The rice planting season has come. About the half of the rice fields around my house were plowed and filled with water and in some fields rice has already been planted.
We plant rice earlier and earlier every year, I think. In my childhood we planted rice in June and we did during consecutive holidays early in May ten years ago or so and now we do in April.
In Shikoku there comes some typhoons in autumn every year and it is good that we plant early and we harvest crop early. But I wonder if it is too early to do so. (Though there are also the area that they plant rice in March in Shikoku.)
Yesterday I was given bamboo shoots and ate them. This is my first time to eat them this year. very good.
In Shikoku from March to April we go into the bamboo grove and dig the bamboo shoots and eat them boiled. Early in March we look for the ones under the ground to dig up and they are soft and especially delicious.
Perhaps Chinese and Koreans eat them in thier dishes. I thought that the season to eat bamboo shoots had come not knowing that.
It is fine today. In this season in my town, I see a lot of pilgrims or hikers, who are going around the temples in Shikoku. We call them "Ohenrosan" friendly. Because in Shikoku there are the course of pilgrimage called "Shikoku 88 temples" and a lot of people come to see the temples and worship in spring and autumn. (See also
this site.)
In my town there is one of 88 temples. So in this season we see a lot of people in Henro costume which is costume for pilgrimage or hikers walking.
By the rice fields some white butterflies are flying about among the flowers of milk vetch and dandelions. It is also fine day today. I'm afraid it may be cloudy in the afternoon.
Today is a warm and spring day. When I was walking, I found some Tanpopos which is Japanese name of dandelions.
Recently it becomes difficult to find Japanese dandelions and the ones we find are almost all dandalions from abroad, it is said. So I looked into the ones which I found today and I found it was the ones from abroad.
I think we have to protect Japanese proper dandelions. If not, sooner or later, it might be extinct.
Today it is fine weather. And I walked around in the rice fields. Some years ago the Chinese milk vetch flowered in many fields but now there are no field that it grows. There are only some flowers by the fields here and there.
The mechanization of agriculture and use of chemical fertilizer might have made the fields so unattractive.
Now the moon is rising in the east. It is a big and red moon. Very beautiful. It makes me feel that it would be a good day tomorrow.
