Rice fields

In the early morning (like 6:00 am) we walk with Choco past rice fields and vegetable fields.  The rice fields are now all basically flooded because the farmers rev up their tractors the first week of May. 

Japan, if nothing else, is blessed with WATER and everywhere we look we are surrounded by streams and rivers and trenches and flooded fields.  Though not at the corner of every rice field, here and there on the landscape are little sheds that shelter pumps and wells.  The water is brought up from underground and let into a field and when one field is full a trench will let the overflow go into another field.  In the mornings the farmers all come round to check their fields and to see if they need to open up a trench or not.

A rice field tractor with a load of sprigs ready to be planted.  The tractor makes nice even lines of rice plants in the fields but along the edges the farmers will still wade into the mud and plant by hand.

A flat of rice sprouts drawing up water from the field before being planted.

I missed the rice planting class this year at the elementary school.  Here is the post for last year...

So now the fields are feathery green with ducks swimming between the rows of rice.  In a few weeks the whole countryside will be a carpet of green!