Hey guys! It's me again.
Two weekends ago I met up with the Kome Kome Club and headed back to Yoshikawa. It was the beginning of autumn in Japan, and the barren terraces I remembered from my trip in February were filled with golden stalks ripe for harvest.
Nowadays, harvesting is mostly done with combine harvesters, but we got the chance to harvest one field the old-fashioned way. An old farmer showed us how it's done.
The farmer used a small hand scythe; the inside of the curved blade was serrated with tiny teeth. He first grabbed several stalks and used a quick flick of the wrist to cut them. After cutting a handful of stalks, he laid the stalks neatly behind him, cut another handful, and laid those stalks diagonally across the previous handful.
Once we finished with our scythes, the field was filled with cut grain laid out in rows of X's. The farmer then showed us how to tie the cut grain into bundles using dried straw. With several strands of straw held firmly between his hands, he picked up a bundle of grain and spun it in the air to start the knot. He finished the knot by twisting the straw together three times and pushing one of the free ends under the knot to hold it close.
Making the bundles was definitely harder than cutting the grain. One of the guys who was skilled with the procedure walked me through it, but I kept messing up and starting over. The farmer had a good laugh.
After loading the bundles in the farmer's truck, we headed over to a large rack. It was like a wide ladder, with long bamboo rungs tacked to a row of tree trunks. Each bundle was parted in two at the top and hung upside down over a rung, again forming X's. The grain was left out to dry, and we went to get cleaned up.
We slept in the old schoolhouse that night. The following day, we had the chance to watch a combine harvester in action. At break time, we were treated by the farmers to tea, apples, pickled vegetables, and sweets.
It wasn't quite autumn yet -- it felt like more like the end of summer. The hills were green and the sky was clear blue overhead.
That's all for me. Until next time,
James Li
Two weekends ago I met up with the Kome Kome Club and headed back to Yoshikawa. It was the beginning of autumn in Japan, and the barren terraces I remembered from my trip in February were filled with golden stalks ripe for harvest.
Nowadays, harvesting is mostly done with combine harvesters, but we got the chance to harvest one field the old-fashioned way. An old farmer showed us how it's done.
The farmer used a small hand scythe; the inside of the curved blade was serrated with tiny teeth. He first grabbed several stalks and used a quick flick of the wrist to cut them. After cutting a handful of stalks, he laid the stalks neatly behind him, cut another handful, and laid those stalks diagonally across the previous handful.
Once we finished with our scythes, the field was filled with cut grain laid out in rows of X's. The farmer then showed us how to tie the cut grain into bundles using dried straw. With several strands of straw held firmly between his hands, he picked up a bundle of grain and spun it in the air to start the knot. He finished the knot by twisting the straw together three times and pushing one of the free ends under the knot to hold it close.
Making the bundles was definitely harder than cutting the grain. One of the guys who was skilled with the procedure walked me through it, but I kept messing up and starting over. The farmer had a good laugh.
After loading the bundles in the farmer's truck, we headed over to a large rack. It was like a wide ladder, with long bamboo rungs tacked to a row of tree trunks. Each bundle was parted in two at the top and hung upside down over a rung, again forming X's. The grain was left out to dry, and we went to get cleaned up.
We slept in the old schoolhouse that night. The following day, we had the chance to watch a combine harvester in action. At break time, we were treated by the farmers to tea, apples, pickled vegetables, and sweets.
It wasn't quite autumn yet -- it felt like more like the end of summer. The hills were green and the sky was clear blue overhead.
That's all for me. Until next time,
James Li