Fall cometh
The smell of autumn rode the air this morning. I describe it as a generous helping of humidity tinged with the smell of burning organics (rice chaff, sticks, paper) and sometimes burning plastics. Doesn't sound very appealing, does it? But it is, because I know that cooler weather is coming. The humidity will finally vanish, the oppressive heat will dwindle. I can finally wear pants to work without sweating the moment I leave an air conditioned room. I can leave laundry out to dry that will actually get dry.
It's the small things sometimes that make life interesting.
Comments
is the rice harvested mechanically or by hand? is there a rice harvest holiday &/or festivals?
Posted by: dad | September 11, 2005 2:11 AM
We have had a nice run of that weather too - it still gets pretty warm in the middle of the day but there is a chill in the air at night and walking the dog in the morning I can somedays see my breath. I love it because (other than my allergies) I feel like I am breathing clean air and not breathing through a hot wet rag of humidity. They say here Monday and Tuesday will be back in the 90s and then 70s again the rest of the week.
I want a pumkin soon! That is when it is really fall!
Posted by: Michelle | September 11, 2005 10:21 AM
As far as I know there are no specific big rice harvest festivals or holidays. I'm sure some towns do some sort of thing.
It's also notable that most towns are different in terms of when they harvest rice. Kitakawabe, for example, a town maybe 20km from here, has already harvested most of its rice. Gyoda has harvested none.
Obviously I'm making generalizations about towns harvesting, because it's up to the individual farmer to harvest.
Everything I've seen has been by machine. Maybe some people do it by hand for historical accuracy or something but I can't imagine why they'd do it by hand for any other reason...
Posted by: Justin | September 11, 2005 10:36 PM