Harvesting Rice... in my Backyard

One of the cool things about living in Asia is we get to see and experience things that are very different from North America.  Our house is on the edge of our neighborhood.  Our backyard is only about six feet deep and then there is the wall that surrounds the neighborhood.  On the other side of the wall are rice paddies.

Before moving to Thailand I had never seen a rice paddy.  My only exposure to rice in the wild was through the dramatic backdrop of Vietnam War movies.  Now I live in that backdrop.

This is our seventh rice season in Thailand.  I am fascinated by every part of the cycle.  I get to watch them flood the paddies each year and plant the one paddy that will seed all of the others.  Then I watch in awe as scores of women march in line hand planting each rice plant.

During this time a small village of workers lives in our "backyard" under a large tree until all the planting is done.  This takes a few weeks and then they travel back to their real villages in the mountains, leaving behind a caretaker or two who will monitor the paddies while they are still flooded.  Eventually the caretakers will also leave as the paddies dry out in the final phase and the rice changes from tall green grass to mature golden stalks.

Today as I was working in my office when I heard laughing outside of my window.  The workers were back and they were harvesting rice twenty feet from where I was sitting.  I quickly ran upstairs and snapped a few photos to share.

Whenever I think my work is hard I only have to look outside my window to see what real hard work is all about.  The acre upon acre of rice in my backyard is all harvested by hand.  Families are out there as I speak armed with scythes cutting the rice, and this scene is being played out all throughout Thailand by hundreds of thousands of people working in the rice fields.

The harvest is ripe here in Thailand.

Comments

[Frannie]

Thanks for the pictures, Dad! I'm sad that I missed it this year. Love you!

[jordan retro 1]

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[Antivirus_man]

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[Antivirus_man]

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[Antivirus_man]

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