Dream Seed Farms - Blog

Dream Seed Farms

【あなた色に、和紙あかり】石恋♡第９回地元愛 - November '16 Workshop

11/13/2016

和紙はふっくら
人生もふっくら
心、ほっこり～

和紙あかりワークショップにご参加くださった皆さま、
心よりありがとうございました！

皆でワイワイ楽しみながら、時に無口になって黙々と集中しながら(笑)
この夢中になれる、無になる時がまたイイ～♪
初めての方も、リピーターの方も、テーマがあったりプレゼントであったり、親子で共同作業であったり、思い思いに和紙を選んで作って頂き、世界にたったひとつの素敵な作品が出来上がりました～♡♡

皆さん、船酔いにも負けずに、はるばる網地島へ足をお運びくださり、本当に有り難いことと言ったら。いつも、明るく楽しく元氣弾ける石恋スタッフさんにも心より感謝なのであります！重ねてありがとうございました！！

今回のテーマは、地元愛ということ。
リックはミシガン州、あたしは岩手県出身ですが、これからずっと網地島(あじしま)で暮らしていくと決めた以上、網地島を地元として愛していきたい♡
地元にあかりを灯していきたい♪♪
そんな想いで達人参加させて頂きました。

『石巻に恋しちゃった♡』１２月１１日まで、様々なプログラムが石巻市内各地で☺好評開催中☺です！！！

　　　　　　　
　　　　　　　以下のいずれかの写真をクリックして頂くと、フォトギャラリーへ移動します↓

　〜追伸〜
年内の和紙あかりワークショップは終了となりましたので、お知らせ致します。
網地島まで足をお運び下さった皆さま、本当にありがとうございました。
２０１７年２月よりワークショップの受付を再開しますので、お気軽にお問い合わせ下さい。それではまた来年も、どうぞよろしくお願い致します。

１１月１４日（月）は満月、スーパームーンです。
和紙あかりに癒されるも良し、月明かりに癒されるも良し、
小春の癒しとエネルギーチャージの宵、オリオン座と共にお過ごし下さい。

『潮音』コラム • 8月 - August's Column

9/7/2016

(English version below)

"If it is to be it is up to me."

イフ・イット・イズ・トゥ・ビー・イット・イズ・アップ・トゥー・ミー

“If it is to be it is up to me.”

When I was in middle school, our school motto was on a big sign which read “if it is to be it is up to me.” I saw it everyday and I am still now realizing how much of an impact it has had on my life. It even impacted my experience learning Japanese. I could not learn Japanese unless I set my mind to making it happen and actually studying as much as I could.

Before I first came to Japan, over twelve years ago, I had never learned any Japanese beyond some food names and maybe a few words from pop culture. I spent several weeks before departing for Japan just learning how to read and write「あいうえお」in hiragana.

So, once I arrived in Iwate, I would teach English during the day, and at night I studied Japanese. I bought all kinds of text books, and even had three different Japanese teachers. On different nights, I would learn hiragana and some simple kanji from one teacher, grammar and writing from another, and conversation from another. The other nights, I would study alone. I did this for many months until it was time to apply for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test), which I did by myself even though the application form was all in kanji.

Boy, was that ever a mistake! Apparently, I signed up for the “Level 1” test, because Level 1 means beginner in America. I was shocked by my mistake and totally unprepared to take the Level 1 test which was actually for those fluent in Japanese, so I just left. I lost all interest and motivation to study, and didn’t pick up a text book for many years.

After I got married and moved back to America I thought I would not need to learn so much Japanese anymore. However, even after we decided to move back to Japan I stubbornly refused to study. Consequently, I struggled a lot on Ajishima and in general when I first arrived on the island.

My inability to communicate with those around me really exacerbated my post-disaster depression. This would last for a couple years until the fateful day my wife saw an advertisement for a free Japanese class for foreigners in Ishinomaki. I was resistant at first, but I thought back to my middle school slogan. I decided to make a small addition: “if it is to be it us up to me to be part of a community.” The choice to act is always our own, but, as I have learned, it is tough to go it alone.

About three years ago I started attending the Tanoshi Nihongo Kyoushitsu (Fun Japanese Class) offered by Kokusai Circle 21. I cannot begin to thank my teachers enough for all their support and encouragement. My Japanese is nowhere near perfect, I couldn’t write this column without their lessons and my wife’s generous input, but because of my teachers I have been able to integrate myself into the Ajishima community. I still smile and nod my head even if I don’t understand people, and I have no idea what to make of the island dialect called “Ajishima-ben.” But, I can have a conversation about most things, and I keep learning something new everyday.

I have benefited so much from my studies, and I have seen how it helps other foreign students integrate into their communities too. If you have the time and passion, I would encourage you, my readers, to reach out to any foreigners in your lives, and help them enroll in Japanese class if they haven’t already. And, if you want to take it a step further, you could volunteer your time as a teacher. The impact you would have would go well beyond your students, and help bring the whole community closer together. Thank you.

『潮音』コラム • 7月 - July's Column

8/10/2016

(English version below)

“網地島の未来を育てましょう！（後編）”

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

Let's Cultivate the Future of Ajishima (pt.3) -- July 16, 2016

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” I was given a small gift by a friend before moving to Ajishima. It is a small framed painting with that quote printed over it. I still have it and look at it everyday. I take inspiration from many people and things in my life, however, this quote is one of the driving forces for me to be here on Ajishima now, working to realize my dreams.

