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"Pandemic Survival"

Time check 2:52 am PH time This is somewhat another feature of my article regarding our life here as a farmer in our locality. I may wish you to read it again till the end and discover another story behind the picture i just shared. If somehow you happened to visit our village, you may find many houses from the top view if you are standing beside the national road and look down to our small territory 😊

If you try to zoom in the picture you will find similar rusted roofs wherein you might mistook for a house. Most foreigners who pass by and took photos of our village thought we have lots of little houses. But the truth is, those little houses are our granaries.

This granary can store our rice crops for how many years. Even decades. Yes decades! How? Well, our grain has a unique quality that a weevil can't infect and we can store it up to how many years. In fact, our granary is still storing our grandfathers' rice crops from their generation until now. Amazing isn't it. On the contrary, the taste quality of the rice will vary from its newly harvest aromatic and sticky to a bit rough and dry taste. This is due to the added years of storage. The color will change also from light yellow skin to gold while its rice when milled will become yellowish also. One may ask why we stored our crops for so long and not consume it instead. The answer is from our ancestors also, they taught us to save for our future. According to my uncle in-law, long time ago, the folks didn't have rice to eat but instead they survive from crops from sweet potatoes and their viand is a "kalap" another relative of beans family, they only eat meat from their game when they luckily hunt something.

When a foreign minister first came and introduce the rice seeds to our ancestors, they treat the grains like a precious gold. They began creating terraces of paddy field using piled rocks as a support to plant the seeds and when they harvested their labor, they stored more than what they consume. They stick to eating sweet potatoes and beans and eat their rice in some occassions only. Its like preparing cakes on birthdays only. When they began to produce some more, they thought of building storage room for the rice as it will make their homes so crowded not with people but with rice crops🤣. Because houses long ago are also small and the size is 5 times the size of this granary. One part of it is an open storage for their sweet potatoes. It is the time when they invented our granary. (terraces are for the mountaineers who do not have flat or plain location for their paddy field and gardens)

(This part of the story i enjoyed most). 😁During Japanese invasion, our women ancestors fled into the higher part of the mountain and hid themselves leaving some of their companions behind in the village. Those who were left witnessed how the invaders got puzzled on how to open the granary and keeps circling it because the door is not visible and the walls are the same🤣. They can't open it because the folks cannot understand their language even they ask for assistance🤣. So it was left untouched. When the invaders left the folks have something to eat after a long absence and not active planting their food. The walls of the granary should be fit and tight so that rodents can't enter. But it needs checking from time to time because mice have sharp teeth and can gnaw the wood if they do it repeatedly. So with the roof because they used dried grass as their roof before not like the picture i just shared using galvanized roofing. The rain might enter the roof and may cause the upper part to get wet and rot. So you see,In here, we can survive even in this pandemic because we stored enough for our future thanks to our ancestor. We can also produce our own vegetables from our backyard and emply lots not only during pandemics but its our habit. Addition to that is our character. We know how to control and discipline ourselves. Since the pandemic started, fortunately we don't have cases of COViD19 in our village. People are discipled and our health workers implement strict procedures within the community to keep our place a safety haven. There are cases in our town due to some individuals who came from cities but it doesn't rise to the number of 10 since the pandemic started. This is not to brag but i'm only sharing and I thank God for that. ❤️ I hope you enjoyed reading the article guys and gave you some information regarding the place i live and how we live. Time check 3:49 am PH time. Am retiring to bed again😁 Another entry to Daily Trends Photo essay event from @Dolores Heres the other part of this article. Mind if you visit. https://read.cash/@Xzeon/to-the-fields-we-go-b0a08b6c

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