War Against Mud

I am a farmer. I am proud to be one. It was my ancestors blood and will run through my veins until my hair turns grey.

As of writing, my legs are a bit numb now. The planting season is in its high peak so I need to get offline for couple of weeks. The first and the second until the third day it hurts to move even a little. It makes me uncomfortable but as I go climb and walk the path higher that leads to our ricefields, my body was used to it now. It looks like it's my freeday yesterday but i wasn't able to finnish my article so I was determined to finnish it today😅. The last planting was done the other day on my mother in-law's. So i was still on our bed even in a high daylight.

The first day. Clearing

When I arrived to the site where I need to start the task, it looks so tiring already🤣. Everywhere where full of dried and fresh vegetations that needs clearing. I was alone that time so I only finnished a portion of the task.A day after it was more easy because I was accompanied by my son while my husband was with me the third day in another site. This is the the first part of the process of farming. We call it slash/cut and burn. It should be rice stalks only to be cut down but as the years go by, different kinds of weeds grew everywhere in the field especially when it was always dried up even after the planting season where the water is scarce.  Weeds grow from seeds that was previously blown by the wind. If it won't get cut, it competes the growth of the rice that was planted . We don't use herbicides or any pesticides in here during earlier years but now few farmers learned to use it from the people who tried to live in the lowlands and introduced it in here instead of clearing manually despite the warnings of the Agriculture Office of the harm it may cause to the soil. A mower was a big help also in cutting the weeds in the dried mud so i only have to concentrate on the mud dikes and the stone support on its side which is double my height😅.

Though the activity was tiresome, i feel good after seing our accomplishment. The field that looks like a forest, it's a real ricefield now. 🤣 I wasn't able to take the photo of my accomplishment as I was hurrying to go home,only when it was already plowed.

We don't own hectares of land in here but only "vaneng" meaning one ricefield surrounded by mud dike is considered a wealth of a farmer. If he owns more or larger ricefields, he is considered "kadangyan" or a wealthy one, wealthy of rice, considering the rice he may able to harvest during harvest season.

The following days became more tiring. We need to pluck rice seedlings from it's seedbed. Bundles after bundles we need to collect for planting and would carry it over our head in a sack. Worst when you need to bring the seedling hundred meters away from it's seedbed. When I tried to carry a full sack, i had a back ache 😅 since it's been a long time when I carried heavy loads on my head.

Planting begin. We call it war against mud. Maybe you can understand why It's called like that right?😁 You see, planting in our community differs from lowlands. We replant the seedlings one by one or individually so from plucking from its seedbed we need to select the rubost ones unlike the lowlanders that they uprooted everything and clamp in their hands and plant it in the mud.

We need to do it individualy because the variety of rice in here differ also from the other ussual varieties. We must aim for healthy grains and a bigger stalk so that it would be easier to harvest during harvest season using our manual harvesting tool. Planting it individualy will result to a good size we want to achieve plus the fertilizer we add to the ricefield. Check my link on how we harvest our rice in here.

In plowing the field, the farming was modernized. Males used "kuliglig", a machinery use in plowing ones field. It became a lot more easier than the previous years. It can finnish a lot of ricefields in a day. There are still some individuals who use the old method using the buffallo.

I met one during my transport of seedling from its seedbed on my way back to the field where I left my "little" companions,the children, my daughter and her cousins the other day.The difference between the two ways of plowing was the absence of bayanihan in the old method,while flocks of males was present in the machine method who worked together in carrying the parts of the machine from one ricefield to another and also by operating it alternately among the group.

#In addition to the information I stated above, we inherit farming from our ancestors and was passed from generations to generations.It was one of our main source of food for survival.

A woman who marry will have a "gift", a piece of ricefield from the males' party. Another is from her own parents. An heirloom as it may serve as a piece of their property that will be passed from generation to generation. In addition to that is a house and lot from your parents where you start to settle your own family if you were a last born or firstborn. It may change depending on some situations though. Lucky for those who meet a nice family but for some, you recieve nothing especially when they don't want you as a part of a family member. Fortunately, only weathy family do that mostly. I only heared few stories from my mother-in-law about that. I hope you enjoyed my farm life journey.

Thanks for reading.