It hasn’t always been easy, though. In last month’s column I ended with the story of the islander who thought the future of Ajishima was dark. I can personally understand how the future may seem bleak and pointless to some. At the height of my depression after the disaster, I lost all hope. I doubted my dreams, and worse, I doubted myself. My dreams seemed too big and impossible. I was afraid to fail, so I protected myself from that failure by never even trying anything to begin with.

There was no magic cure for me. No one single thing or event or person or idea solved my problems. In fact, it was a combination of many things: studying natural farming and Permaculture (PC), making connections with like-minded people, surrounding myself with people who cared for and supported me, and taking the tiniest steps towards realizing my dreams. These things helped me see the light through my darkest times.

My motto now is, "Let's Cultivate the Future of Ajishima!" In order to cultivate the future, we have to understand the past, but act in the present. Action is key. Taking even the smallest of positive actions, like starting a vegetable garden, was helpful in my personal recovery. I also drew inspiration from the three core ideas of Permaculture, which are summarized as “Earth Care, People Care, Fair Share.” As I understand it, this means if we take responsible care of the Earth and our surrounding environment, it can support sustainable human development with enough resources for everyone.

I believe we can apply these core PC ideas to Ajishima and create a model for the rest of Tohoku, Japan and the world. After all, no man is an island, right? This quote about the island goes on to say that if one part of the whole suffers or is hurt, then the whole suffers equally as well. Ajishima cannot thrive without Ishinomaki and the rest of the mainland. Ishinomaki is a part of Tohoku, which cannot thrive without the rest of the country. Japan, a large island nation, cannot thrive without the rest of the world. Indeed, the rest of the world cannot thrive without Japan.

We are all inextricably bound to one another and to everything around us. Every life form is integral to the survival of everything else and to that of our whole world. On Ajishima we need to actively cultivate our future. In my opinion, there are specific choices and actions that we must take to realize our future. We must take responsible care in managing our fields, rice paddies, forests and the ocean around us. We must do no harm. When the land, sea and air around us are healthy and vibrant, we can grow and produce the things we all need to thrive. Ajishima can produce much of the food we need. With proper planning and sustainable methods, we can even become self-sufficient in energy and water. We can also work to responsibly grow the dwindling island population, but only within the limits of what the island can healthfully sustain.

When we take care of the Earth, we can then take care of each other. Ajishima ABE was founded to provide safe and nutritious food to the aging island population. We embraced that as our driving purpose when we took over operations. Of course, we cannot do this entirely by ourselves, so we have discussed several plans to attract like-minded people to help cultivate the island’s future. We plan to host interns (like longer-term volunteers) who would help us farm in the morning, have the afternoon to their own pursuits, and then help with value-added products and even meal preparations in the evening. As we responsibly grow the island population, we can eventually establish a farming cooperative. These are quite common around the country here. It allows members to share not only their knowledge and personal energy, but to share the cost of tools and machinery as well.

The sharing of knowledge is key to our future as well. The specific details of what suitably works in the place you are in are part of the hard won wisdom that comes with age. One way I worked my way out of darkness was by talking with the island elders. I slowly began to understand their perspective of how loosing the youthful generations to jobs and modern conveniences on the mainland caused them to lose hope in the future. Yet, I found hope in their intimate knowledge of this island. For example, Ajishima has a unique climate unlike even the closest part of the mainland. Our planting and harvesting schedules are slightly different because of this. We also have an abundance of flora and fauna that most people do not know about. For example, there is a wealth of medicinal herbs all around the island, but to just go pick and consume random weeds by ourselves could be dangerous.

So, this gives us the opportunity to learn and it gives the elders the opportunity to pass on their knowledge and expertise. I am one of the youngest adults on Ajishima (with only a few kids) and therefore feel both honored and duty-bound to learn as much as possible about my island home from our elders here. If there is one thing I have learned it is this: our Ajishima elders love to talk...especially over tea! Even if I cannot always understand their Ajishima dialect, it brings me pleasure to be able to provide some companionship to them and to hear their stories and to share in their knowledge.

Since “Sharing is Caring,” we also try to reciprocate the sharing of knowledge whenever possible by hosting lectures, workshops and even documentary movie screenings on the island. To wit, on July 23-24 we hosted a workshop on “Non-violent Communication” and “Mindfulness” at the “Shima no Gakkou.” [Note: this column originally came out before the event, so the Japanese is written in the future tense. It was a great event! Michie has since posted about it on Facebook.]

With intentional choices and deliberate cooperation we can understand the past, act in the present, and cultivate the future.

Thank you for your support.

『潮音』コラム • 6月 - June's Column

7/2/2016

(English version below)

“網地島の未来を育てましょう！（中編）”

　４月より石巻日日新聞さんの「潮音」（ちょうおん）というコラム欄を、半年間、月１で担当させて頂いています。リックの担当は、毎月第３土曜日です。今回は第３回目でした。
　雑草と共に育ち続ける、農民リックを今後ともどうぞよろしくお願いします！

Let's Cultivate the Future of Ajishima! (pt.2) -- June 18, 2016

I see gardening, and for that matter, farming, as a great metaphor for my life’s growth. The seed of my future was planted in my dreams as a child. Like a seed, my dream lied dormant until the conditions were finally ideal for it to grow, i.e. joining Ajishima ABE. It took a long time to germinate, and once I came to Ajishima it slowly sprouted. The most difficult part for me came next: weeding! Some weeds are beautiful and can be used to our benefit, but there are invasive weeds too that can smoother out and steal resources from the desired plant.

