Seeds

Ordered organic seeds on the internet.
swiss chard, pumpkin, beets, and carrots.
(the kinds I like, and what local people don't usually grow)
Hope to have them and plant them soon.

oh the potatoes I planted a few weeks ago finally sprouted.
and the kale is trying their best...its still tiny

A quote

Live as if you were to die tomorrow,
Learn as if you were to live forever.
Gandhi.

I like this.

Blessings from the nature

you get so much from the forest in spring. ive been going foraging with my dad to pick or dig wild edibles. i dont know if any of these are familiar in your place but ill list some names of the plants. young stems of udo, or aralia cordata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aralia_cordata), tara-no-me, or shoots of Aralia elata (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aralia_elata),
warabi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddlehead), zenmai (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zenmai), yomogi/mugwort, etc.
they might seem too wired to you but they are pretty good when processed/cooked in certain ways.
i especially like yomogi leaves. it has great smell and is good for you. im drying them to make tea and bug repellent.

cherry blossoms were blooming, so were wild strawberry bushes. they are everywhere in the woods. im excited to pick berries in june. i want to try making jam and wine out of it.

i became friends with this lady Amano-san, 74. she was very ill when she was young. western medicine couldnt cure her illness so she looked for solutions and learned alternative medicines. she leaned from George Oosawa, or Nyoichi Sakurazawa, the father of macrobiotics (a diet based on seasonal organic whole foods, with no animal products). she knows so much about medicinal power of wild herbs and plants, as well as the benefits of macrobiotic lifestyle, and leads her life upon them. it is kind of rare to meet people like her so im glad to have met her.

there may be more to report on but this is all for now.

Rice Farming

Im working on organic rice farming with the help of Mr. and Ms Ooyama. they let me use one of their rice fields and work with them. we planted rice on nursery soil to make seedling a few weeks ago. it was about 3inches tall when I saw it a few days ago. isnt that amazing that dozens of rice grains will get produced from one tiny grain of rice?

we also add some fallen leaves into the rice field as fertilizer and turned over the mud. it was so tough to walk in the mud, the rice field. i fell down many times not being able to pull my legs from the mud. i got tired though i didnt do much work...sorry ooyama-san.

Mr. ooyama said it would be good to add cow manure or poultry manure but he wouldnt because those on sale are from animals that were fed imported GMO feed and he doesnt think its a good idea. Im glad my teacher, ooyama-san is an aware person.
he is 80 years old and his wife is 75. but they only look as they are in their 60s or something. they work outside growing rice and veggies, eat their organic brown rice and vegetables, so they are very fit. they are pretty much "vegan", though they havent heard of such a term ever.

Election

i worked for a friend who wanted to make Sado a better place in the political world by becoming a member of the city council.
she is from Tokyo, lived and worked in other countries, and is so aware of things like environmental issues, growing need for food/ agriculture in the world, education for minority people, social welfare, etc. i really wanted her to win the election but she lost. maybe she was too progressive for the local people. its likely that she will run for the next election but its gonna be in 4 years. i get sad and mad when i think about the stupid decisions those councils would make within those 4 years.