Rice Fields of Japan
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Rice Fields of Japan -
Most of the rice fields around our region have been harvested now and the beautiful, flowing green fields heavy with rice are cut down. When they were green and heavy with rice, they reminded me of the wheat fields of Eastern Washington that turn golden before harvest.
There are many rice fields in our region and most are small plots of tiered land inaccessible to large machinery. Because of the tiered fields and smaller plots, they use smaller machinery than you would see in the US where huge fields are harvested by massive machines. We observed two methods of harvesting this fall, the old way where the stocks are cut and hung upside down in the fields to dry and the more modern way with a small machine that looks like a miniature Zamboni. The harvesting machine cuts the stocks at the ground, separating the rice from the chaff and gathers the rice into large bags.
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| Beautiful tiered rice fields of our region - photo by Stephanie |
This time of year when the rice has been harvested, the air frequently smells of smoke as the farmers are burning the chaff from the rice. We had a discussion with the kids this weekend about what a threshing floor would have been like in the Bible since we have witnessed several farmers threshing their rice, bagging it and generating large piles for distribution.
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| Rice fields ready for harvest - photo by Stephanie |
I am going to miss the beautiful, flowing green fields and the bent stalks heavy with golden rice. Being this close to the production of food makes you appreciate the process when you dump cups of rice into your rice cooker. Something about watching your food grow, ripen and then enjoying it that is very satisfying.
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| A bountiful crop of rice, ready for harvest - photo by Stephanie |
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| Harvested rice drying in the field |
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| Rice drying the old fashioned way |
Saturday evening we attended Hope Chapel English with Mitsuki and later met up with Momo at the Ikoma train station. They stayed the night with us Saturday and got to see our Japanese home for the first time. They spent most of Sunday with our family, playing badminton in our back yard, eating the yummy cheesecake Mitsuki brought, eating cream stew and visiting a local park with the kids.
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| Mitsuki and Stephanie with pumpkin cheesecake |
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| Mitsuki, Momo, Stephanie and Alex at our favorite Koi feeding spot |
We had a great time with these girls and cannot wait to see them again at the Hope Chapel Thanksgiving Dinner in a couple of weeks. We practiced our Japanese phrases and they helped us understand a few of the electronic appliances in our house.
They also went with us to the store and helped me purchase dehumidifiers for our closets. Yes, here in Japan you need to dehumidify your house or you are likely to have your clothes mold. I learned this first hand last month when I opened my coat closet to find two of our jackets with mold on them. Thankfully I caught it before it was too bad and a good washing seems to have taken care of the issue before it destroyed our winter coats.
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| One last group picture before we sent then back home |
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| Dehumidifier for your cloths closet |
I was grateful for their help since there are countless types of these dehumidifiers available. They explained to me some products were not only to dehumidify your closet but had bug repellent as well as varying scents. There were about 25 options to chose from I kid you not.
K. Chadduck