Plowing the Fields

Saturday was spent plowing the big field to prepare for wheat. We identify our fields very scientifically and descriptively: there is the "small field", the "big paddy", the "big field" (on higher ground, not a paddy) sometimes called the "big field by the big road",the vegetable garden and the "fields near the cemetary". There is also a "small field on the big road" and the bamboo thicket.

I had a special fondness for the old tractor - a big old red thing that was bought in the 1960's as a state-of-the-art piece of farm machinery. It had a durable and still very strong Isuzu engine but people often wondered why we kept an "antique" tractor. It did look like something from the Depression. So my husband sold it to a young farmer and bought a newer used Yanmar tractor, also red, a bit bigger with extra features and a canopy! We are real farmers now! It still looks like a toy next to a John Deere but it works for our small farm. The trick is to turn tight corners and not fall over the edge of the field into a canal, the big road or the paddy. So I got a quick lesson on "how a dummy drives a tractor" or is that "tractors for dummies"?

I gathered up the rest of the long straw from the "big paddy field" in the morning and hoed the weeds in our yard where the lawn was removed. I tried to sell rice at the wrong price. Communication is failing rapidly. I'm looking at a 30kg sack of rice and asking the dear husband the value. My husband answers by telling me the price of an imaginary sack of rice, the old 60kg size that we no longer use. Why give me the price for a bag that doesn't exist? I am confused. We sorted it all out and sold all of the surplus rice.