For me, I realized the only way to grow to my full potential was to weed out the self-destructive habits I had, like spending too much time indoors playing video games alone, drinking in excess, and perpetuating my depression by avoiding my fear of failure by never starting anything in the first place. New weeds can pop up anytime anywhere, but if one can root them out before they get established and before their own seeds spread it is much easier to get them under control. I have the chance now to keep on growing. There are some plants/trees that take years to blossom and bear fruit. I do not know what my life will blossom into in the future, but if it is anything like my childhood dream, I know it will be beautiful.

The only way I know to grow things sustainably and successfully is to tend to the needs of the plants, to cultivate and weed, to give the proper nutrients and encouragement. However, sometimes certain “weeds” or problems arise that are very problematic. These require special tools and techniques to eliminate. Please allow me to give an example.

In one of our many fields, we decided to grow sweet potatoes, which grow quite well on Ajishima. In fact, we grow the most delicious sweet potatoes and make the most delicious dried sweet potatoes in the world on Ajishima! I started to prepare the field with our roto tiller, and I soon realized that 3/4 of the area was nice workable soil but the remaining 1/4 was solid clay, hard as a rock with absolutely no topsoil. It was so inhospitable, not even weeds could grow there. After several passes the roto tiller hardly scratched the surface. Rather than break the machine and break my spirit by forcing the process, I decided to let that small area be for a while so I could think of a solution. In the long run I want to utilize that space, but I had many more fields to prepare this season, so I moved on to the next field. While working elsewhere I was able to meditate on the problem and I came up with a solution. Of course, there is a backstory to how I came up with this solution!

Before my wife and I moved back to Japan, I became interested in natural farming and learned about an idea called Permaculture. Permaculture has its roots in the intimate knowledge our ancestors around the world had of observing nature and then finding ways to work with nature instead of against it. The Japanese concept of Satoyama falls into this category where food crops are planted amongst fruit bearing trees in a way that mimics the functioning of a forest.

Once we moved to Japan, my wife and I attended a year-long monthly class in Azumino, Nagano to study Permaculture. We learned many useful things there. There was a Japanese man named Fukuoka Masanobu-san, whose book “One Straw Revolution” I highly recommend, who popularized a Japanese flavor of Permaculture. The idea of his with the most impact on me was “no till” farming. Basically, you use neither hand tools nor machines to dig up or mix the soil, because that disrupts and kills soil life. You may have immediate success with your crops if you till, but in the long run, the soil is depleted of nutrients, organic matter and biological activity (life) and becomes compacted making it difficult for future crops to get established.

Fukuoka-san’s suggestion for stubbornly hard soil was to sow the seeds of one of the mightiest plants around, the humble but powerful yet delicious daikon radish. Daikon can grow just about anywhere and in less than ideal conditions, and in fact it works like nature’s roto tiller! It can break up hard soil, without mixing it, and in the process loosen it up for future crops. Indeed, when I first came to Japan over ten years ago, I was shocked and impressed by news reports of a mighty daikon that grew up right through an asphalt road!

Permaculture has many insightful points but the two that have become mantras for me are, “The Problem is the Solution,” and “Small, Slow Solutions.” Considering our problematic field and my limited time for each area, I decided to sow some daikon seeds, and to mulch the area with cut weeds. It will take some time, maybe years to build the topsoil in that area, but it takes little effort on my part to toss a handful of daikon seeds and even let wild seeds from the weeds take roots. This is one case where I would invite invasive weeds to grow, as they can do similar work as the daikon. Plus, I can chop and drop the weeds several times a year, and let the daikon seeds fall and another generation break up the soil. Maybe I will get a delicious reward and harvest some daikon, but even if I don’t, the real reward in the future will be healthy, vibrant, loose soil.

While I would prefer not to till, nor even mix the soil with a hoe, we have made a compromise in our attempt to run a successful business as Ajishima ABE. For root crops that benefit from built beds and that must be dug out to harvest, like potatoes and sweet potatoes, we will use a roto tiller to work the earth. The compromise comes from our decision to also utilize the traditional Japanese practice of placing straw under the sweet potato beds and even mixing rice bran into the soil when we prepare it. Both of these will add necessary organic matter and facilitate the spread of beneficial microbes. Recently, we even learned about island traditions of growing sweet potatoes between barley and transplanting the slips (sweet potato sprouts) in the rain, which means no need to water them in! Even as I type this column on a rare day away from the fields, my wife is outside planting slips in the rain. It could be argued who is more clever! But that is an argument I will always lose!

Several years ago, just as I started to recognize my depression and seek ways out of it, I was walking around the island and met an older man toiling away in his garden. We discussed many things and in the end, and maybe to convince myself even more than him, I said, "Ajishima's future is bright." He replied, "Wrong! It is so dark." I can understand why he felt that way. I felt that way before too. However, once I started wholeheartedly working with nature to grow our future, things improved. I know the sun is shining brightly, just like in my childhood dream. That sunlight is what all plants need to survive. Our future is indeed bright, but only if we tend to it and cultivate it. Only then can it thrive. So, now I say, "Let's Cultivate the Future of Ajishima!"

Rice Paddy - Third Time's a Charm • 田んぼを三回目できました！！！

5/25/2016

That little plot of mud in the background is our humble rice paddy. In my hand is a half dozen or so rice sprouts destined for said plot of mud...

