Azumino, 16 april 2017
Even though
we had technically come closer to home (after all we travelled west from
Tokyo), when we finally arrived at Azumino station, it sort of felt like we had
come to the end of the world. Walking off the platform, there were no fully
automatic ticket gates like in Tokyo, but an old man collecting the tickets by
hand. When our train departed, silence
returned to the countryside station and there we were, waiting for an unknown
person to pick us up and take us to his house where we’d stay for two weeks.
After ten minutes a purple family car pulled up, and a well-tanned Japanese man walked straight up to us introducing himself as Takao, the name we were looking for. We crammed our two suitcases in the back of the car, and got inside. A little 6 year old girl, his daughter, was sleeping on the passenger seat. We drove off, and through the pear orchards, driving on narrow roads, we made our way to their home.
Once we arrived, we immediately had an answer to one question we had been having for a while, namely whether Japanese farmers just as European farmers tend to hold on to stuff that looks like trash to other people (and us including), just because it “might be useful one day”: the answer being yes. Later that week, we would discover how that ‘trash’ could indeed be useful, as we constructed a shelter for rice husks from timber and sheet metal.
Once arrived, we were introduced to his wife Hisami, who we learned does not speak English very much, but was very welcoming nonetheless. We were taken upstairs and shown our rooms right away. In fact, there were three rooms upstairs and we had the whole floor to ourselves, as the family sleeps downstairs. In harvest season, these three chambers had once accommodated six WWOOF’ers he told us later. The only one evident thing missing from these rooms were the beds, as the family uses Japanese style futon: one ‘blanket’ to lay on, one flat pillow, and one blanket to put on top of you. After one night of tossing and turning, we robbed the other guest rooms of their futons, and decided to lay on three layers of matrass rather than one: our lazy Western asses are not used to such hard bedding.
The rest of the week, our daily program sort of looked like this: we get up at 6 every day, whether it is a workday or not. Breakfast is served strictly at 6.30, which is of course a Japanese style breakfast with rice and tea, and then some condiments such as miso soup, fermented natto beans, pickles, vegetable stew, or steamed leaves. A far cry from the coffee and toast we are used to. Since we as WWOOFER’s are only expected/allowed to work six hours a day, we are then expected at the worksite of the day at around eight o’clock. As the weather was dreadful the first week, we worked mostly inside the building that they are renovating and turning into a restaurant, complete with tatami mats and tables on the ground. The first few days we worked mostly on covering the ceiling with planks for example. Then at 10 o’clock it’s time for a break with tea and rice crackers (and sometimes homemade cake), and at 12 we return home for lunch, which is a Japanese style lunch with rice and tea, and then some condiments such as miso soup, fermented natto beans, pickles, vegetable stew, or steamed leaves.
The afternoons then are easy-peasy, we only work from three till five, so we have some time on our hands. During the last two hours of the day we usually do something else than during the morning, but mostly again some DIY stuff. Then we return home and feed the 30-something chickens and collect the eggs. We also shower before dinner, which is Japanese style dinner with rice and tea, and then some condiments such as... I guess you get it at this point. It’s funny by the way how the chickens here also get a Japanese diet: they are largely fed on kitchen scraps, and then leftovers from soy-sauce and tofu factories. They lay their eggs in rice husks (the outer skin around a grain of rice).
Two events this week that I want to highlight. First, Tuesday morning, I went to see Takao-san at work in his little butchery, adjacent to their house (you might want to skip this paragraph if you are sensitive or are about to eat). Above I wrote that they have 30 chickens, but there used to be 65 of them and since they simply got too many eggs every day, he decided to decimate them, which he wanted to get over and done with before breakfast. As I want to have my own meat chickens later on, I decided I wanted to see that, so at 5 when it was still dark I slipped into my work clothes and went to the butchery. Takao-san was already half done at this point, that’s just how efficient his set-up was. The chickens were loaded in crates, from which he took them one by one by their wings, bent back their heads, and with a razor-sharp knie cut the main arteries in their necks. Then he put them head down in a bleeding cone, where they could bleed out. Then he put about four or five completely dead birds in a basket, which he dunked for one minute in 65 degree water, to loosen their feathers. From there it was on to the automatic feather plucking machine, which you have to imagine as a washing machine with rubber fingers on the inside, that tear out the loosened feathers. The birds come out squeaky clean, and go into cold water from there, awaiting further processing.
