Nye

Fourth Week of Rice Harvest

The weather has gotten a lot cooler this week, especially early in the morning and I’ve to wear a light jacket now before leaving the house, I do missed the hot summer weather already.  But today is a nice day, too nice to be stuck inside working, but not much I can do.

I stopped by the Rice Paddy today after work, but had noticed this car several days back, I thought to myself then that who ever drove this car couldn’t have survived.

The driver was her daughter, believe it or not she was okay and only has a broken foot.  The accident happened last Saturday around 3 in the afternoon, this goes to show that accident can happen to any of us, so drive safely.

This year has not been very steady for this rice paddy, the cold weather in the spring had lingered a lot longer, so the planting got pushed back several weeks. They’ve been busy harvesting their rice crops this week, at one point I saw 3 ladies out there in the rice field, and most of the front and back paddies are done.

These Kao Kom or purple sticky rice don’t look so good, and I noticed that the water is drying up also.  There goes my chance of purchasing Kao Kom from them.

Some rice plants are still young, and it might be the end of September before they can harvest these.

Another victim, this one is a huge bug, looks very much like a Buffalo Dung Beetles (Mang Jud Jee in pasa Lao), I’m not sure how it got up there.

Close up image.

13 comments

    • K, I think people need to stay focus when they’re behind the wheel, I have noticed that many do things that they couldn’t finish at home, like some ladies would put on makeup in the car while driving, that’s dangerous and I don’t see how anything would come out straight. Some that I know would read a book while driving, and cell phone is a problem, especially when they’re texting while driving, it’s accident waiting to happen imo.

  2. I have the urge of going to the field and start harvesting. When I was in laos during Harvesting season, I tried it out in my grandmother field for couple hours, oh boy that was hard working and it was HOT. I couldn’t do it more than one day. My auntie hired people to harvest her fields paying them “10,000 kip” person. I was shock !! shock !!. Now I know each time I bring couple pounds of the rice back with me I know how hard it is to harvest the rice grain by grain to get couple of rice.
    I love fresh pick rice they do taste so so much difference from the rice we brought from the asian store.
    I can’t wait to go back again this year.

    • salalao, when I saw them harvesting, I had the urge to go take picture, hehehe, that would look so beautiful but I had to get back to work, can’t play around too much. I can hang around the field all day and would love to harvest the rice crops with them, I don’t mind the hot weather. 🙂

      Last year my aunt’s rice paddies got flooded (I think the same flood as the Vientiane flood in August) so we didn’t get to see much (I need to post that when I have more time). When you said 10,000 kips, Wow, I didn’t know that that is all they pay to harvest rice in Laos, that’s only a little over $1 but there is not much they can do if they need the money. I’d love to go back to Laos again but it doesn’t look like I’ll get to visit anytime soon, I couldn’t afford to bring my whole family there, so might have to wait for a while.

      Do you go visit Laos by yourself or you bring your family along?

      • Usually I take my parents, My mom have large family back home. She likes to go back every year to visit her mom. My grandmother is in her 80’s so we would like see her as offen as we can.
        Last couples trips I went by myself, to finishing up the house I am currently built. It is the capital not far from Pha Thug Luang. I just loved the simple life, in the U.S things are just getting too compilcated.

        • salalao, it’s great that your mom gets to go back and visit, this was the first time for my dad and I, but I don’t think my dad wants to go back again, the plane ride was too much for him. I got to visit Bo’s grandfather, which was great because none of his grandchildren and great grandchildren get to go back to visit him and he is in his 90s, life is too short sometimes and we should try to make the best of it.

          I would love to live in Laos and might become a farmer, but my families are here and I don’t have anyone back home except for my aunt in Paksan. Life is very complicated here in the US, I just take one day at a time but it looks like you have a nice plan for yourself in Laos, and good luck. 🙂

    • Hi Nye,
      I thought it was just me, but I am feeling a bit sad as the summer comes to an end. The past two days have been much cooler and windy too. My zinnias are fading and I just collected my first seeds for next spring.

      The rice field looks pretty. I can imagine how difficult it is for the person doing the harvesting. Unless of course they are doing it as a hobby :).

      Rice is food that feed most of the world. When I see food being wasted (rice especially) I can’t help but feel sad. As there are places in the world where food is not so abundant.

      Btw, for a break, I go here http://www.freerice.com
      “For each answer you get right, we donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program.’

      • Cambree, thanks for the link, I’m glad they didn’t penalize me for answering it wrong, when instead of helping I might be hurting. 🙂

        I guess September is the beginning of harvest season, one being the rice paddy, then apple is next, our apple festival is only a couple of weeks away, so I’m looking forward to that. My second sister zinnias are fading also, I’d miss seeing the butterfly. When we got back from the beach, many of my dad’s jasmine flowers are in bloom and I took a picture of it for you to see, it smells very much like the Alba night cream.

        • That jasmine is pretty! I wish I had some fresh jasmine here – it would be neat to experiment with them (for skincare). 🙂

          I like your song choice. I have this song on my mind when I think of harvest season. The Byrds “To Everything There is a Season”.

  4. Nye, is that your house on first picture? By looking at the car, I didn’t think anyone would be alive.

    • seeharhed, sorry it’s not my house, Bo was asking me earlier about it, he couldn’t figure out whose house I took.

      I’m beginning to wonder if she was the only person in the car, my co-worker was at the hospital with her daughter when I visited the rice paddy and I saw her son and he said that it was his sister driving the car and she was okay, so I didn’t ask him if there were anyone else with her. Then on Saturday evening when we left for the beach, we passed a funeral home and there was a Hmong funeral service, I’m beginning to wonder if it’s related somehow.

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