Hello. I'm Sasaka, a staff member at Shizuku.
Kamiyama is still in the middle of the rainy season, with unstable weather continuing. There are days when I regret hanging out laundry when thunder rumbles in the evening (laughs).
During this period of unstable weather, our biggest mission awaited us. It was to complete rice planting by June at all costs!
The new SHIZQ STORE offers an outstanding view, and the surrounding rice fields have long since finished planting, so we can clearly see the rice growing steadily.
The rice seedlings arrived at the beginning of June, and although everyone was eager to plant them quickly and set a date, it was canceled due to bad weather.
After that, days passed when we couldn't get our schedules to align, so we decided to at least do the weeding!
The rice field was plowed once by a neighbor with a tractor in April, chicken manure was spread, and then it was left untouched. In less than three months, the weeds had grown significantly.
Overgrown rice field weeds
Just when I thought we'd have to patiently hand-weed again, some fantastic news arrived!
It turned out that the JA in Kamiyama Town had started a service in April to rent out self-propelled mowers that also pulverize the weeds.
It's a machine called a flail mower, and actually, last year when I went for agricultural training in the neighboring town of Kamikatsu, the organic farmer there was using this very machine. It doesn't just cut weeds; it also finely pulverizes them, and I heard that it can even be used as compost, so it was a machine I'd admired!
My dream flail mower
There was no way we couldn't use this, so we immediately made a reservation.
When we used it, I couldn't help but exclaim, "So exhilarating!" It mowed so quickly and neatly, and it didn't require much strength, so even we could easily operate it.
This machine, which costs around 300,000 yen, can be rented for only 1,500 yen a day—what a bargain!
As part-time farmers, we find it hard to commit to purchasing machinery.
Being able to easily use such services is truly a blessing and was BIG news for us.
I thought that if this kind of culture spread everywhere, it would encourage more people to try farming more easily.
Impressed by how quickly and neatly it mowed!
We hand-weeded the areas where the machine couldn't reach. While we were doing that, our always helpful neighbor appeared!
They brought a cultivator and helped us with plowing (digging up and turning over the soil in the rice field to prepare for planting), and then even filled it with water.
Our neighbors who always help us are truly a blessing.
Tasks that usually took a whole day were completed in about two and a half hours thanks to the machine.
It was a very smooth and promising start! ... or so I thought for a moment.
On another day, we gathered in the morning, and when we started the rice transplanter, huh? It wouldn't move at all.
Rice transplanter picked up at Kamikatsu's Zero Waste last year
Our representative, Hirose, tried to fix it afterward, but it still wouldn't move properly. And since it was Saturday, the farm equipment store was closed. We decided there was nothing else we could do and disbanded for the time being.
However, even after that, Hirose didn't give up. He researched various things, tried different approaches, disassembled small parts, cleaned them, and reassembled them repeatedly for an hour.
Cleaning each individual part
To our surprise, it started moving successfully! It seemed the gasoline wasn't flowing properly. By fixing the machine ourselves, we learned its structure. That surely leads to various kinds of wisdom. I realized anew how important it is to "try it ourselves" without giving up.
Alright! Now we can plant rice! We enthusiastically headed into the rice field.
Huh? The rice isn't being planted properly.
We struggled, not knowing the cause, when a person from the neighboring field passed by and said, "The water in the field is too high."
Since they were already involved, they went home, brought a saw and a board, and adjusted the waterway for us.
They made a makeshift adjustment board for us.
When we ran the rice transplanter again, the rice was finally planted!
We didn't have time to level the field (smoothing the surface of the field before planting), so the soil was uneven, but the rice was planted properly, albeit a bit clumsily.
The areas where the rice transplanter couldn't reach were patiently planted by hand, right to the very end.
This year, the rice planting was done amidst a chaotic schedule.
Things didn't go as planned, but whenever we were in trouble, our neighbors would always offer help and support. We truly appreciated their kindness, and with everyone's assistance, we finally managed to finish the rice planting.
Without them, we definitely wouldn't have been able to finish planting by June. I am filled with gratitude.
Now, we will let the rice grow for about three months until harvest.
Looking forward to eating Shizuku rice balls with our neighbors again, just like last year, and taking last year's lessons into account, we'll continue to work hard on rice farming!
We will keep you updated on our rice field work through our newsletter and blog, so stay tuned ^^
You can also see how we worked on the rice fields last year on YouTube.
We candidly share the daily lives and realities of rural living in Kamiyama, featuring our representative, who moved from Osaka 9 years ago, and four other staff members who moved from Shizuoka, Fukuoka, Okayama, and Osaka, plus staff from Tokushima.
We started this to let people know that our members are running Shizuku in such a place, showing the seasonal rural life, including "rice fields" and "vegetable gardens." Please take a look! Please also subscribe to our channel ^^