The forecast was for rain today, and so I thought it would be my only free time away from ABE and Ajishima Kingdom field work (I still have three huge fields to till and beds to build ahead of our sweet potato planting, but cannot do so in the rain. The rice paddy is basically like my hobby and is officially and distinctly unrelated to our other farming endeavors). So I asked Mr. K if he would be willing to work in the rain to get our rice paddy planted, and he agreed. Fortunately, nary a drop did fall while we labored away!

Mr. K had pulled the weeds from the field a few weeks ago, but they had returned with a vengeance! The first thing we did was remove as many as we could while turning a blind eye to the others we couldn't be bothered to pull. We then noticed that one side was higher than the other, so we proceeded to move several tons of mud and clay slurry to the lower end. After a couple hours of tossing mud pies hither and tither we achieved a relatively level surface in which to plug our little bundles of rice sprouts.

This is a laughably small paddy compared to the ones the professional farmers tend on the mainland. But we are proud to say that in the four years since we started reclaiming this paddy from the wild (it took all winter to prepare for our first spring planting three years ago), we have done all of the work by hand. We used weed whackers and chainsaws to clear the brush and trees around the paddy, but in the paddy itself we have pulled thousands of weeds by hand and occasionally implemented hand tools only to abandon them for our own handy digits.

I went au naturel this year for the first time, with bare feet, and I even shed my gloves before planting. The mud was refreshingly cool and soothing in places and suspiciously warm in others! I have a few scrapes on my feet, but I am no worse for wear. However, I was surely feasted upon by no less than a hundred unseen mud-dwelling beasties with an obscene toe-biting fetish!

I did not have nearly as much free time this year to devote to the paddy preparation as in years past. I am very grateful to Mr. K for all of his efforts to get the paddy and surrounding area ready for me to jump in the mud, plug some sprouts and try my (dirty) hand at taking some selfies. To the uninitiated like me, that was more challenging than actually planting the rice. I won't even show you the many pictures of my hands and elbows obscuring the image of Mr. K bending over for the camera...

『潮音』コラム • ５月

5/23/2016

(English version below)

“網地島の未来を育てましょう！（前編）”

　４月より石巻日日新聞さんの「潮音」（ちょうおん）というコラム欄を、半年間、月１で担当させて頂くことになりました。リックの担当は、毎月第３土曜日です。今回は第２回目でした。農事組合法人エーベ理事となり頑張っている農民リック。温かく見守って下さい！
　天使リックもええけど、夢に向かって邁進する農民リックも、ええべ〜♪♪

Let's Cultivate the Future of Ajishima! (pt.1) -- May 21, 2016

When I was a young child I had a recurring dream: I would wake up on a sunny day and walk outside into a lush green garden full of vegetables and fruit trees, and then I would walk through a clearing and come upon a rice paddy. The sunshine was shimmering on the surface of the water, which rippled in a light breeze, while the rice stalks, heavy with seed, swayed rhythmically. Every time when I would wake up in the morning in the real world, I would have such a feeling of peace and contentment.

I forgot all about this recurring dream until only a few years ago. One striking thing about this dream is that I was born and raised in Michigan, a state known for growing lots of corn. There were no rice paddies near my home and probably none in the whole state. I don’t ever remember seeing an image of a rice paddy, so I am not sure how I even knew what one looked like.

Somehow that dream planted a seed in my mind, but it would take many years to germinate. After my wife and I married we talked about having a guesthouse and lots of gardens to grow delicious vegetables to serve to our guests. It wasn’t until just after the Great Tohoku Disaster that inspiration struck my wife: we should call our personal endeavors “Dream Seed Farms” or「夢の種」= yume no tane.

I had helped my wife’s family plant and harvest rice a few times in Iwate Prefecture, but I really didn’t know much about growing rice. However, one part of my childhood dream started to come true about three years ago. I made friends with two older guys on Ajishima, and we decided to try to grow rice for ourselves. Even though they are Japanese, of the three of us I had the most experience growing rice!

There are rice paddies on Ajishima, but they have not been used for about 45 years. When we started taking care of our first paddy, there were massive trees and thick weed growth all around. We spent many months just cutting trees and clearing weeds, and by the time it was ready to plant our first rice sprouts, which we started ourselves, we had a paddy a little smaller than 100 square meters (approx. 30ftx30ft). We have grown two small crops of rice so far and will plant this year’s later this month. We haven’t harvested much, but what we have harvested we offered to the shrine at the Spring festival. I am very thankful to my friends and our supporters for being able to make this part of my childhood dream come true.

The other part of my dream, the fields of colorful vegetables and magnificent fruit trees, started to come true just this past month. Michie and I became members of a farming enterprise called Ajishima ABE (pronounced /ay-bay/)「農事組合法人網地島エーベ」. Up until now, we have dabbled in growing a few vegetables in our own garden, but now we are doing it on a much larger scale. We are in the process of planting and growing ten kinds of vegetables, and also yuzu (citron, a type of Japanese citrus fruit), on about 1.5 acres of land! Ajishima ABE was created three years ago by a native of Ajishima, however he stepped down and a mutual acquaintance of ours became the new president. Michie and I joined up after that, and we have been working the fields since April. Just in the short time we have been farming, I can already see my dream coming true!

