Fukuoka's proscription, is that I don't have enough money to buy farm equipment. Since I got this one for free, I gratefully accepted it. One of the farmers I'm learning from, a student of Fukuoka's for some years, cultivates to a very shallow depth, and then plants. He does it so he can cover over the seeds better than just using straw, because he has a problem with birds eating his seeds. I may try one field cultivated, and the other one not and see how it goes, especially since this year I won't have the advantage of being able to cover the seeds with wheat straw since this is my first year of planting.

The kounki that I got is also nice because it's diesel, so if petroleum goes the way of the dodo or just gets too expensive to use, I may be able to switch to biodiesel.

New Year's blessing for the paddies

We're off to the local shrine to get our blessings for the year and to have a little New Year's ceremony of our own at the paddies that are right next door to the shrine.

We'll sprinkle a little sake on the fields and say a few words to the local gods.

grass burning and clover seeding

This weekend was rainy and cool, but I got some work done in the fields. After having cut down the weeds in the fields, all except that in close proximity to hornet nests, I burned off the worst of the dried grass. It was so thick in places that clover seeds would never get to the ground to germinate. Then I planted clover seeds. I had 5 liters of seed and I planted about one liter per half tan.

I may go back and cut the space between the paddies. It has started to grow back, and the kudzu is in need of being knocked back again.

cosmos to the East

cosmos1
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a photo of some nice farmer's field where he planted around an acre and a half of cosmos flowers. Beautiful sight!

paddy view

paddie view
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is a view of our paddies from a higher vantage point. You can't really see the bottom two, because of the slope.

tall grass

tall grass
Originally uploaded by touzanka

This is the grass, partially cut, on the southern-most of our three rice paddies. This was the easiest of the three to cut, because most of the plants were relatively low. The other two were covered in similar species but with much of it over two meters in height. The middle paddy also had a hornet nest. I cut around it so as to avoid having to kill all of them. I felt bad cutting all this. Lots of bugs and frogs had their homes there. I hope their offspring will find the new look appealing

Bicycle helmet laws

It looks like Kyoto is coming out with the first bicycle helmet law in the country. They will make it mandatory for children who are riding with an adult in a child seat on the bicycle to wear a helmet. The local government is also encouraging bicycle sellers to emphasize safety and periodic safety checks at point of purchase. The goal, according to the NHK radio news this morning, is to make cycling safer. There are arguments for and against helmets for cyclists, just as there are arguments over helmets for motorcyclists. I have seen no conclusive evidence that wearing helmets is safer than no helmet, and I'm in favor of keeping the lawmakers out of our lives as much as possible.

If Kyoto really wants to make the place safer for people, they should make sure that cyclists have a safe place to ride, pedestrians a safe place to walk, and automobiles a safe place to drive. As it stands, in the downtown areas cars have huge amounts of space for their use only, and pedestrians and cyclists are forced to share the same crowded spaces. In many of the areas that tourists frequent, everyone shares the same space. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

Lots going on out there!

Wow! There's lots going on out there in the world of agriculture as the Japanese citizen watches its agri-cultural wither and be prepared to be sold off to the highest bidder. Two great sites that I happened on today. One is the Land Stewardship Project. They have a useful podcast, too.

The second site is one much closer to home, Shinji Shumeikai. This organizations headquarters are in Shiga Prefecture, just west over the mountains from here. Sounds like a must-visit spot. Their statement on the environment at their web site says:

The greatest expression of Shumei's deep concern for the health of our Earth is its commitment to the practice of the Natural Agriculture method of growing food, a method that emphasizes the integrity of nature and the purity of soil, water, and air.

They have also made a partnership with The Rodale Institute to cooperate in developing natural farming practices.

Interview with Japanese farmers' and consumers' cooperatives representatives - Rural America / In Motion Magazine

Interview with Japanese farmers' and consumers' cooperatives representatives - Rural America / In Motion Magazine

Good interview that details some of the major farming issues in Japan.

Ground Breaking Ceremony

alter w:offernings
Originally uploaded by touzanka

The bank want us to take out insurance on our house and by health so that in the event of disastrous event, they will still get their money. We went to a higher authority yesterday to insure us against bad things, but to also confirm that good things come our way.

We conducted the ground breaking ceremony yesterday for the construction of our house. The ceremony is called a "Jichinsai" in Japanese, and it entails the fashioning of a mound of earth, which represents the plot of land to be built on and farmed, and a shrine alter. On our alter we placed salt, sake, rice, konbu, vegetables, fruits, and squid. We asked a Shinto priest to come and officiate. He came and invoked the appropriate gods, after which he blessed the four corners of the property with prayers and salt. Then at the mound with the bamboo stalk the property developer that we are consulting with about the house symbolically cleared the land by chopping the bamboo stalk with a wooden scythe. Then I symbolically prepared the land for planting by striking the mound three times with a wooden hoe. Finally the priest asked the gods to protect the property and family from pests, natural disaster, accident and disease, and to bless the people with happiness and prosperity.

