Rice Harvesting

On Sunday after Savannah's undoukai, we went to the rice field for harvest day. It was another hot day. We went to the rice field at 9:00 and finished up around 12:00. They provided an udon noodle lunch for us as well. By the time we got home, we were exhausted. I think we spent most of the day lounging in the air conditioning.




Picture of the rice field just before we started harvesting. You can see how the rice weighed it down because all of the stalks are bent over.








Savannah and Colleen with their sickles. We were a little hesitant on letting her use one, but they did OK. I had mine in my back pocket while we were weeding and somehow cut my finger. Not too bad, though.











View looking at the silos. I think I took a similar picture throughout the summer so you can see how things changed.










This is a view of the back fields. It reminded me of Ohio so I snapped a picture of the corn and the trees.










Grasshopper on the plastic fence.










Denny hanging out with the ladies.













The kids found a snake. I picked it up by the tail and it swung around and tried to bite me. I wasn't sure what kind of snake it was so I was a little afraid of getting bitten. We eventually got him corralled again and this man picked him up by the head.










Can you see the praying mantis? Colleen found one that had just captured a grasshopper and it was eating it. It was pretty gross.











Rice piled up after being cut by hand. The machine they had could not get all the way to the fence so we hand cut about 5 or 6 rows around the field.










Close up picture of the rice. After seeing how much work it takes to plant and harvest rice, I try to make sure I eat every grain at mealtime. I can't imagine how hard it was to do all of this by hand. On Monday, my legs really hurt from bending over and standing up.

The rice actually has a husk on it. The machine that they had did not remove the husk. I still don't know how this process is done since they bagged it up with the husks still on the rice.

The kids sitting on the bags of rice.

We went to the community center for lunch. Interestingly enough, they gave the kids shaved ice before lunch.

Savannah with her shaved ice.












Changing out the bags on the rice harvester.

Denny waited in line to ride the harvester.

Rice harvester taking out a row of rice.

People working on harvesting the rice.




I wanted to show how we cut the rice so I set the camera down and got a movie. I think it turned out pretty good. Liam is in the back going to town on his rice. I was a little worried he was putting a little too much effort into it. The sickles were sharp.





Rice harvester up close.