All of June was a very quiet month for the rice farmers in Kamishii-mura. Having gotten their fields planted, dusted, watered daily, the only thing for them to do is to get up early in the morning, head out to the paddies, turn the water on for a few hours and look out over their rice. So most fields have been quite silent, peacefully growing away for the past month.

Today, after returning from a particularly grueling bike ride, the dog and I took our ruler and went out for a walk in the paddies. The rice is up to my knees now (50cm/19in) and growing well. Last week I went for a ride on the Heisenji Singletrack and from the top I was able to see a sea of deep, flowing green. Everywhere I looked was green. If you flew over in a plane and didn't know better you might mistake the paddies for fields of grass, gently swaying to and fro in the breeze. It was gorgeous. Even from a level point-of-view the entire area is filled with a beauty and peace unsurpassable only by the soft white nothingness of mid-winter. And to hear the sound of the breeze as it makes the rice leaves brush up against one another: "sha ... sha ... sha" in the rhythm of nature.

It looks like things are starting to pick up a bit because I see the farmers are out again with their weed-cutters, trimming the edges of their plots, trying to keep the weeds at bay. Maybe soon they will start fogging the rice.

It is the rainy season. Mayu and I came back from a week away in the mountains of Utah to muggy, hot temperatures where the air is so thick that you feel you are breathing water. I have heard that any temperature above 35C (95F) and the air can no longer hold it's moisture so the humidity drops. Until that point, maximum humidity can be maintained. Since the area that we live in rises to about 35C it means that the moisture stays in the air for long periods of time. We live in a sauna from about the beginning of July to the end of August. And July is the rainy season which means that on top of the muggy, hot days and nights we get nearly constant rain or drizzle. This is not an exciting time to be alive in Japan, especially since you know that August is just around the corner and all of that moisture that came down as rain will go back up into the air as humidity when the real heat comes. Vegetables rot very quickly during this time of the year; even if you keep them in the crisper in your fridge. A head of lettuce will rot in about three days if kept cool and faster if left out. Because there is so much moisture in the air, laundry takes a long time to dry and sometimes will even go moldy hanging on the line.

This is also the season of elections when candidates for local seats in the government get out in the neighborhoods and canvass. They drive around in cars and vans, waving to the people in the streets. Usually there is also a car with huge speakers attached to it that a woman advertises the candidates name for all to hear; over and over and over again with the volume turned up full. It is a real annoyance when they drive by and especially so if all the candidates decide to canvass the same areas one after another. Babies cry, dogs howl, and I grumble to myself.

Did you ever see Jurassic Park II? If so, do you remember the scene where the main characters are being stalked through the tallgrass fields by a pride of velociraptors? We couldn't see the dinosaurs but from above we knew exactly where they were by the movement of the grass in the fields. The rice reminds me of that scene when the wind is blowing.

This morning we went out with the dog for a walk before 7am because it gets very hot and humid here after 8am; not as hot as the heat waves rocking the US these days but the high humidity (80-100%) mixed with 35C (95F) heat is nearly unbearable. All autos here have air conditioning; it is not an option for that reason. As we were walking along the access roads, a cooling breeze came up and started playing with the 50cm (20in) stalks of rice, making them sway back and forth. But the wind was blowing in currents, or eddy-like patterns so we could actually see the individual "strands of wind" reach across the fields and cause the rice to snake and sway in very unique patterns; not unlike those patterns caused by an animal running through the rice. And it is even more pronounced because the rice changes shades of green depending on which direction it is angled; light green on one side, deeper green on the other. A very pleasant morning spectacle.

The farmers are starting to use their big backpack blowers and blow pesticides over the rice crops. It is very interesting to see one man with the motor pack on his back walking down one side of the field, while his wife holds the end of a long, plastic bag-like hose that runs across the field and walks along the other side of the field. They both wear face masks as the pesticide powder that comes out of the tube and goes into the rice is probably hard on the lungs. As soon as I can get a picture of it, I will put it in here.

The Hana Echizen has headed out. It is the first of the rice to come to a full head and is thus harvested first. Farmers don't get as much money for hana echizen because the quality is a little lower than that of koshi hikari but the stalks are stronger and the plant is an all-around sturdier variety. Perhaps because the rice stalks themselves are actually shorter than the koshi hikari variety, they stand up better in the wind. Usually harvesting this variety is pretty easy and is done without too many complications. Koshi hikari, however, is different. The plant itself is taller, thinner and produces a heavier, richer cereal. There are more kernels per head on the koshi hikari than other strains. Thus it is of higher quality and produces a better yield. The harvesting is very difficult because when it comes ready, usually the winds which tend to blow near the end of August blow down the rice in large circular patterns. People who didn't know better might think they were landing patterns from alien spacecrafts. When harvesting, the farmers have to walk in front of the combine and, using a long pole, manually stand up all of the fallen rice so that the machine can process it correctly. This takes time and generally leads to the locals complaining about sore backs again, just as they did during planting season. I will try to get a picture of this when it occurs.

It looks like things are going to be getting busier now as August approaches and the farmers have more to do in their fields so you should see this page being updated a little more frequently than the last two months.

The August Edition of The Rice Cycle