We have a great vision for Ajishima ABE. There is a need for nutritious and delicious food on Ajishima, due to the aging population, including the patients at the island’s hospital, not being able to grow their own food. We can meet those needs and at the same time grow and make many delicious value-added products as island specialties. We envision the "ABE" part of our name to stand for A.gricultural B.ased E.conomy. As farmers we need a place to sell our vegetables, so we are also planning on building a farm stand. It will be open to any islander to sell the vegetables they grow in the own fields along side the ones we grow, in a community market setting. This is one way we can move towards food self sufficiency on Ajishima. We may never reach 100% self-sufficiency, but that is perfectly ok with us, because doing everything by yourself is lonely! Ajishima ABE is not the most interesting brand name, so we considered a brand name that had a more important meaning: 網地島王国 or "Ajishima Kingdom." Our slogan is 「海の幸・山の幸・島の幸」or "Blessings from the sea, mountains and island" and we will showcase all kinds of products (not only food) grown and made on Ajishima.

Ajishima Kingdom comes from a saying the older islanders have about how everything is a little different on Ajishima compared to the rest of the country. Because we are isolated on an island we are like our own little kingdom. But, as I discovered, “no man is an island,” and we actually want to cultivate relationships with other people on and off the island. On that point, we are very interested in collaborating with volunteers with farming knowledge or just an interest to come and help us with the farm work. Additionally, as a start-up company with little or no money, we would like to consider receiving material donations to build our farm stand and our value-added kitchen. I can imagine utilizing two container houses, one for each building, so we can get started right away. We would need other building materials and food production machines/kitchen machines too. If you would like to consider supporting us, please contact us at www.ajishima-oukoku.weebly.com

I mentioned in my previous column, that I became quite depressed after the disaster. There is no one solution to getting better that would work for everyone, but what helped me, in addition to the many supportive people along the way, is getting outside and doing some healthy physical work. When cutting down the trees around our rice paddy, one of my friends said to me "Rick's strength is Ajishima's treasure." To that I would say, "Ajishima's support and sense of community are both my strength and my treasure." Because of this we can also envision inviting depressed people and hikikomori (Japanese shut-ins) to join us on the island and to spend some time in nature healing their hearts, minds and bodies. They can tend the fields with us, grow and eat healthy food, feel a sense of community and heal themselves. (to be continued...)

Washi Akari Lamp Workshop - May 22, 2016 at Ajishima Share House - 2016年5月22日網地島シェアハウスで和紙あかり

5/21/2016

5月22日の教室から写真を見てください！！皆はステキな和紙あかりを作りました。ありがとうございます！！

We were very fortunate today to host a group of six wonderful ladies for a Washi Akari Lamp Making Workshop at the Ajishima Share House. We had two "repeat customers," one was making her second lamp, and the other was on her third! I told them after five lamps, they could become the teacher. Laughs were had all around...

Click on any of the pictures above, or here, for the full gallery from today's workshop.

If you are in Japan and would like to visit Ajishima and make your own lamp, check out the menu below. If you are anywhere else in the world and would like to order a custom made lamp, please contact us for international availability.

Thank you very much for your support!

潮音コラム

5/20/2016

“No man is an island.”

　４月より石巻日日新聞さんの「潮音」というコラム欄を、月１で担当させて頂くことになりました。
リックの担当は、毎月第３土曜日です。こちらが、第１回目。明日、５月２１日発刊の掲載が、第２回目。
“人は一人では生きていけない”
そう、みなさんからの励ましや感想など頂けますと、大変励みになります。
リックは何を思っているのか…何をしてきたのか…何をしたいのか…リックの頭の中…
網地島に暮らすリックの想い、よろしければ覗いて見てみて（聴いて）下さい♪
これから半年間、どうぞよろしくお願い致します！

Washi Akari Lamp Workshop at Ajishima Share House with Ishikoi

3/22/2016

3月20日の教室から写真見てください！！みな、ありがとうございます！！

Please click on any of the pictures above or the following link for the full slideshow of pictures from the most recent Washi Akari workshop.

We are back in business! Earlier this year, around the beginning of February, we harvested a goodly amount of kudzu vines. They have been curing under the eaves of our home in a shady spot since then. Last week I made as many frames as I could, and I set a new personal record of six frames in one day! The frames keep turning out better and better the more I get a feeling for how the vines naturally curve and climb. I try to make each lamp frame from a single vine if possible and let the shape express itself naturally and organically. I think we have found a comfortable shape and design for our workshops: predominately three-legged for balance and strength, with three faces each containing two windows for the guests to adhere their favorite washi. Our custom order frames and the ones I make for sale online and at shops on the mainland can take on wholly different shapes and dimensions as the fancy strikes.

We had ten guests (including two repeat customers) create their very own one-of-a-kind lamps. Two different guests even came the day before (they joined Michie's yoga workshop on the previous day and then stayed the night) and made their own frames from scratch. They chose and cut their own vines and built their frames themselves with a little guidance from me. I stained and sealed the frames for them at night and the next day they joined in with the others to apply their chosen washi. This is the first time we had guests make their own frames and it worked out very well. I became apparent though, that we could probably only accommodate a few people at a time when making frames from scratch as it takes up a lot of space and requires several very specific tools and materials. But, I know we will have great success offering such an option to the most intrepid guests in the future!

We will likely be holding several more workshops this year, until we run out vines again! Check back for announcements of upcoming workshops or contact us here for private workshops (group size minimum and maximum apply, while supplies last).

Thanks for checking out our first lamps of 2016! Let's light up even more!!!

