Starting last spring, our family has been going out to Kaisho no Mori in Seto to experience traditional farming techniques on about 10 Sundays throughout the year. Besides planting and harvesting potatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, beans, carrots, peppers and so on, we experienced rice planting and harvesting, which was a lot of work, but very interesting to see how it can all be done by hand, as most rice planting and harvesting is now done by machine. So, last Sunday, we had a harvest celebration day, where we ate mochi made from the rice we had grown, as well as making soba noodles by hand, eating sweet potatoes roasted in the fire, and eating wild boar stew with vegetables from the garden, cooked over wood burning fires. It rained much of the time, confining us to the tarps, or inside the building (and also casting a blue tint over many of my photos!) but the food was great, and a nice time was had by all. At first I was loathe to give up that many Sundays, but as always my wife was right, and the experience turned out to be a fulfilling one.
