Snickerers

There are three old clowns who “work” at the Ueno Rice Center about a kilometer from here. I put work in quotes because I never see them do anything but stand around outside the center gossiping and yucking it up about God knows what.

My dog Tera and I pass by the Rice Center most every morning that we’re out here, and the old dudes start to chuckle. That’s right, they laugh. I’m sure it’s the whippet–they’ve never seen a dog that isn’t a matted, snarling Shiba. A dog that’s clear eyed and fed must be startling.

I refuse of course to take the bait. I smile broadly when we pass and each time give a hearty morning greeting of “Ohayo gozaimasu!” The clowns say “Ohayo” back…and then snicker.

Each time. Tee hee.

The tallest one of the three has recently realized that if he makes monkey-like “ooo ooo ooo” sounds at Tera he will start to bolt, tugging at the lead to get out of there ASAP.

So every time we walk by it’s ooo ooo ooo from the tall guy.

The Ueno Rice Center is really just a medium-size milling plant. I never hear it actually doing any milling. There are precisely two times a year when there is any work for these guys to do–early Spring when they deliver rice shoots out to the farmers, and late Autumn when they collect back bags of rough grains for polishing to spec.

The rest of the year it is stand around and yack.

As I mentioned last week, rice production is slated to be way up this year. Across the street from Ueno there are normally four greenhouses for growing the starter shoots. This year they’ve added three more for a total of seven that are now fully stacked with bright green trays of grassy fronds. The clowns drive a little truck around to deliver those trays out to the paddies.

Your delivery, sir.

I think the paperwork is all done later. I’ve noticed that on delivery day farmers are not even there to accept the shoots. Instead the truck pulls right up to a paddy and the driver simply floats the agreed amount of shoot trays in the water. Most likely, this is so the rice can get accustomed to the water temperature and mud of that paddy before sowing day comes.

As I walk through the valley, I can see hundreds of trays floating in the corners of paddies soon to be planted.

I’m sure you have seen photos of the back-breaking work needed to plant rice paddies. Farmers in wide brimmed straw hats slog bare footed through the thick mud, often sinking to their hips, as they hand plant shoots one by one into the muck. The sun sears their necks and backs as they stoop to plant.

Well, this is Japan, everyone is over 75, and I’m happy to report nobody plants rice this way anymore. Machinery has been developed!

On the appointed sowing day, the farmer rents a tractor-like vehicle fitted with something resembling a sewing machine at the back. He loads the plastic trays of rice shoots into a long chute and a simple mechanism picks single shoots of rice from the trays and injects them into the mud. The sound is like Fwaaaaaaa dat dat dat dat dat.

Voila. Perfectly straight rows of ideally spaced shoots are left behind the tractor. A half-acre paddy can be planted well inside of an hour.

The sewing macine has done its embroidering.

Morimoto-san produces energy above his paddy.

About 30 minutes after the Ueno Rice Center as we are finishing our walk, Tera and I traverse a wide-open space of paddies. On a hot day I call this stretch the Death Zone because it takes about 15 minutes to cross to any shade from the sun. It’s still fairly cool here so I don’t fear the Death Zone as I will next month. Today as Tera and I crossed, I saw an old eagle resting on a phone line straight above us.

This was not a pretty eagle. There was nothing proud or stately about this buzzard. He looked mussed as if he had been in a fight. He pecked and picked unpleasantly at his dusty feathers.

He is the size of Tera, and there he was balanced on a high wire in a strong breeze. He surveyed the valley, most likely looking for any hints of scurrying rodents or snakes. We passed right below him and I have to admit I was nervous. Would he feel a threat from us, would he preemptively swoop down from above and behind as we crossed his territory?

I decided a brief acknowledgement would be better than pretending to be unaware. I looked up at him and said good morning. I smiled. He looked at me warily not sure what to make of the man with the skinny dog. He watched us pass beneath, and then resumed looking for snakes.