March Washi Akari Workshop is FULL! -石恋♡和紙あかり満席

2/23/2016

石巻に恋しちゃった♡プログラム
　【あなた色に、和紙あかり】３月２０日（日）
　　　　　和紙はふっくら
　　　　　人生もふっくら
　　　　　心、ほっこり〜♡

ご予約くださった皆さま、ありがとうございます！
前日、【癒しの、歩く森の中ヨガ】３月１９日（土）
こちらはまだ余裕がありますので、ピーンときた方はどうぞ♪
お泊まりできる方は、夜にインナービューティーセルフケアエクササイズ
無料体験もできちゃいます！ごゆるりと島時間を満喫してみませんか。

それでは、網地島でお逢いできるのを、楽しみにしております。
　　　　　　　　　　　　−夢の種光房　リック＆みっちィ★
http://ishikoi.com

癒しの、歩く森の中ヨガ and あなた色に、和紙あかり

2/7/2016

Ajishima Share House - Let The Renovations BEGIN!!!

9/12/2015

An old picture of an old house, that will get a new look...

I mentioned in a previous post that we might start renovations at the Ajishima Share House soon. Well, that happened sooner rather than later. The big day came earlier this week, when I had some free time due to some hurricanes blowing through. I would have been working outside otherwise, so this was a nice respite.

The whole house needs serious attention, but we decided the first place to start would be a place that will get some serious use over the years...the toilet! As you will see, the toilet space was seriously cramped, as in I could not even sit down without employing some acrobatics I didn't even know I had in my repertoire!

So...the walls had to go to make it all more comfortably sized. I started by busting out the cupboard.

This appears to be a perfectly normal, albeit old and literally moldy, Japanese style cupboard, but it had to go for one very important reason: the toilet is only accessible through the kitchen! This is one of the most disgusting things I could imagine (up until this point (Spoiler Alert!)), not to mention the fact that our toilet is actually an indoor outhouse. This means it is a pit toilet right next to where food is prepared. To remedy this and to add more floor space, we will wall off the original door and move the entrance to the other room and have it go through the space where the cupboard once was.

Out with the old and in with the...well we don't actually know yet! We have a vision in mind for the renovations but no set plan. We are kind of making it up as we go along, because we never know what we are going to find once we start opening up walls and floors and ceilings and stuff (SPOILER ALERT!!! It's insane what we find!!!)

Before

During

After...we win the lottery!

Yes, that is a urinal on the left. Yesser, it is wrapped in plastic. And yessest, it has tape in the shape of a face on it. Moving on...

Let's see how I smash the walls out...in three videos conveniently presented below...

(Warning: I haven't figured out how to wear my camera and work and not give people epilepsy yet, plus I cannot edit the videos because my computer is not cool enough, so, what you see is what you get!)

This went on for a couple days and I finally got all of those pesky walls down. I haven't taken the final layer of plywood from between the cupboard and the bathroom out yet because that is the only thing keeping the dust cloud in the bathroom and out of the rest of the house.

And to answer your question, yes, that is a piece of plywood over the window. I was afraid I would smash it with my hammer or an errant airborne tile or mortar chip, so I decided to take it out to be safe. So, when I was pulling the window pane out it got stuck and I pulled too hard and it shattered. And the frame broke. And I am sure I cursed a little bit. Go figure! Maybe, I will just wall it in too...not sure yet.

At this point, we are at an impasse and stuck at the "During" phase in the picture above.

This is because of one singular, insanely absurd point. Remember the spoiler alerts from before? Well, the old style of toilets in Japan were just outhouses or pit toilets. Then, at a dark point in human history, someone decided to move the outhouse indoors. It is still a hole in the ground with a seat above it, but now it is enclosed within the living space negating a cold/wet/nighttime walk outside to go to the bathroom. However the smell is atrocious and it permeates every part of the house, not just the bathroom. But that is not even the worst part.

I would expect that the pit toilet would be essentially a concrete cube, six solid sides with a hole on top for a commode (and an access hatch outside for the "honeysucker" truck to remove the...ahem..."honey"). But wow oh wow, was I ever wrong!!! I actually can't see the concrete walls, but because I can see the foundation from outside the house itself and because the "honey" is not flowing over into the street, I can only assume that there are walls of some kind. I have no idea about the floor of the pit toilet and I NEVER EVER EVER want to find out (because it means getting in the pit and spelunking around a bunch of ancient "honey").

So, I have, in a round about way, which includes much speculation and sticking my fingers in my ears while yelling "la, la, la, I can't hear you," accounted for five of the six sides of the "honey" containment unit that is our pit toilet. The absolute shocker on top of all of this so far, is that there actually is nothing on top of any of this at all. That is, there is no cap, cover or upper part of the pit. The bathroom floor is somehow floating over the pit and the side walls of the pit just end, they do not connect to the bathroom floor and therefore do not enclose the pit. So the gases and pure evil from the pit is free to roam the crawl space that runs under the whole house. None of the floors are sealed anywhere in the house which explains why it stinks on the opposite side of the house at all times.

I discovered this when I broke out the earthen walls, only to be smacked in the face by a stench somehow worse than what emanates from the commode itself. The bamboo lattice that supported the earthen walls extended through the plane of the floor and once it was removed there was a huge gap. Only then could I see what hell lay beneath me, and before me.

Now, I have to fix this. We have a few options. As you might have noticed in the pictures above, I left the hideous pink tile floors in place for this reason. If I remove them, there is nothing over the pit at all. Plus, the floors are at different levels. If you count the cupboard space which will become the new entrance, there are five different floor levels here (not to mention three to five different ceiling heights depending on how you crook your neck when you look up!) and there is no easy fix for that.

