Rice Harvesting Season

Golden rice paddies and rice harvesting is distinctive autumn scenery in Uonuma. From the mid-September to early October, farmers work busily to harvest their rice, completing one rice paddies after another. The golden landscape is gradually turned to right brown.

Most farmers today use special machines called "combine" to reap and thresh rice immediately and dry rice with a special drying machine in a few hours. This is the typical harvesting scene.

a combine harvester doesn't need lots of human power

Jiyujin's staff, however, do not use such machines. We've been working with farmers and trying farming in a more traditional and natural way. We reap rice with old-fashioned machines called "binder," which are used to reap rice and make sheaves at one time, and hung the sheaves under the sun.

a binder needs much energy compared to a combine

Like car driving, "combines" doesn't need much human power. "Binders," on the other hand, should be carried and operated by hand. Operating binders looks easy and efficient compared to reaping and bundling rice by hand, but the operation in reality requires much energy and is as tough as hand work for us young girls!!

To be continued...

Weeding

The rice is growing in Jiyuden, where barnyard grass too is growing rapidly.

Weeding has become our routine now. We go into the rice field and weed by hand.

The work is progressing slowly but steadily.

The ridges are filled with barnyard grass

In spring, we got 15 mallards, helpful partners for weeding in our weed-killer-free rice field.
Mallards eat vermin and get the water muddy, for weeds not to grow rapidly.

But 2 mallards died soon after they flew into the rice field, and some escaped, some escaped again, and the number has reduced to zero the other day.. (We are still in search of them)

Runaway mallards

We will continue weeding until mid-August.

Rice Planting

We planted rice in our rice-field "Jiyu-den".

In recent years, we've been trying to grow organic rice by ourselves.
The farming is basically carried out in traditional agricultural ways, such as planting rice by hand, removing weeds without agrichemicals, drying harvested rice under the sun.

The first step of planting rice is to set the field ready for farming.
Plowing makes the soil soft and easy to absorb water.



Then pour water into the field.

Before planting by hand, we rolled a special tool on the field.
It marks lines on the muddy field and we can plant rice straight following these lines, though it doesn't work when there is too much water...

pastoral landscape..

Planting was very hard without a planting machine.
It took two days to complete two small rice fields, which may be reduced to just 3 to 4 hours with a machine.

Planting 3 to5 lines at one time.

Finally put a net around one of the fields, where we will feed wild ducks.

Straight? Almost.

to be continued...

The Latest Issue

The latest issue of Jiyujin "the Basics of Vegetables" is on sale now.



This is all about vegetables...vegetable menus from Michelin starred restaurants (Les Creations de NARISAWA, Daigo, Eventail, Hishinuma, Hei Fung Terrace, Splendido, Hermitage de Tamura), medical benefits of eating vegetables, home-cultivation of organic vegetables, vegetable Q&As, anti-cancer potency of vegetables, and so on.

What we recommend is "the Perfect Guide of Vegetable Restaurants," which introduces 161 restaurants in Japan, from Hokkaido to Okinawa, with detailed information about vegetables used in dishes and the usage of chemical seasoning. A guide for healthy veggie life!

Last week we visited a backcountry route of Tsugaike to report for the SPRAY, Jiyujin's separate volume.



This area is a part of the Tsugaike nature park, where spread marsh and wild flowers in summer.

The word "marsh" sounds as if the land is rather flat and easy to ski, but this area is in the middle of what we call the Japan's Northern Alps and some parts are very steep and exciting for skiing.




We headed for Tenbo (observation) marsh deep into the nature park.

The snow condition was not perfect. Some parts were very slippery but some parts were not, and even sturdy participants tumbled many times. But such a lot of snow at this time in April was amazing.

A brace of gouse!

Reported by Hirasawa

Spring News

It's been getting wamer and wamer these days.

Fukinoto

Spring vegetables and flowers are shooting up.
Fukinoto is one of the most popular spring vegetables in Japan.
It is a sort of edible wild plants, which spontaneously appears on fields in spring.
We cook Fukinoto with Miso (soybean paste) or deep-fry and enjoy the spring taste!

Katakuri (left) / Koshinokobaimo (right)

Katakuri is a kind of wild flowers, well known as spring flower in Uonuma region. When snows gone, it comes out through dry grasses with pretty dawncast appearance.

Snow's gone

We didn't have much snowfall this winter.
In January and February, we had almost half the amount of snowfall we usually have.
We've got some snow in late March (and I crashed my car...)
But it's gone now.



Although the mountain peak of Hakkaisan is still snow-capped (it will be white till early summer), the rice paddy below is ready for farming.