This further processing we helped with during the morning after breakfast. Rather gory, but interesting. Takao-san made the primal cuts, the one you know from the supermarket. Chicken breast, wings, legs, thighs, and so on. Interesting side note that the breasts were absolutely tiny compared to the massive ones you usually buy, I reckon just about one fourth the size of a ‘normal’ one. Yet these birds were big. Then, all that was left was the carcass (back bone and ribs), which I had to split open to retrieve the following edible elements: heart, liver, gizzard, oviduct (where the eggs pass through), and any potential egg yolks. Inside some birds I found actual eggs. Camille had a slightly less extreme task to do, as she was vacuum packing the meat cuts.
The second interesting event (this one is fully lunch-proof I promise) was the rice seeding we helped doing. We fully learned to understand what a labour-intensive crop rice really is. Of all the top four starchy crops that the people of the world feed on (wheat, potatoes, corn), rice is the only one that is not sown directly into the soil. Takao-san actually does grow some wheat, and he laughed when he said how easy it is: “You just throw on the ground, it grows”. Rice on the other hand, is a care baby that needs to be taken care of all season long. It started two nights before seeding, when the bags with seeds were taken out of the ice cold spring water, and given a nice warm shower (not joking, he actually does this in his bath-tub) to wake up the grain and start the germination process. During one day, they receive up to five of such warm showers, after which the bags are left for the night. The morning after, the grains are then loaded into a hand-operated automatic seeder, that pushes little holes in the soil of the seeding boxes, and puts in three seeds per hole. Or so it should work ideally. Sometimes there are no seeds in a hole, and sometimes eight. That is why Takao-san invited half his family over to help checking all the boxes (and there are about 200 holes per seed box) and correct where needed. In two days time, we did about 530 boxes. He told us that in terms of yield, each hole represented one bowl of rice, so you can do the math here.
These seed boxes then go to a ‘nursery’, where they hang out until the plants start growing, after which they are transplanted into flooded rice paddies. But we visited too early in the season to see that happen.
After one week here, we are both full of impressions that we could write about. But, we have one more week to go and it is good to save some for next week to sum up our experience with some concluding remarks. So stay tuned for more!
Jef
After ten minutes a purple family car pulled up, and a well-tanned Japanese man walked straight up to us introducing himself as Takao, the name we were looking for. We crammed our two suitcases in the back of the car, and got inside. A little 6 year old girl, his daughter, was sleeping on the passenger seat. We drove off, and through the pear orchards, driving on narrow roads, we made our way to their home.
Once we arrived, we immediately had an answer to one question we had been having for a while, namely whether Japanese farmers just as European farmers tend to hold on to stuff that looks like trash to other people (and us including), just because it “might be useful one day”: the answer being yes. Later that week, we would discover how that ‘trash’ could indeed be useful, as we constructed a shelter for rice husks from timber and sheet metal.
Once arrived, we were introduced to his wife Hisami, who we learned does not speak English very much, but was very welcoming nonetheless. We were taken upstairs and shown our rooms right away. In fact, there were three rooms upstairs and we had the whole floor to ourselves, as the family sleeps downstairs. In harvest season, these three chambers had once accommodated six WWOOF’ers he told us later. The only one evident thing missing from these rooms were the beds, as the family uses Japanese style futon: one ‘blanket’ to lay on, one flat pillow, and one blanket to put on top of you. After one night of tossing and turning, we robbed the other guest rooms of their futons, and decided to lay on three layers of matrass rather than one: our lazy Western asses are not used to such hard bedding.