The two options as we see them now are:

1) Crawl under the house and build up the pit walls with cinder blocks and mortar until it reaches the existing bathroom floor and then seal the crap out of every nook and cranny with silicone caulk and pray I don't asphixiate while I'm down there;

2) Break out and remove the tile floors and then pour a concrete slab over the pit as the pit's ceiling and the new bathroom floor.

The first choice entails leveling out the floors by building the rest up to the height of the highest floor, which means stepping up, and therefore limiting accessibility for the older folks on the island who will make use of the Share House. The second choice involves a skill set that I do not posses, and therefore we would have to hire it out, and there is no funding for such a thing right now, however, we would have a nice level floor throughout the room.

I am not sure of how we will proceed, but I am sure of one thing: whoever built this infernal pit toilet is full of shit!

This is a huge dilemma, but one we will certainly overcome. We made the decision to buy the Share House knowing full well that we would always have a pit toilet, because there is no space for a septic tank as the footprint of the house is basically the same as the shape of the land it sits on and we are walled in on two sides by retaining walls for the neighbors who live uphill and have streets directly on the other two sides. There are commodes that can be retrofitted over pit toilets that have flaps and valves to keep the stench at bay, and we have used them before at other establishments, including restaurants, and they work wonders.

So, at least we know what the future looks like, and more importantly, smells like: it smells like NOTHING! Now it's just a matter of figuring out the next step. I just hope I don't step in anything funky along the way...

Ishikoi Event - Lamp Workshop at Ajishima Share House

9/7/2015

Here are some pictures from our first ever lamp making workshop (first ever workshop, period!) at the Ajishima Share House. Click on any image above to see the full slideshow.

We spent many weeks cleaning and preparing the space, and even had near 40 volunteers over the past couple months stay at and clean the Share House with us. Many thanks to everyone who pitched in so far!

This is the 5th or 6th time, it seems, that we have collaborated with Ishikoi, who puts on such events all around Ishinomaki. Many thanks to the Ishikoi staff, and especially to Toda-san for being our number one supporter!

The lamps turned out beautiful, as usual, and we were extra fortunate to have the vines we use, kudzu, in bloom at this time. The flowers are so fragrant and sweet, and adorning one of our finished lamps with a vine cutting added a certain elegance and charm.

Thank you to all of our students who came from far and wide, and from Ajishima too!!! May your lamps bring light to you and your loved ones!

We are basically done with lamp workshops for this season because we are out of the raw materials (vines) to make the lamp frames. We will likely harvest more this winter once it gets cold enough and the water naturally drains out of the vines. In the meantime, we will be starting renovations on the the Share House soon (maybe tomorrow!) and proceeding little by little, time, energy, volunteer help, weather and funds permitting!!!

Thank you all so very much!

August 31st, 2015

8/31/2015

8月の教室から写真見てください！！　みな、ありがとうございます！！

和紙あかり作りましょう！！　9月6日、網地島で

8/28/2015

Ajishima Park - 網地島公園 Pt. 4 - Pathway

4/9/2015

The five (give or take) stages of making path at Ajishima Park: 1) cut up the sod with my new favorite tool "the mattock!" 2) and then dig up the dirt and move it elsewhere, 3) then bring stone and sand from elsewhere to the path and compact it, 4) then cover it with cardboard, 5) then line it with logs and fill it with wood chips!

Things progressed quickly once I reached a spot where the old path was.

I could skip the back breaking steps 1-3 and go right to the fun stuff, 4-5...

Sod transplant in the foreground and also to the left of the outside curve of the path...

I had been planning this whole process for quite some time. I even thought of the best place to make the wood chips. The center of everything made sense for the chip pile as it would be the most centrally located spot for loading up wheelbarrel-fulls and delivering them to the path. Also, as the chips sit there in a heap, they will start to compost and that will make for an even livelier material to add to the path, as all the little bugs and such will continue to munch on the chips and poop out fertilizer for all the plants and trees to be put in around the path. From this pileof wood chips, nutrients will also leach into the ground below, which will be come the central point of the food forest / forest garden of the park. So the longer it takes me to finish the path, the more the chips decompose and the better the fertilizer they become for the path and the central forest bed. Talk about 'small and slow solutions!'

The cut up sod is great to cover up and fill in the old path (once the stone and sand are removed), and with little more effort than dropping it into place it will repopulate that barren area with lots of luscious green herbage. My new favorite word in Japanese is "shiba fu" (芝生) which means: lawn, turf, sod. It's fun to say even more fun to cut up with my mattock. Shiba-fu. Shiba-fu to you too!

Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse

4/3/2015

We saw the moon rise tonight but couldn't see the eclipse because it was cloudy. However, for one brief moment, a beam of moonlight pierced the clouds and we knew where the moon was and where we were.

I Love Ishikoi - I ♥ 石恋

3/27/2015

We have had a busy last few days, actually a jam packed week full of activities. Mostly, we have been working with Ishinomaki's premier event planning group: Ishikoi (which means I love Ishinomaki!). On the 26th we held a Washi Akari making workshop off the island at a newly rebuilt guest house near Ayukawa. Thirteen students made some awesome lights. Click here or on the picture above for more examples from that workshop.

Then, on the 28th we left the island again to attend an Ishikoi stamp making workshop hosted held by the guy in the picture above, Hideki Konno. I had met him before at several Ishikoi events. He turns out to be a pretty cool guy: he has a laser engraving printer that can turn any image you can draw into a rubber stamp. I made the stamp that you can see at the top of this post. The squiggly line represent the kudzu vines I use to make the lamp frames, plus the three broad leaves that grow at the end of the vines come spring.

