Bringing in the Sheaves

Today I had a brand new experience. I harvested rice. I had been looking forward to this day all summer and I wasn't disappointed.

handing out sickles

It all started in May when my friend Tanakasan, a farmer and photographer in southern Tochigi asked me and a lot of other folks to help him plant his rice field. I was out of the country, unfortunately, but for the rice harvest I was free. There was another invitation in the beginning of August and I gladly jumped at the chance to do something new.

I had met Tanakasan through the Noendan, a group of young farmers in Tochigi, looking at new ways to make a living through agriculture. He impressed me with his warm and gentle manner and his curiosity. Also the fact that he was dedicated to pesticide-free farming was very attractive. So this was part of the fruit born from that meeting almost two years ago; a day of harvesting rice by hand.

the rice field

About twenty adults and ten children came to the event. Most were from Tokyo and  a smattering of Tochigi people. Tanakasan provided the tools, the rice field the know-how and the food and drinks. We provided the labor. It was a fair exchange.

a pre-rice sheaf

The harvest started at ten. I put my bike on the train at Utsunomiya and got off at Mamada station at 9:30. I rode past rice fields, over the Omoi River, past more rice fields, plant heads heavy, waiting to be harvested, until I finally reached his home in the little town of  Fujioka machi about twenty minutes later. I registered for my rice and then we left for the rice field to start harvesting.

Harvesting is a two step process: cutting and drying. Cutting is the easy part. Drying is the more difficult.

I mentioned earlier that Tanakasan provided the tools and know-how. Well, he and his dad did. First we learned how to cut the rice plants at the right height. (Not too high). Then we learned how to stack the plants. About three groups of plants are cut and laid on the ground and then two more groups of plants are cut and laid on top of that in an X. This will be bound as a sheave late to be hung to dry on a bamboo rack. Cutting took about an hour and a half to complete. Then it was our first break and treat, lunch.

Lunch was amazing. Tanakasan's mom, along with about three or four others from what I could tell, had made quite a meal for all of us. There was simmered Chinese melon, squash and sweet potatoes simmered in soy sauce, cucumber and eggplant pickles, slightly salted, but still with their vegetable sweetness in the background, inari sushi, sweet deep fried tofu skins stuffed with Tanakasan's rice, three kinds of fish, freshly cooked rice which had been cooked outside over a fire, and finally for dessert, cold pear apples, grapes and figs. Everyone was stuffed after lunch. Many of us probably would have preferred to take a nap to going back to the field, but back to the field we went.

what we gleaned

Round two took more time. We made sheaves and hung them to dry. We tied the bundles with straw which had been wetted and thus was pliable. I was the first one taught how to do this, so I wound up being the instructor for many of the Japanese. The process is quite simple. Take about five strands of straw, wrap them around the bundle and make a half-hitch. Tighten the bundle as much as possible and then bring the ends together, twist them and stuff them behind the half-hitch. It's easy.  It's efficient.  It uses materials at hand. It's ingenious. It's a dying art.

hanging sheaves to dry

After making sheaves we hung them grain side down on the rack. The aim of hanging them this way is for the sugar in the stalk to flow down into the head as it dries giving it more starch and thus more flavor. It took about two and a half hours to bundle and hang the sheaves and then we took about twenty minutes to glean the field. There were a lot of rice strands that had fallen or hadn't been cut lying about so we picked those up and added them to the sheaves. No waste is a virtue.

home grown figs

We returned to the farmhouse, had one more tea and set off for home. The Tokyo people went back home by car. The carless were chauffeured to Nogi station and I set off for Mamada station again on my bike. Back past rice fields, over the river, past people harvesting rice with machines until reaching Mamada. Then the ritual of folding my bike, wrapping my bike, putting it on the elevator, waiting on the platform for the train, tying it to a bar in the train and sitting down, sure of the fact that no one would ever touch it, then reversing the process after getting to Utsunomiya.

What a great day it was. Useful work. Mixing with nice people. Learning new skills. A great day indeed. I am a lucky guy.

Kasama

On Friday I woke up early from jet lag. Not wanting to waste my morning I decided I would got pottering somewhere outside of Tochigi Prefecture for a change. It was a beautiful morning. Not too muggy. You could tell that the worst of summer was behind us. Past those days when you didn't even want to go outside because of the heat and humidity. No, Saturday was a nice reprieve.

Threw the bike on the train and set off for the neighboring prefecture of Ibaraki. Prefectures in Japan are about the size of counties in the States, so going from one to another is not far geographically, but it can be psychologically. I shook off my cabin fever and satisfied my wanderlust by getting MOVING.

First it was off to Oyama, my transfer point about 40 minutes south of Utsunomiya. I got on the Mito Line for the first time, not really knowing what to expect. It was a very local line. About four cars, a few passengers of  mainly old and young, but not too many middle aged folks and no reader board to look at for station names. I had to listen for them over the PA system.

The train didn't take off immediately. Local lines never do. There was about a fifteen minute wait and then we set off. Oyama is near the Ibaraki border so it wasn't long before our westbound train crossed the border into Ibaraki. I passed through Chikusei, famous for its pear apples, known as "nashi" in Japan. They are at their best in September and October, with two favorites, the Hosui and the Nijuseiki.
But today wasn't for Chikusei, it was for Kasama.

On and on the train went. Through rural countryside of ripening rice fields, small sleepy villages, bamboo groves, woods and low mountains. Many of the stations along the way were unmanned. Paying or swiping one's train pass was on the honor system, a system that is scrupulously upheld here.

After an hour or so I arrived in Kasama. The area around the station was not particularly busy. I put my bike together in front of the station and was off to the old part of town. Town development in rural areas takes on a common pattern in Japan. Usually the stations in older towns and local cities are located far from the original town centers. This was done for safety reasons as in the days of steam locomotives, sparks from the train could start fires in densely packed housing areas. My guess is that Kasama is an example of such development as its station is far from the more interesting old core.

The old part of town is about a ten minute ride from the station, fifteen if you're not sure where you're going. The central part of the city has an eclectic mix of many old buildings, some of them from the feudal era such as the shrine and some from the early modern and modern periods. A lot  of these older buildings now house shops and restaurants. Antiques and accessories seem to be big businesses here.

Kasama was a castle town at one time and though it no longer has a castle, it does have many potters. In feudal times potters provided tea-ware for the nobility. Each area had its own local pottery aesthetic determined by the color of the clay, types of kilns used and tastes of the local lord and other tea ceremony aficionados.  These days of course their target audience is the tourist. Kasama-ware is light gray and very restrained as befits a style originally meant for tea ceremony culture. There are many pottery galleries in town.

I had lunch at R Hana, a cafe and accessory shop, and then walked around the central business district taking in the huge shrine to the fox god, the god of business here in Japan. The shrine is home to many homeless cats who approached me with hungry meows. In a corner of the wall a mother cat was nursing kittens. Japanese aren't very good at having animals spayed and the results can be heartbreaking.

After walking about a bit, I rode back to the station, folded my bike, threw it on the train again and headed back home. I found Kasama to be a great little town, worthy of another visit. If you have friends or family who like pottery, antiques and old buildings, Kasama is worth a stop. I also found out that they have rental cycles so that will be an option when I go again with