Frontier Spirit! Clearing of Land!

I greet everyone with love and joy!

It has been more than two weeks since I started working on our land while trying to settle down on the house I am renting. Two weeks, and yet I feel like I have been here for a year! I met amazing people of the community, and a few from a nearby community. Everyone was kind and helpful and I cannot ask any more goodness from the universe.

While trying to settle down on the new house, I focused a big part of my time in clearing the land before the weeds become out of control. I realized the power of summer when I saw how fast the shrubs grew after leaving them for only a week! They already grew beyond my height!

 I can't even reach the top leaves!

With a grass cutter, I started cutting the grass in a certain pattern so that I can gather the grass easier to use it as mulch later. I certainly thought I could finish almost a hectare of field in a few days but I am oh so mistaken! If they the grass is less than a meter in length, I may have finished earlier but with shrubs this high, I had a hard time cutting the thick stems. On the bright side, as I was cutting shrubs, I was able to find new and interesting stuff coming out of the grass.

An egg of a wild bird, probably a pheasant

After a total of backbreaking five days, I am mostly done with clearing the shrubs and grasses! Next step is to gather grass! All by hand, by myself and oh my, oh my, I only did one third and it took me almost a day to gather them into a pile!

Perfect mulching material!

This grass pile will be an excellent mulch and fertilizer! Nothing beats a slowly composted grass and shrub. Since their roots are strong and deep, and their natural life force, they are able to absorb nutrients efficiently and bring the unavailable minerals to the upper portion of the soil. If I mix this with leaf litter under the forest, I can make compost that is incomparable to compost made from cow dung.

I decided to gather first the cuttings from the upper field, and then I moved on to rototilling the soil with a small tractor. The soil was naturally clayey but with the power of the weeds, the organic matter of the soil is good enough to make the soil friable enough. I learned a certain technique to make the decomposition faster. I first set the rototiller to about five centimeters to cut the remaining stubbles of weeds then rototilled again for another 15 centimeters. If I did this every season or at every new planting, the soil will eventually have a hard pan underneath that will result to poor drainage. So, I am only doing this ONCE. Just so that I can build permanent beds easier and plant cover crops.

Like a canvas with infinite possibilities of creativity!

Two days of continuous rototilling on the upper field produced a very nice crumby textured soil!

Look at that crumby goodness!

I will soon make permanent raised beds so a lot of planning is needed before I actually make them. Everyday there is something new. Everyday there is a moment of paradise.

Mt. Komagatake with Onuma Lake

"With Love, this space is going to be splendid like a place no other. With Joy, this space is going to gather my ancestors. Through Co-creation, this space will continue on to the next generations."

Weeds in our hearts

Weeds. Not the one that makes you feel strangely happy but the ones considered by farmers as nuisance or enemies. They grow everywhere! Even on asphalted roads, they find their way through the cracks and still grow happily.

There are numerous ways to consider different things or situations such as the way we perceive weeds. It's like a rainy weather. For the farmers who hope for rain to water the parched lands, rain is a blessing. As for the people who were supposed to have a picnic outside, the rain is a bother. It is all about how we perceive things. Whether things are good or bad, it solely depends on us, in fact, only us humans classify things as good or bad, increasing or decreasing, democratic or republic, rich or poor, we simply love to dichotomize everything! But for nature, everything simply is. Everything and anything simply occurs as it is how it is supposed to occur. There is no enemy nor win or lose, everything is part of one universal whole.

This brings me as to how I perceive the weeds. When I was in college, we were always taught that weeds are something to get rid of. Anything that is not the crop you want to grow, or any undesirable plant is considered a weed. I remembered this definition from my class then I smiled and laughed. I thought "Well, if I consider every plant in my land as desirable then my weed problem is gone!" I looked at "weeds" as something beyond their current state. Each plant has their own purpose to fulfil, thus, none being undesirable. I am seeing the flower, the vegetables, the fruits, within the "weeds".  The previously arduous and draining job of weeding or cutting grass has become a fascinating job as I saw that these will soon transform into another form. 

These so called "weeds" also produce very beautiful flowers.

With these in mind and heart, I continued on my job in clearing the land. The plants were already my height and they were about as thick as a pinky finger. Clearing almost a hectare of land by hand by myself is very difficult so I used a grass cutter. Oh how happy I felt as I cut the plants. It's as if I was correcting the misuse or negligence of the previous owner!

Before cutting the plants

After cutting for about 7 hours

I can already see vegetables, berries, and some grains growing around!

Being a steward of the land is similar to how we use our minds. If we allow "weed" seeds to grow and flourish without control, our land will soon be devoured by it. Our mind is like the soil that carries millions of weed seeds. We can choose to decide not to nurture these "weed" seeds and let them control our thoughts. We can never be without weed seeds in our mind, but it is up to us whether we cultivate it or not. The harder we try to remove these negative thoughts, the more difficult it will become. Let us accept that inside us, we do have these seeds of negative thoughts within us and we have the choice to water it or not.

Happy gardening everybody!