I Wanna Be A Rice Farmer
Two weekends ago, I helped my friends Mayumi and Mocchan, the owners of the organic café, Poponoki, plant their rice crop. This first time around, I simply wanted to learn a little more about rice farming, since it seems to be the primary agricultural practice in Japan, but for the rest of the time I’m in Japan, Mayumi and Mocchan will have no need to twist my arm to help them plant rice. It was LOADS of fun. Talk about a throw-back to childhood. Rice planting gives you a perfectly good reason as an adult to stomp around in the water and mud and play with reptiles, amphibians and insects…..and actually be productive in the process.
This past weekend, I helped weed the rice paddies. I know that sounds like an utter bore, but if you think planting rice sounds like fun, weeding is even more so! When you plant rice, the paddy is flooded with water, so the water-level is high and the mud-level is relatively low. By the time you get around to weeding, the chances are pretty good that the mud level will be thick and the water level thin, so instead of being shin-deep in water (as with the planting process), you’re shin-deep in mud. Awesome. And here’s what makes it even better – weeding primarily consists of playing in the mud. Of course you need to be on the look-out for larger weeds and grasses that need to be yanked, but all of the smaller grasses and algae are simply pushed under the mud. It really is quite akin to making mud pies. So you just go along your rows of rice (that are no higher than your knees at this point), talk to your neighbor, watch small, pretty rice paddy spiders scoot across the mud, keep a look-out for frogs (some only the size of your thumb-nail), get buzzed by dragonflies and push your hands in the mud up to your forearms.
I think I’m going to quit my job as an English teacher and become a rice farmer. :-) If only. I’d love to have a reason to go play in the mud everyday. And to top it all off, when you’re done and have to rinse off, you just step down the bank into the creek that runs alongside the rice paddies and do a little creek stomping. Fabulous!
This past weekend, I helped weed the rice paddies. I know that sounds like an utter bore, but if you think planting rice sounds like fun, weeding is even more so! When you plant rice, the paddy is flooded with water, so the water-level is high and the mud-level is relatively low. By the time you get around to weeding, the chances are pretty good that the mud level will be thick and the water level thin, so instead of being shin-deep in water (as with the planting process), you’re shin-deep in mud. Awesome. And here’s what makes it even better – weeding primarily consists of playing in the mud. Of course you need to be on the look-out for larger weeds and grasses that need to be yanked, but all of the smaller grasses and algae are simply pushed under the mud. It really is quite akin to making mud pies. So you just go along your rows of rice (that are no higher than your knees at this point), talk to your neighbor, watch small, pretty rice paddy spiders scoot across the mud, keep a look-out for frogs (some only the size of your thumb-nail), get buzzed by dragonflies and push your hands in the mud up to your forearms.
I think I’m going to quit my job as an English teacher and become a rice farmer. :-) If only. I’d love to have a reason to go play in the mud everyday. And to top it all off, when you’re done and have to rinse off, you just step down the bank into the creek that runs alongside the rice paddies and do a little creek stomping. Fabulous!
posted by Mandy | 6:56 PM
1 Comments:
Very cool! But why does your fearless leader appear to have boots on when the rest of you look like you are barefoot?
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