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

5/25/2016

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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...

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『潮音』コラム • 5月

5/23/2016

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(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〜♪♪


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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...)


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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

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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!

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潮音コラム

5/20/2016

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“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!
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    Dream Seed Farmers
    夢の種光房

    Rick & Michie labor in love, tending their fields, creating, enjoying, and living on Ajishima, a tiny island off the northeast coast of Japan.


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