Today's stuff

Collected some more Tsubaki seeds while taking a walk
Peeled, and hung fresh persimmons to make dried persimmon
Went on barefood running and ran about 14km along the beach
Strethed on the porch
Made a pair of pants
Made 14 clay figurings for Kuzuhara-san
Looked for road bikes for triathlons

Lots more to do tomorrow...

oh yes

i went to this cave which is about 30min away from my dads cabin
to get there you'd have to climb down the steep hill using a rope and its pretty tiring
but there is this great water fall and a cave which make it worthy.

i jumped into the water (it was freezing cold!), stretched and meditated naked in the sun and was great!: its isolated enough so you dont have to worry about people bothering you.

i think i will go there regularly from now on.

what ive been doing/working on

harvesting, drying and husking the sorghum, sesame seeds and perilla that i grew

collecting Tsubaki, or Camellia japonica seeds in order to extract oil from them
they are tiny so i need so much of them. i go collect them right after i get up in the morning. people in japan used to use the oil as an antirust.

making a natural antiseptic/ waterproof/ dye out of green persimmons

eating persimmons and fresh figs off the trees

training for triathlons and stretching

taking enemas

i think thats pretty much it

rice harvest

so i harvested my rice with a bunch of friends' help at the end of September. we did it all by hand. we hang the rice to dry, husked it and hulled it after the harvest.
the yield was 150kg, or 330pounds, which is less than half the amount of conventional farming. weeds sort of took away a lot of nutrients the rice wanted, despite all the effort my dad and i put into to weed the rice paddy...

i didnt know how labor intensive organic&old style rice farming was, or how cheap rice is being sold in the market, no matter how the rice is produced. i dont know how much exactly would be reasonable/fair as a price of rice but i think the current price of rice is way too cheap. it is the same as that of 30 years ago! while all the other stuff price has gone up. how do you expect farmers to make a living with rice, and other veggies so cheap?

i dont know.
anyway im glad that i got to provide the rice i grew to my family at least for the year.

how lucky

i went see Agnes Chan, a Hong Kong born singer and a UNICEF ambassador speak tonight.
She talked about what she saw/did whille working to help sick, poor people in developing countries like Iraq, Thailand, and Africa, and how that helped change her view of life.

The lecture made me realize how lucky I am, to have a safe, clean place to sleep, food to eat, a healthy body, a great family and friends who care about me...
I think it's my responsibility to appreciate all this and be happy& thankful each day.
It's wrong for such a lucky person to complain about her life or to feel shitty about it.