The rest of the week, our daily program sort of looked like this: we get up at 6 every day, whether it is a workday or not. Breakfast is served strictly at 6.30, which is of course a Japanese style breakfast with rice and tea, and then some condiments such as miso soup, fermented natto beans, pickles, vegetable stew, or steamed leaves. A far cry from the coffee and toast we are used to. Since we as WWOOFER’s are only expected/allowed to work six hours a day, we are then expected at the worksite of the day at around eight o’clock. As the weather was dreadful the first week, we worked mostly inside the building that they are renovating and turning into a restaurant, complete with tatami mats and tables on the ground. The first few days we worked mostly on covering the ceiling with planks for example. Then at 10 o’clock it’s time for a break with tea and rice crackers (and sometimes homemade cake), and at 12 we return home for lunch, which is a Japanese style lunch with rice and tea, and then some condiments such as miso soup, fermented natto beans, pickles, vegetable stew, or steamed leaves.
The afternoons then are easy-peasy, we only work from three till five, so we have some time on our hands. During the last two hours of the day we usually do something else than during the morning, but mostly again some DIY stuff. Then we return home and feed the 30-something chickens and collect the eggs. We also shower before dinner, which is Japanese style dinner with rice and tea, and then some condiments such as... I guess you get it at this point. It’s funny by the way how the chickens here also get a Japanese diet: they are largely fed on kitchen scraps, and then leftovers from soy-sauce and tofu factories. They lay their eggs in rice husks (the outer skin around a grain of rice).
Two events this week that I want to highlight. First, Tuesday morning, I went to see Takao-san at work in his little butchery, adjacent to their house (you might want to skip this paragraph if you are sensitive or are about to eat). Above I wrote that they have 30 chickens, but there used to be 65 of them and since they simply got too many eggs every day, he decided to decimate them, which he wanted to get over and done with before breakfast. As I want to have my own meat chickens later on, I decided I wanted to see that, so at 5 when it was still dark I slipped into my work clothes and went to the butchery. Takao-san was already half done at this point, that’s just how efficient his set-up was. The chickens were loaded in crates, from which he took them one by one by their wings, bent back their heads, and with a razor-sharp knie cut the main arteries in their necks. Then he put them head down in a bleeding cone, where they could bleed out. Then he put about four or five completely dead birds in a basket, which he dunked for one minute in 65 degree water, to loosen their feathers. From there it was on to the automatic feather plucking machine, which you have to imagine as a washing machine with rubber fingers on the inside, that tear out the loosened feathers. The birds come out squeaky clean, and go into cold water from there, awaiting further processing.
This further processing we helped with during the morning after breakfast. Rather gory, but interesting. Takao-san made the primal cuts, the one you know from the supermarket. Chicken breast, wings, legs, thighs, and so on. Interesting side note that the breasts were absolutely tiny compared to the massive ones you usually buy, I reckon just about one fourth the size of a ‘normal’ one. Yet these birds were big. Then, all that was left was the carcass (back bone and ribs), which I had to split open to retrieve the following edible elements: heart, liver, gizzard, oviduct (where the eggs pass through), and any potential egg yolks. Inside some birds I found actual eggs. Camille had a slightly less extreme task to do, as she was vacuum packing the meat cuts.
The second interesting event (this one is fully lunch-proof I promise) was the rice seeding we helped doing. We fully learned to understand what a labour-intensive crop rice really is. Of all the top four starchy crops that the people of the world feed on (wheat, potatoes, corn), rice is the only one that is not sown directly into the soil. Takao-san actually does grow some wheat, and he laughed when he said how easy it is: “You just throw on the ground, it grows”. Rice on the other hand, is a care baby that needs to be taken care of all season long. It started two nights before seeding, when the bags with seeds were taken out of the ice cold spring water, and given a nice warm shower (not joking, he actually does this in his bath-tub) to wake up the grain and start the germination process. During one day, they receive up to five of such warm showers, after which the bags are left for the night. The morning after, the grains are then loaded into a hand-operated automatic seeder, that pushes little holes in the soil of the seeding boxes, and puts in three seeds per hole. Or so it should work ideally. Sometimes there are no seeds in a hole, and sometimes eight. That is why Takao-san invited half his family over to help checking all the boxes (and there are about 200 holes per seed box) and correct where needed. In two days time, we did about 530 boxes. He told us that in terms of yield, each hole represented one bowl of rice, so you can do the math here.
These seed boxes then go to a ‘nursery’, where they hang out until the plants start growing, after which they are transplanted into flooded rice paddies. But we visited too early in the season to see that happen.
