go frog (updated)

They've released all the water into the rice fields. Many of the students will be planting over Golden Week (the holidays from Saturday to Tuesday). Cycling past tonight, the frogs were having a grand old time (I was cycling, not the frogs). In between the usual mooping, there was the machine gun ack-ack-ack that comes from sound having very little to bounce off. Fields and fields and fields of rice. Or slush and mud, at the moment. Or maybe it was bouncing off the walls of the surrounding houses, or the frogs wouldn't have made that ack-ack-ack noise. Either way - mooping and rain and summer. Though it is usually winter when they appear in southern Australia - but our seasons are different. Can't find any images on the net at present of the rice fields (plenty of flooded rice fields, but the rice is already growing in them, that's not the case here yet). Hopefully I'll take a few pictures tomorrow and post them.

Well, here is a picture, taken at 6am this morning (2nd May) - and you can see that someone has already planted their rice out, but not all, I swear, not all are planted and green and sprouting in rows just yet, though they soon will be.

The pictures below were taken on the 3rd of May. I went for a 12.3 km ride x 2 (not including getting to the ride), and rode past the rice fields that hadn't been planted (see below).

Past the rice fields that may have been planted. Note the scenic telephone lines, but also the blue, blue sky, and the mountains and trees.

And then past the ones that seemed to be well and truly planted and sprouting hearty heads of rice seedling hair.

All the families were out planting. The women wear hats that seem similar to bonnets, but with a peaked front like a baseball cap, and the men do wear baseball caps. They all wear gum boots as the fields are full of slush, and in some cases, snakes. The seedlings have been growing in pseudo glasshouses (that is, they are not made of glass) and they (the seedlings) are laid out on the back of the tractor. The driver then goes down and up rows, the seedlings being planted as he progresses. Excuse the lack of jargon and expertise here.

This picture was not taken by me.

It is a hard job, and I don't think it is completely finished yet. Judging from the number of families out today, planting, enjoying lunches, before returning to the hard slog, I might have been a bit harsh in giving out homework. However, judging from the number of families in the park, enjoying barbeques and other activities, sports, fishing and so on, not all students are from farming families. We'll see, come Wednesday.