Anyway, while our stamps were being engraved/printed we took a tour of Hideki's main business which is a cardboard company. He doesn't make the cardboard himself, but he can make just about anything out of cardboard. In the manufacturing process a lot of tiny scraps o cardboard are cut off and collected in huge garbage bags. He pays to throw them away, so I asked if we could receive some for our composting projects on Ajishima. I had visions of feeding this awesome material to our future worm farms, and for covering up the business we do in our future compost toilets. We talked about all of this and decided that we would tentatively call it the "Unko Project" (unko = poop!) because what started this whole conversation that led to me receiving the scraps was a picture he took of a little unko he made out of some wet cardboard. He pranked a bunch of people with it. I told him I wanted to use his unko to make unko and cover up some other unko. We became fast friends!

So, once we get our home compost center up and running with worms and all, I will post more about the "Unko Project." In the meantime I just want to thank Ishikoi for connecting so many people throughout and around Ishinomaki: I ♥ 石恋

Ajishima Park - 網地島公園 Pt. 2

3/23/2015

This is our rented wood chipper in action. We have been gathering tree branches and bamboo since September of last year, and even some from around our rice fields cut down over a year and a half ago.

I think the Permaculture principle of "small and slow solutions" definitely applies here! It's taken quite a while to gather the resources (mostly what others consider waste and just throw away in the forest) and the chips themselves are quite small! The machine is large and guzzles gasoline, but I have been developing a plan for a couple years now on how to move forward...

But for now, we had a mountain of chip-able stuff to turn into a pile of chips, and only a couple days for chipping.

Most of our branches were gathered from friends and acquaintances around the island. They cut down entire trees and chop the trunks into firewood and leave the rest behind. We offered to clean up the "waste" as they see it, and in the end they get a tidy plot of land, and we get all the chip-able material we can get without having to cut trees down ourselves (mostly).

This reminds me of another principle, and I'm paraphrasing here: utilize the marginal. We are turning other people's discarded stuff into something useful and beneficial: wood into wood chips for our walking path (with stacked functions of tidying up, fertilizing the area around the path, water retention, microorganism haven, etc, etc), tires into a foundation wall for the compost toilet, fishing buoys washed up on shore turned into water tanks for hand washing and irrigation...the list goes on and on.

I am also reminded of my favorite song about there not really being anything such as waste, or something or other like that. This song is totally my mantra, and it runs through my head whenever I happen upon some junk. I sing the chorus once or twice, and voilà: I get an idea or two on how to repurpose it. To the creator of this song, I thank you, and Ajishima Park thanks you!!!

Ajishima Park - 網地島公園 Pt. 3

3/21/2015

Bamboo stakes, found fisherman's rope for a 7 meter compass, and lots of sunshine...now that's how you layout a path...

removing sod and a layer of subsoil from new path

transferring crushed rock from old path to new path

transferring sod and soil to old path

lining with cardboard and anchoring with logs

topping with delicious wood chip sprinkles

adding even more wood chips

and my assistant takes the new path for a test spin

while I keep on laying sod from new path over old path

"There is no such thing as waste, just stuff in the wrong place," as the song from my last post insightfully points out. "Wrong" here implies a judgement call, and since I am in charge (did I mention that I appointed myself Ajishima Park Ranger!?) I decided that those rocks had to go from here to there and some of that dirt had to go from there to here and this here sod needed to be uprooted and transplanted over yonder.

The reason for this labor intensive labor of love is that the old path was dug out and the sod and dirt discarded by the original park builders. I would prefer to create the new path on top of the sod and ring it with logs, but then I would be left with a huge, unsightly dimond-shaped tripping hazard of a path where nothing but the scraggliest of weeds would grow. So, to excavate the new path a bit and transplant the materials is to recognize my favorite Permaculture adage that "the problem is the solution." The problems of the old path are remedied by the making of the new path, and the materials that inhibit growth from the old path can now become the base material for the new path.

I mentioned a plan in an earlier post to supplement our dwindling supply of wood chips. A couple years ago I did up a design, for our own backyard, rife with walking paths, covered in wood chips and ringed with logs to define and contain the path. I then planned to grow shiitake mushrooms in different, fresh logs, and once they stopped producing to use them to replace the logs ringing the path. The old existing logs would have rotted out by then, and all I would need to do to replenish the path's wood chips is kick apart the rotten logs; and then fill in the voids with the spent mushrooms logs. These would add beneficial fungi to the soil and facilitate other beasties in making their homes there. So back to present day: I just took a walk in the forest and noticed many downed trees rotting away. It occured to me that I could utilize those rotting logs, and bust them up and spread the material over the path and it will achieve the same effect as the machine-made wood chips. Another small and slow solution (but...I still want to get a wood chipper, diesel, and harvest inedible seeds from the machilus thunbergii tree, which is plentiful on the island, press them for oil and run the chipper on SVO, but that is another project entirely!!!).

Back at the park, I just have to do 36 more segments to complete the main path...a number I arbitrarily arrived at based on holding my rope compass, taking a step, driving in a stake, repeating and eventually running out of stakes. No science to it, just guessing and doing and hoping I don't mess it up, and at the very least praying I don't get a sliver or poke my eye out with one of those bamboo stakes. Either one would hurt, one probably more than the other. Actually, I got a few slivers, and they did hurt; drew blood actually. So there you go, two more ingredients for a great park: blood and sweat. I am not shedding any tears over the park...yet!!!