Rice planting

We are fascinated by the rice fields and their beauty, and to plant them has been something we wanted to try since we read an old diary of a Dane that did it while living here.
Last year we had to turn down three invitations due to a busy schedule, so we hoped to get another chance this year, which we happily got. Unfortunately H had to go to dk on business trip, so I ended up joining alone, this overcast day. In fact I ended up being the only foreigner in a group of 40, but I didn't thought much about it. I am too used to hang around people I don't understand :-) It was a nice group,- everybody were friendly and hardworking, and I remember a nice conversation with someone about whether we have rice fields in dk or not.

The experience gave a full understanding of why machines are used to plant rice fields these days. Planting rice is really hard work for your back ... and an annoying thing is that your rubber boots tend to get stuck in the mud all the time (which might only had been a problem for me, because I insisted in using my own fancy white boots apposed to their long black practical boots that came with a rubberband to firmly secure the boot to the foot). Who cares, even though I almost fell full length in the mud, I didn't, so I guess my boots did me very well! Ohh, and nobody had told me about the hat. Everybody wore one except me!

A grid had been drawn in the mud, making it easy to plant the crops on a straight line...you would think...but every time you put your feet in the mud, the water turns blurry and the grid vanished in the around 30 cm of water that topped the mud. I thought we did well anyway!






Afterwards some of the men gathered in the stream that supplies the rice fields with water. They wanted to catch the dinner,- a sort of eel I think, but I might have lost some info in the translation...


As always with this kind of event arranged by KALMIA, an awesome lunch awaited the crowd with onigiri, tempura and green tea prepared by Keikos mother. She is a great cook.
I skipped an invitation to go soak up in an onsen (hot spring). I know it doesn't sound like me, - but while I was planting rice, H had arrived in Japan and I was eager to see him again.