Bounty

The photo above is not staged. As I finished stripping all the sesame buds from their stalks, I took a step back to watch Tomoe preparing kaki (persimmon) for making booze and vinegar. I almost cried when I saw how rich our life was.

Drying in the sun from left to right:

• Egoma A type of shiso grown especially for its oils and as a substitute for seame in areas such as where we live where, before modern farming techniques, sesame was not possible to be grown efficiently. We picked this egoma a few days ago from the field of an organic farmer who passed away two weeks ago. His widow was not able to harvest his field, so we joined a friend in helping out.
• Shibu Kaki (persimmon) This is from a tree in our yard. While this type of persimmon is a bit too bitter to eat as is, it is perfect for drying or making persimmon vinegar or wine. In this case, Tomoe is opting for vinegar and wine. After wiping each persimmon, and taking out any bruises, she cuts them into fifths and simply leaves them in the large bucket you see at her feet. That bucket is now fermenting in our living room. The leaves will be dried and used for tea.
• Wild Walnuts Tomoe's mother and niece joined us for picking these walnuts from the ground in the forest nearby our home. After a good washing in our pond, we set them out to dry. Neighbors tell us that it will be a few days before they are ready to eat.
• Scrubby thing I forget the name of this, and Tomoe is sleeping now so I wont know until the morning. This is a cucumber-like vegetable that we have left in our pond to rot. Once the majority of it rots away, only thefibrous "skeleton" remains. This is then used as a body scrubber in the onsen. The onsen is closed on Tuesdays, so we didn't get to use it tonight...
• Kuro Goma (balck sesame) Another crop from the recently deceased organic farmer. These grow as pods lining long stalks. As the pods dry, the open and a crap-load of sesame seeds fall out. It was too difficult to take only the dry stalks, so we also took green stalks and are hoping that they will dry and open before winter, otherwise we have to open each one by hand and pick the seeds out.

Perhaps the most satisfying thing, is that as our neighbor came by to see what we were up to, she was surprised to see sesame and that Tomoe was making vinegar of the kaki. She admitted that she had never done so, or even knew how. Her 30 year-old daughter had never even seen sesame plants before.

While we thought that there is nothing for us to share with the people who grew up here, we now see that there is much in terms of different perspective that could be valuable. Just the other day Tomoe brought a dish of cooked weeds (that *everyone* throws away) to a local festival and amazed everyone. We collect the radish leaves that our neighbors throw away. We collect their green, discarded tomatoes to make amazing sauce. It seems that everyone is stuck in a somewhat limited mental view of their world. While we have much to lean from them, it feels good to know that we can perhaps share something that they had not thought of as well.