It was a good investment in our property, if not only for the spiritual assurance to us that we are at least covered by the local deities.

mound

mound
Originally uploaded by touzanka

How To Build a Chicken Coop from Lightweight Cattle Panels

I'm thinking of raising a few chickens when I get some space, but I don't have any experience, so I've been looking around at how to house them. There are several homes in our area with chickens, and their coops/tractors/arks, whatever you want to call them look interesting, but this seemed like a simple, interesting design.
Hoop Coops: How To Build a Chicken Coop from Lightweight Cattle Panels

The One-Straw Revolution

Yesterday I got a copy of Fukuoka Masanobu's The One-Straw Revolution. I haven't been able to put it down.

Fukuoka is a farmer and an agricultural guru of sorts. He is well known to people interested in natural farming, and has pioneered some revolutionary ideas in permaculture. As a young man he was employed as a scientist, and seemed to be enjoying his life when he contracted pneumonia. After a miserable stay in a hospital, where he contemplated his own mortality, he became depressed. He finally gave up his old life for the life of a farmer.

You can find out more about his life and farming philosophy at The Fukuoka Farming website. Rarely an idea or theory fully captures my attention, but when it does, it is usually from a book. My guess is that this will be one such book.

Biofuels News, Japan jumps on the bioethanol bandwagon

Looks like Japan is going to a variety of high-yield rice in order to produce ethanol. There are loads of rice paddies out there that are being neglected because rice-for-food production is becoming a losing proposition. I hope this is good for the farmers. I know there are problems, like jerking up the cost of food, but if farming something becomes more valuable, then farmers and their land will also be more valuable.
Biofuels News (Green Portal)

Rice plants appear

On May 5th, my farming buddy and I went out to visit Mr. Kobayashi's, our farming teacher, for some tips on planting our rice crop. Until that day, I wasn't really sure that we would actually get anything in the ground. After a few pointers and getting Mr. K's seeds in the ground, we set off for our plot with our seeds to plant what we could with what was left of the day. As of this writing, sprouts have appeared on our plot.

It had been very difficult to find seed. We had been searching for weeks, and had come up empty handed. JA, the farming cooperative told us that they just don't sell rikutou seeds, ever. I found some on the Internet, but wasn't sure how much to buy to cover our plot. My feeling about why this is true is that there is enough suitou being planted to meet demand, and that most people do not want to eat rikutou, which doesn't taste as good as suitou. As it turned out, Mr Kobayashi had some seed left over after planting his fields, and he gave it to us. We had our seeds.

Planting rice by hand is hard work. I had an experience with planting some paddy rice the week before we planted our field rice (I had helped another person plant their organic rice paddy), and both are difficult, but I found that not having to slip and slide though knee-deep mud and fend off leeches while slamming seedlings in the sludge was tremendous. Mr. Kobayashi's plot was tilled in a rough kid of way, with most of the other plants still intact, but leaving a little loose soil to plant seeds in. The planter takes five to ten germinated rice seeds in the fingers, sticks them in the soil, and then covers them with a 3 centimeter layer of soil, then moves on to the next spot. I found that planting two or three rows at once is more efficient, because there is less leg movement and one bend takes the place of three, as does grabbing seeds from the container. The three of us planted an ittan area in about three hours.

We planted Mr. Kobayashi's plot in two varieties of rice. One was suitou seeds and the other was rikutou seeds. The suitou seeds are available anywhere, and the rikutou seeds were from his harvest last year. It hadn't even occurred to me that one could plant suitou in a field instead of a paddy. Mr. Kobayashi explained that it was possible, and the resulting rice may be a hybrid variety, although in an article that I read later on rice flowering, the varieties bloom at different times of the day, so that cross pollination may be unlikely.

After lunch we returned to our plot and planted ours in the same mixture of suitou and rikutou. Our field was much more completely cultivated, with very few weeds remaining. It was easier to plant, but I am doubtful about how useful it is to plow and weed the plot so completely. In fact, I will experiment at my home with a variety of rice growing environments, unplowed.

On May 15, we planted more seed, a mochi variety of rikutou. The seeds came from a helpful seed store in Kameyama. They ordered the seed for us and had it in our hands within a week. Thus we have three varieties of rice in our field.

Today the suitou rice has sprouted. Yesterday there was a pretty heavy rain, and I was concerned that our seed may have been exposed, but it was unscathed. The pictures included are those of our whole plot, and the suitou sprouts this morning.