After one week here, we are both full of impressions that we could write about. But, we have one more week to go and it is good to save some for next week to sum up our experience with some concluding remarks. So stay tuned for more!
Jef
(Pictures down below)
Arrivée
samedi à 17h à la gare d’Azumino. Takao-san
vient nous chercher avec sa petite fille de 6 ans, Miho-chan, qui dort à point
fermé dans la voiture. Après un trajet d’une quinzaine de minutes nous arrivons
chez eux. Nous faisons une rapide visite de la maison puis il nous montre le futur
restaurant. Il se situe un peu plus loin et le rénove pour y habiter avec sa
famille et pour que Hisami-san, sa femme, puisse reprendre un travail de chef.
Takao doit retourner travailler au restaurant, nous commençons alors à déballer
nos affaires. Nous avons tout l’étage du
haut pour nous qui se compose de 3 chambres. Celles-ci sont vides de meuble
mais remplis de piles de futons et de couvertures. Nous formons alors nos lits,
plutôt incertains sur la marche à suivre « c’est un futon ça ou une grosse
couverture ? » Nous arrivons tant bien que mal à former un semblant
de lit pour nous rendre finalement compte (après une nuit inconfortable) qu’un
futon ne sera pas assez pour nos petits dos sensibles d’européens. Nous
ajouterons donc trois futons l’un sur l’autre pour les nuits suivantes.
Deuxième jour, pas de temps à perdre,
dimanche ou pas on se met au travail. Temps pluvieux, Takao nous propose alors
une activité d’intérieur. Nous coupons des petits bouts de bois pour les clouer
afin d’isoler l’intérieur du toit du restaurant. Ni Jef ni moi n’avons d’expérience
avec cette machine pour couper le bois mais après une furtive explication nous
voilà autonomes pour la matinée en tant que charpentier. (Nous découvrirons par
la suite que c’est la manière de faire de Takao, nous montrer une fois et hop à
vous de jouer!) Le plus dur de cette activité reste à mes yeux de rester
en équilibre sur l’escabeau avec les ‘claquettes’ traditionelles japonaises
bien trop petites pour nos pieds.
Le restaurant sera typiquement japonais avec tatamis au sol (tapis fais des
tiges de riz) et tables basses pour manger. Une partie des murs sont faits de paille
et de boue, bon isolant naturel. L’après-midi nous finissons d’isoler puis nous
allons nourrir les poules (une soixantaine alors).
Lundi, le soleil pointe le bout de son nez,
nous travaillons en extérieur. Nous plâtrons un mur et recouvrons le sol d’un abri afin d’y
mettre une machine pour le riz (qui permet de séparer le grain de riz de son écorce).
Nous construirons plus tard une cabane avec des bouts de bois recyclés pour
récupérer toutes ces « écorces » de riz qui peuvent servir à de
multiples choses comme pour les toilettes sèches ou pour mettre dans l’enclos
des poules.... La journée se termine sur une note difficile pour moi, nous
capturons 35 poules pour l’abattoir le lendemain (celles bien en chair ou qui
ne produisent plus autant d’oeufs que le souhaiterais Takao) et donnons à
manger aux restantes.
Ceux qui me connaissent savent que je suis plutôt soucieuse de la cause animale
et que j’ai arrêté de manger de la viande pour ne plus financer les élevages
intensifs et la souffrance qu’ils engendrent pour les animaux et les hommes.
Cependant, à l’échelle locale et surtout pour les endroits isolés comme ici,
j’arrive à concevoir qu’on puisse avoir un élevage à taille humaine et
« manger des animaux » parait plutôt faire parti d’un tout, d’un mode
de vie, d’un écosystème et non plus une aberration ethique et environnementale.
Mardi, Jef se lève à 5 heures pour
assister à l’abatage des poules, qu’il me dit rapide et fait le plus
efficacement possible. Je le crois sur parole, n’ayant pas la force d’assister
à ce spectacle. Après le petit déjeuner, il vide les carcasses (coeurs, foies,
ovyductes avec parfois des oeufs en formations...) pendant que Takao coupe les
poules en morceaux. De mon côté, je met les différentes parties en sachets puis
Hisami les met dans une machine pour faire le vide afin de les conserver plus
longtemps.
