Wednesday, October 06, 2010

drying rice


drying rice
Originally uploaded by touzanka
Drying it out on the racks, "hasakake" that we cut and put up.

drying rice2


drying rice2
Originally uploaded by touzanka
Drying in the sun.

harvesting


harvesting
Originally uploaded by touzanka
This is the guy we bought it from, Mr. Hiuchi, testing out the machine. He spent hours trying to get it through the whole paddy, but we gave up. It was too muddy. Next year we'll have to dig some ditches around the perimeter to drain it better.

partially harvested


partially harveste
Originally uploaded by touzanka
We decided to harvest about a week early, and good thing. The weather had been pretty good, so the ground was somewhat dried out. It was too wet in most places to use the binder on all of it , though. The rest was harvested by hand.

preharvest


preharvest
Originally uploaded by touzanka
This is a shot of the rice just before being harvested. It's getting a little yellow, but would like to have left it longer.

with monkey damage


with monkey damage
Originally uploaded by touzanka
This is a shot of the whole paddy. You can see how much of has been knocked down by the monkeys. The fence is more for boars than monkeys. They just use it like a jungle gym.

monkey damage


monkey damage
Originally uploaded by touzanka
This is a closeup of some the damage the monkeys did to the rice before it was harvested.

rice sprouts in trays


rice sprouts in trays
Originally uploaded by touzanka
Rice is first sprouted in trays of small pots with one or two seeds in each pot. Then we just pop out the sprouts and stick them in the mud.

planting


planting
Originally uploaded by touzanka
Planting rice on June 19 and 20

ready to plant


ready to plant
Originally uploaded by touzanka
Plowed and ready to plant.

plowed but not ready


plowed but not ready
Originally uploaded by touzanka
Rice paddy in May, 2010