1. Eat an apple that makes people cry
Many people must have heard of a Kimura apple in Japan, so delicious that it makes people cry; a French restaurant in Tokyo uses his apple to make a top soup, and the reservation has been queued for a year; the most amazing thing is that this apple has not rotted for two years, but gradually withered, shrinking and getting smaller, and finally becoming dry and emitting a sweet aroma.
The author of "The Apple of Miracles" described how he felt when he ate this apple: "It turns out that when people eat something particularly delicious, they can't help but cry. When I took the first bite, every cell in my body seemed to be cheering. He believes that in addition to having all the ingredients for delicious apples, Kimura's apples are also full of "the joy of living in this world." When the author ate the apple, the idea that "the baby who was forced to leave the mother should cry loudly when he was thrown into the arms of the mother again."
In this era of great material abundance, the table is always renovated. Merchants and chefs find ways to please the taste of diners, and the stimulation of the taste buds and the formulas of modern nutrition constitute the whole pursuit of food.
People have long forgotten that the fresh vitality and pure energy from nature are the source of maintaining physical and mental health and harmony. Kimura's apple is such a food, it reconnects people and nature at the moment of human eating, and people are also part of nature, which is the source of the feeling of returning to the mother's arms and crying with joy.
Although I had heard about this magical apple for a long time and was impressed, I was used to the taste of restaurants and supermarkets at that time, and I didn't feel much about it. Later, by chance, I liked drinking tea, and a few years later, the diet gradually became vegetarian-oriented, and I was happy with the original taste of natural ingredients, and I became more and more unable to accept chemical condiments, and I was further exposed to ecological agricultural products (which later found to be a road of no return), and more than half a year later, this book about Kimura and his apples came to me at the right time.
We often think that something happened by accident, and when we look at it, we will find that everything is just right. The encounter between books and people is the same as between people, too early and too late to use.
Just like when I read this book, I already had more experience and understanding of natural ingredients, and I also learned that there is a group of people who have a deep affection for the land, lonely and persistently exploring traditional natural cultivation methods, so when I see the wonderful places, such as electric stone fire, I can't help but turn over and turn over, and I have more awe and admiration for food from nature.
2. Dreams that are lit up by dreams
Kimura was only in his twenties when he first tried to grow apples without pesticides, and by the time he planted his first dream apple, he had wrinkled faces, lost teeth, gray hair, and although he was only in his forties, he already looked like an grandfather.
In order to challenge this "absolutely impossible" goal, the Kimura family has experienced a life of poverty and hardship for 8 years, the pressure of criticism and ridicule by others, and the despair of finding light in the darkness, all of which are recorded on Kimura's old face.
How did a family who made a living from the orchard survive the 8 years when the orchard did not bloom. What made him choose the long persistence?
By a seemingly fortuitous coincidence, Kimura soiled a book in the bookstore that had been shelved and reluctantly bought it home: Masanobu Fukuoka's Natural Farming Law. It was this book that he later turned over and over sowed in his heart the belief in cultivating apples without pesticides.
To some extent, Masanobu Fukuoka is the inheritor and practitioner of Lao Tzu's idea of "natural inaction, absolute abandonment of wisdom". As an agronomist and thinker, he chose to use "agriculture as inaction" to prove that human wisdom and action are futile. In other words, he wants to prove that inaction agriculture is better than modern agriculture.
It took him nearly forty years to perfect the "natural farming method" he advocated, using this method to carry out "rotational sowing of rice and wheat", and the harvest he obtained was comparable to that of modern agriculture (using fertilizers and pesticides).
Fukuoka's dream came true, which brightened Kimura's dream of cultivating apples without pesticides, and this dream changed his life. Kimura must not have been the only one who had read Fukuoka's book, but he was the only one who chose to believe it. Belief is an ability, belief has the power to make dreams come true, as Kimura said, "Crazy for one thing, one day you can find the answer from it", as evidenced by every major invention in human history.
In comparison, the difficulty of cultivating apples without pesticides is higher than that of other crops and fruit trees, and Fukuoka's "non-agricultural" experiment range is crops such as rice and wheat, and his orangery uses chicken manure and compost and less dangerous traditional medicines, and does not achieve true pesticide-free fertilizers. Until now, most growers are still convinced that it is impossible to grow apples without pesticides, and Kimura will undoubtedly go further and harder on the basis of Fukuoka.
Is it possible to cultivate apples without pesticides? Kimura spent eight years giving a positive answer, an answer that is even more meaningful than the cultivation technique itself. A little starlight that was once faint finally illuminated the dark night sky, presumably lighting up more and bigger dreams.
"When Happiness Knocks" has a classic line: If you have a dream, defend it. People who can't do it on their own will tell you that you can't. If you want it, go get it and experience it.
Some people are crazy, very strange, always deviant, doing something that others do not understand and dare not do, but they can enjoy it; others are always very stable, very reliable, doing things that are very positive and tall, but they dare not do themselves, and they cannot get out of the circle drawn by society and their parents all their lives.