La suite de la semaine, nos journées se déroulent généralement de la même façon : réveil à 6h, petit déjeuner à 6h30, composé d’un bol de riz, de thé et d’un bouillon (qui sont les 3 fondamentaux de chaque repas) avec en fonction de l’humeur de la cuisinière de l’omelette, des légumes racines ou feuilles, ou des fèves...
La suite de la semaine, nos journées se déroulent généralement de la même façon : réveil à 6h, petit déjeuner à 6h30, composé d’un bol de riz, de thé et d’un bouillon (qui sont les 3 fondamentaux de chaque repas) avec en fonction de l’humeur de la cuisinière de l’omelette, des légumes racines ou feuilles, ou des fèves...
Nous travaillons de 8h à 12h à la
rénovation du restaurant ou de la ferme avec une pause à 10h
« tea-time » avec des biscuits (de riz of course !) ou un
délicieux gâteau fait par Hisami. Puis nous rentrons pour déjeuner et nous ne
reprenons que vers 15h, ce qui nous laisse beaucoup de temps libre pour une
sieste, admirer le paysage et ses montagnes,
nous promener quand le temps le permet ou pour profiter un peu de
l’ordinateur familial comme il n’y a pas de wifi ici (d’ailleurs nous avons
pris la plupart des photos avec nos téléphones nous ne pouvons donc pas les ajouter
pour le moment mais je le ferai plus tard !).
Vendredi et samedi ont été des jours spéciaux ici car
c’était la plantation du riz! Une fois par an mais quelle entreprise! Un vrai
travail à la chaine avec plusieurs étapes précises à suivre. Des amis et une
partie de leur famille sont venus pour prêter mains fortes à cette occasion, ce
qui nous a permis de voir du monde et de discuter avec pas mal de gens, même si
tout le monde ne parlait pas forcement anglais.
La plupart de l’année les graines de riz sont conservées dans de l’eau froide pour les empêcher de germer. Cependant, la veille de la plantation, le riz avait reçu cinq douches de 25 dégrées afin de réveiller les graines et entamer le processus de germination. Enfin le jour J, le début de la chaine commence par le remplissage des plaques, avec un terreau bien différent que celui que nous avions utilisé en France. Les plaques ne doivent pas être trop tassées pour laisser une terre aérée, il faut alors enlever le surplus avec une petite brosse. Puis les graines sont ajoutées à l’aide d’une machine plus ou moins précise. Chaque trou doit être rempli de une à cinq graines (idéalement 2 ou 3). C’est donc sur cette étape que la main d’oeuvre est nécessaire. Comme la machine peut aussi bien laisser un espace vide ou au contraire faire tomber 6 graines (un peu rustique la machine), chaque plaque doit être vérifiée (448 trous !) et le nombre de grains rectifié si besoin a l’aide d’une petite pince. Une fois chaque plaque vérifiée il faut alors recouvrir délicatement avec du terreau (cette fois un peu tassé pour éviter que les grains ne bougent) et poser avec soin dans le camion. Et voilà, plus ou moins 500 plaques de faites en deux jours avec trois variétés de riz.
Aujourd’hui (dimanche) nous avons eu un jour de repos alors nous en avons profité pour... nous reposer! Nous sommes également allés acheter une petite tablette de chocolat à la mini superette du coin histoire de marquer le coup pour Pâques haha Il commence enfin à faire un peu chaud c’est pas trop tôt ! ;) Voyons ce que la semaine prochaine nous réserve, surement encore et toujours du bricolage et du riz hihih En tous cas une choses est sûre malgré le froid et l’humidité c’est une expérience vraiment dépaysante pour le coup, loin de tout dans la campagne à vivre à la Japonaise !Camille
Ha et aussi nous avons vu des singes! Première fois de ma vie que je vois des singes dans leur habitat naturel et pas dans un zoo ! Ils se promenaient pepouze dans le jardin ou sur la rive d’en face c’était assez fou de voir un « gang » se promener si près ! Nous en avons surpris un sur le toit pendant notre pause thé vendredi !
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