the last time i was here in march, the main attraction of the rice fields that surround my bungalow, were the antics and yelling of the farmers constantly trying to shoo the birds away from eating the almost ripe rice grains...
this time it is a totally different scene, since the rice has been cut off its dried stems in clusters at the end, and then hit out of the pods, and taken to dry on a big canvas and then brought to the mill to shell the husk for white rice...and now they are busy cutting down the stalks that were below the clusters, drying and burning them and then getting the paddies ready for the immediate next planting of rice whose cycle happens 3 times a year.
and today i saw 2 new phenomenon; cute ducks swimming around the water-filled empty rice paddies, and also little areas with bright green growth on them....and after trying to solve the mystery myself ( how do ducks know how to migrate to here at exactly the right time??! how do they manage to plant the rice in all of this mud?!, so i asked around and it turns out that for a mere $3 you can rent a fl0ck of ducks to come and clean out all the insects and stuff from the paddies before your next planting, and
in the meanwhile the grains of rice have been planted in a little "rice nursery"
which is a lovely bright green color, and when tall enough, they will be placed 2 at a time at the right distance...i find it all fascinating...the whole cycle of it all
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