Mother Nature is Thriving in Isaan

Rainy season continues, with heavy downpours at least every other day.  So far we haven't been caught outdoors in any, we're happy to say.  But the flowers and greenery continue to impress.  Here are some recent samples from Khemmarat.

We can't tell you much about this but we found this shiny thing (creature/cocoon?) attached to the bottom of a leaf.  The silver surface is so reflective that one can see the reflection of the camera on its surface.

We saw our first banana blossom.  And we're including a picture of a bunch of bananas on a tree in Khemmarat to show how that flower progresses.

Butterflies continue to amaze us.  The rainy season and all the flowers it produces in Khemmarat must be butterfly heaven.

We made a video to try to illustrate how profuse they are.

 

Mango fruits are ripe now, and George has eaten the raw fruit served with a sweet and spicy dry condiment and found it to be delicious.  We have seen many examples of a mango dish drying in the sun in people's yards.  We think, once dried, these are rolled into tubes and eaten that way, but we haven't seen any of these for sale and, therefore, haven't had a chance to sample them.

And there are plenty of animals in Khemmarat enjoying nature's bounty.  We saw this calf with her mom on a recent walk by the river.

Down on the Farm with Tom

Tom [see second section of previous (May 11) blog post and posts in March] and George continue to struggle to communicate, but each is gradually learning more of the other's language and they continue to have good times together despite (and, sometimes, because of) the language challenge.  Tom is on a mission to teach George about farming in Isaan.  This is George's story, so he'll tell it in the first person.

On May 10, Tom taught me how to prepare a rice field for seeding and how to throw the seed.  Those seeds are left for 3 weeks to sprout and grow, so, when I met with Tom 8 days later on May 18, it wasn't about rice, but some of the trees that are grown on Thai farms.  This time Tom was working at one of the farms of Kru ("teacher") Tong.  Tong picked me up in Khemmarat and drove me to the farm.  Tong grows rubber and man ("mahn") trees on this farm, and Tom and his crew were clearing the weeds away from rubber trees when George arrived.

 

Tom gave me a demonstration and then handed me the hoe.

Then we prepared the ground for new rubber trees.

Yot planted them.

 

Pailin is holding the colorful ribbons that she used to tie the new trees to poles for support.

Tom found an old log with a colony of mushrooms.

Tom showed me the man trees.

Tong pulled up one tree to show me the roots -- "potatoes."

Tong and Tom showed me a tree on Tong's property in which honey bees had established a hive in a branch -- I'd never heard of trees as bee hives before.  Yot was going to smoke the bees out, saw off the branch, and get the honey -- he did that later in the week and I missed the sight.

We visited some of Tom's friends on the way back to his house.  This cute little boy is showing me a baby chick.

We drove by Tom's rice fields that we had seeded 8 days earlier.

This is a picture of a seeded field (foreground) and in the background, one awaiting transplant of the 3-week old rice plants.

I love this scene.  It looks like a lovely place to spend a peaceful afternoon.

This is the field where I'd helped throw the rice seed;  Tom called it "Tom & George's rice."  Those are our shadows over the field.

We visited with some of Tom's neighbors; these are Yaituat and Peng.

Some buffalo walked by.

It was a great day!

On June 1, it had been 3 weeks since we had seeded Tom's fields and now it was time to replant the young rice plants to give them more room to grow.  As I was walking toward the fields where the work was going on, I surprised this buffalo, who jumped up from her rest in the mud.

Tom had hired some 20 people to help with the work.  The first step is to pull up the 3-week-old plants from the starter field.

Bunches of those plants are then placed in the field into which they will be transplanted.

 

And then the workers push the young plants, one by one, down into the mud.

Tom taught me to hold the plant by its roots between my thumb and index finger to protect the roots as you push the plant into the mud.

Tom seemed pleased with the result of his instruction.

This farang was a real curiosity to Tom's workers, who were much more limber and adept than I.  At one point, I heard laughter and commotion as I found myself almost stepping on plants behind me that they had recently placed in the mud as I worked much more slowly than they.  I started looking behind me before I took a step back from that point on.

Tom taught me how to plow a field on May 10, but the objective that day was simply to smooth the mud out before we scattered the seed.  On June 1, we were turning the soil over in a field before the young plants would be transplanted there.  This time the tractor was pulling a  large screw that dug into the soil to turn it over. Tom showed me how to turn the plow at the corners and push it down or lift it up depending on the depth of the mud.

I don't remember the last time I sunk my feet into mud, but it felt good.  I was reminded of a mud party Riley and Bud went to as young children at our friends, the Solomons.  I think they really enjoyed it.

Thanks, Kru Tong, for getting the pictures of me playing the part of a farmer that day.

Runee and Pailin fixed lunch in the shelter.

 

The workers got a rest in the shade while they waited for lunch.

This is Paw Mai, who lives  next to Tom's rice fields and also did some plowing that day.  He also caught a few catfish with his hands in the rice field.

Tom also caught a few catfish as he was plowing.  The fish were jumpin'!

Some beautiful, hard-working ladies.  The first picture is of Mae Po, the Mother of Yot.

Some handsome, hard-working young men.

And some happy children.

This was the view at the end of the day of one of those fields with newly transplanted rice plants.

These plants grow for two more months and then it's harvest time.  That is just about when Mary and I leave Isaan on our way back to the USA.  I don't know how that's going to work out, but I hope somehow I'll get some pictures of the harvest.  Watch this space.