agriculture

A loaded touring bicycle parked in front of rows of tea bushes with a remote hill of a similar elevation visible in the distance.

Rows of tea bushes stretching into the distance.

A loaded touring bicycle parked in front of rows of tea bushes, with the buildings of a town visible as tiny structures below.

A squat tower that might be an agricultural silo or an industrial enclosure standing beyond an expanse of try stubble field under a blue sky with whispy clouds.

Close up view of the branches of shiikuasa tree with a dozen or so fruits.

A net bag filled with shiikuasa fruit freshly cut from the tree, some with leaves still attached.

There are six varieties of citrus in the back garden: mikan; yuzu; lime; lemon; hassaku; and shiikuasa. If you aren’t familiar with it, the last in that list is commonly grown in Okinawa and southern regions of Japan. It’s so common in Okinawa that, during the visit for Mieko’s last rights, I was hard put to find orange juice on the shelves of a local market, until I realized that shiikuasa was in plentiful supply.

A loaded cargo bike parked in front of a vegetable stand. The greens of a bundle of large long onions projects from the rear of the cargo bike’s saddle bags like a short horse’s tail.

A closer view of the cargo bike parked in front of a vegetable stand.

Low-lying dwellings, some with simple flat roofs, some more substantial with traditional tile roofs, lie in the distance beyond a meadow.