At the South Island
One quick halt at Ishigaki, 3h flight south of Odawara … overnight and attempted to collect information about the two islands. Not really lucky with that, the best we found was at local library, copying pages of a book that described a few walks on each islands part of Okinawa archipelago.
Our bedroom Market nearby
Next morning, we finally reached our destination Iriomote – after a short boat ride (33knts! ~60km/h) and bus ride, as the boat did not reach the port we initially aimed for.
The bus stop is named after the farm itself. We met with the owners Kasushige, Kasumasa and Miki + 3 other WWOOFers: Chase ( from USA ), Kaori and Nozomi.
The farm is indeed keeping few chickens for eggs, but mainly cultivating rice – black and white rice.
Farm’s greenhouses
Seems they are giving up on the chickens as the Iriomote wild cat is feeding on those chicken and that cat is protected… so soon no more chickens 🙁 !
The farm is 5’ cycle ride from the village, 100m from the sea, 50m from the forest.
We stay in the village, a modest guest house which belongs to the farm. A young couple (Thame & Sawako) and their child (Shintaro, just turned 1) live there and manage the guest house.
Our guest house Living room
We arrived on a Thursday beginning of afternoon, but they still gave us the day off, so we just went for a discovery walk around the village… although not a sunny day, we still got the feeling we would enjoy our stay!
Rice seedlings waiting to be planted…. Closest beach (5’) Old road This is a path… Traditional house Walls made from dead corals
During week days we will take breakfast, lunch and dinner at the farm, work ends at 4pm, dinner at 6pm and we have the WE off!
Our first day working at the farm
We have breakfast together at 8:30, work until ~12, start again at 13 until 16, then evening meal at 18.
For our first day we sorted rice and prepared trays with those seeds…
Hélène, Kazumas and Kaori Kaori & Nuzomi Chase Kazushige raking, Kazumasa controlling!
Trays are made using a convey belt machine, a bit like the security check at airport… but this time each block adds a layer of earth, then the rice, then little water and finally more earth.
Getting the team ready Trays are fed one end; fertilising earth is laid down. Water sprinkled, then the sorted rice And a final layer of earth, then out goes the tray
These are then stacked and left for 5-7 days to germinate and get a small size plant… which will then be laid out in a greenhouse for another ~2 weeks.
In afternoon we prepared the greenhouse so it will be ready to receive those trays.
We ended this great day with a walk just behind the farm, up a river, until a waterfall.
And evening meal from fried fish….
