on the road’s edge           道の端 five snake gourds             からすうり五個 protect the mountain       山護る (michi no haji, karasu uri go-ko, yama mamoru) I knew all about the magic of using rice straw. It is one of the main methods of Fukuoka-san’s Natural Farming (see One Straw Revolution, by Masanobu Fukuoka). In the mountains of Kyōto, his More…