| August 22nd, 1998 It has been a very unusual August. The rainy season in Hokuriku never really lifted and we have had rain almost continuously for all of August until about last Tuesday (August 18th). As a matter of fact, there has been so much rain that the mountain roads are all washed out, the rivers turned into a torrent of muddy water and many fish were found dead high above the water level when the river receded. Also, the little river in front of our house flooded and people were running around trying to keep it out of their homes. You can see this by visiting the News Flash: Sanno Floods! page. |
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As I was wandering around the house this morning I looked outside and saw some combine mud tracks crossing the street. Knowing that Saito-san across the street has rice behind our house I was shocked to see that he had begun his harvest! He always seems to be the first to get his rice cut and off for cleaning and it never ceases to amaze me because everyone else is still busy trying to grow theirs. I guess he is growing Hana Echizen, the faster of the two popular crops. As you can see in this photo, small swaths are cut in a single run. If you look in the lower left corner you can see that some rice has been hand cut and is laying on the bank. This is because the machine will not get into the corners. As we noticed way back during the initial planting, rice in Japan is very labor intensive. Look in the upper left corner of this picture and you can see Mr. Saito working on his combine |
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Here we have a close-up of Mr. Saito and his combine. It is quite a different machine from what we would see in North America. The two cones at the front are used to guide the rice into the front of the machine where it is chopped off and then runs up a tractor belt into the back. In the back of the machine it is chewed up and the chaff is spit out the back while the seeds are transferred into a bag. You can see a bag behind Mr. Saito. These bags, when full, weigh about 30kg, I think. Here, Mr. Saito was doing a bit of swearing as he was trying to get something unjammed. I hurriedly left him to his work and took a closeup of the rice itself. |
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This is a shot of the rice just before the combine got it. It is golden brown and ready to be cut. The leaves are a brilliant green, strong and straight. This is typical of the Hana Echizen strain. The stalk is shorter and more durable therefore easier to harvest. The Koshi Hikari is taller and weaker therefore tends to fall over a fair bit in the winds that arise at the end of August/beginning of September when their turn to be harvested comes. The rice plants fall in a very interesting circular pattern, much like what UFO's would leave if they landed in your wheat field. You should be able to see this phenomenon in the coming weeks. |