Happy New Year, everyone! How are you spending your New Year’s holiday?
Gary and Takae’s New Year’s Day began while watching the first sunrise of 2026 on Oahu’s East Coast,
followed by their first visit of the year to Izumo Taisha Shrine in Honolulu.
Afterwards, we headed to Second Nature Farm and worked up a little sweat at the start of the new year.
While thin clouds hung over the Ko’olau Mountains, the ridgeline shrouded in silence, stood out with dignity,
leaving us feeling refreshed.
* * * * *
It has been exactly five years since we began developing this farm in 2020, when it was covered with various types of overgrown, which made it difficult, even, to set foot on the land.
During the pandemic, young volunteers, who were prohibited from going out and were seeking outdoor activities, came together, allowing us to progress steadily with cleaning and clearing.
The following four years involved repeatedly layering bark and fallen leaves into mulch, and compost with grass clippings, chicken manure from beneath the coop, along with earthworms and vegetable scraps.
It was literally inchworm-paced progress, but each year the garden ridges gradually rose higher, and natural organic farming soil began to form.
Last year, besides the traditional starch in Hawaii, ulu and kalo (taro), fruits unique to subtropical climates like avocados, papayas, and bananas bore abundant fruit, while vibrant flowers delighted visitors’ eyes.
Moreover, even the weeds are full of life in Hawaii. If you neglect maintenance for a week, the place becomes overgrown, so weed cutting is never truly finished.
Yet, this seemingly endless and troublesome task of weed cutting serves a purpose: it provides chicken feed and green manure, and it also creates a strange kind of time.
Surrounded by fragrant scents, working silently and diligently on weeding, people find themselves staring intently only at their own moving hands. Time stood still inside them, like meditation, Being empty in their mind.
Seeking such mysterious experiences in nature, far from the noisy and distracting city, not only residents in Hawaii
but also, people from Japan and the mainland U.S., more and more student groups, businesspersons, seniors, and parents with children, have begun visiting our farm as volunteers or farm members.
And so, the energy that they create is gradually yet steadily filling the once-abandoned forest farm.
This would never have been possible in such a short time if it had been just Gary and Takae. We two are now enveloped in a deep sense of gratitude welling up from the bottom of their hearts.
And in 2026, Second Nature Farm aims to expand its supply of crops, creating more opportunities for people to learn from nature. It will also enhance its seasonal events, such as festivals of Spring Equinox in March, Summer Solstice in June, Autumn Equinox in September, and Winter Solstice in December.
The farm project is now taking a new step into the next five years, striving to share the farm’s bounty with more friends of the farm.
We hope to create a place that inspires more people, in addition to our current members and volunteers,
including those who will join us afterward. Consequently, Second Nature Farm will develop the project for future generations.
We sincerely appreciate your warm support.
January 2026
Second Nature Farm
Gary E. Johnson
Takae Okuma-Johnson
(These photos are from the Winter Solstice Festival held on December 27, 2025 by courtesy of a photographer Seiju, and volunteers Mayumi & Megumi)
