January was full of activity right from the new year — introducing an electric stone mill, visiting a matcha wholesaler, holding a tea gathering, shipping our lucky bags, gathering thatch, building our English-language website, holding an accounting study session, and meeting with Nara Shinkin Bank. We held our first-ever accounting study session among natural-farming producers. Drawing on how much I struggled with not understanding anything when I first started farming, we're now building a place where everyone can learn the basics of running a business together. Around this time, I also began talking clearly about goals like "starting a business in America" and "opening a café."

February was spent on things like making YouTube videos and preparing for the year-end accounts and office work. It was a month when, for maybe the first time since I started farming, I could properly rest through the winter. That gave me room to plan carefully for the busy season ahead.

March brought harvesting three-year bancha, pruning, filing our tax return, producing matcha, and hosting J2. My sister gradually returned to work, and this was the month she was able to take on shipping duties. We were allowed to host J2 again after a while, and thirteen people came to help with the work — we also got to enjoy our own homemade matcha together. The busy season started a bit early, and even in the middle of it, I set out concrete goals: pay off my personal loan this year, open the café, acquire farmland, move house, score 900 on the TOEIC, and pass the Level 3 bookkeeping exam.

April brought pruning, making spring bancha, sowing rice seed, tilling the paddies and fields, year-end accounting work, and reclaiming abandoned land. Our welfare facility began accepting a new young man with Down syndrome, starting a new challenge in figuring out how someone with a severe disability could take part in natural-farming work. Our rice paddies grew by 1.5 tan as we reclaimed abandoned land. Looking ahead to a time when natural-farming produce will be in even greater demand, I talked about our policy of continuing to expand our fields.

May brought tea harvesting, sowing rice seed, submitting our financial report, selling at the memorial festival, and hosting guests. A late frost at the end of April significantly cut into our new-tea harvest, but with all the experience we'd built up, our countermeasures were solid, and it barely affected the business. With Covid behind us, we welcomed visitors from overseas around the memorial festival. Three visitors from Taiwan came after seeing us on YouTube, giving us a chance to let them experience the appeal of our tea firsthand.

June brought tilling, puddling, transplanting rice, harvesting bancha, making black tea, a children's tea gathering, and sowing, replanting, and weeding soybeans — we got through the busiest June yet. This was the month Jeff, an American, formally joined as a regular member of our tea-harvesting team, creating a real environment for learning English while working. He himself has shown a genuine, positive interest in growing rice through natural farming. On June 25th we held a children's tea gathering using Yusando's matcha at the Katano branch office, which was extremely well received by the children and families who took part.

July brought harvesting bancha, weeding the rice, making black tea, and hosting guests from overseas. We again smoothly finished harvesting the bancha used for hojicha, and having a young person in their twenties take part in the harvest felt like planting a seed for the next generation of producers. With agriculture-welfare collaboration progressing, Jeff joining the team, and more visitors coming from overseas, I felt the company reaching a genuinely new dimension. Visitors also came from Australia and Korea, and I could feel the possibilities of natural farming connecting with the world while staying right here in Japan. I laid out a concrete roadmap: a café (next year), expanding into America (this year), earning organic JAS processing certification (this autumn), a tea-enjoyment gathering (August), and an experience tour (September).

August centered on flooding the paddies, making black tea, roasting tea, and weeding. Having significantly changed how we worked since last year, I was able to spend a calm-hearted August, with plenty of time with the kids and a fairer share of the housework. I also tidied up the warehouse and processing space ahead of hosting a local study session, and started being more mindful about always keeping the place looking good. I talked about a future vision that included an American entity, a café, regular field-tour visits, and expanding agriculture-welfare collaboration nationwide.

September brought sowing autumn and winter vegetable seeds, weeding the tea garden, making matcha, roasting bancha, and cutting grass in the paddies. On September 8th, something major happened in my family, and around the funeral and the memorial service I was barely able to get out to the fields — but I'm grateful that our systems had come far enough along that the work wasn't seriously disrupted even so. We reached the ten-year mark since starting natural farming, and this was the month I started letting go of things I'd been forcing myself through or holding in, and searching for a calmer, less stressful way to keep natural farming going.

October brought the rice harvest, weeding the tea fields, cleaning the old farmhouse, design work, and building our new website. This year we tried growing uruchi rice, glutinous rice, and sake rice for the first time. I served as host at a tea gathering held by the academy's tea-ceremony class, gathered tools with a rice-harvest theme, and had the chance to whisk this year's freshly ground matcha. It was a month when the concept of a "natural tea ceremony," bringing natural farming and the tea ceremony together as one, slowly started to take shape.

November brought tea garden maintenance, paperwork for organic JAS, roasting tea, preparing Thanksgiving offerings, and cleaning the old farmhouse. The tea field work we'd planned for the year was nearly finished, and I found room to help out with other fields as well. I could feel real signs of Yusando changing — richer agriculture-welfare work, better English from having an American staff member, and better matcha quality thanks to the stone mill.

December brought building a garage, shipping tea, and maintaining the paddies. These past few years have brought no shortage of trials, but looking back, this was the most emotionally difficult year yet. As it came to a close, I carried forward what these three years had taught me — that adversity really is the opportunity — and turned toward the next year with renewed resolve.