planting season is over!

Today marks the end of my first attempt at planting rice. And through this exercise, I’ve realised that my mom and my dad’s lectures were true: we shouldn’t waste rice because farmers spent blood and sweat to get every grain onto the table. Well, it’s literal for me: I got cut while harvesting, and I had to work in summer conditions (I had to drink lots of water to avoid heat stroke).

The saga began late in December last year, just before the Christmas holidays. I had no idea how to start this project, so I enlisted the help of Kuya Jun and Kuya Ferdie (two of the technicians in the lab). I was really worried because I did not even know anything about rice production, or even about the population I was prepping. All I knew was the samples were sensitive to hot temperature (perfect! and I’m planting them right smack into the dry season! impeccable timing!). After breaking seed dormancy, we transplanted them into seed trays. During the holidays, I was in the glass house, watering the plants. I was too worried that they might die if I forgot to water them.

At last, the new year arrived, and my next worry was where to transplant them. Fortunately, there was an empty screenhouse behind the "mentos" tower so I set my plants there.

Still the worrywart, I was in the screenhouse everyday, including Saturday or Sunday, to water and de-weed my plants. But I eventually gave up de-weeding (it was a fruitless endeavour… the weeds keep on growing too fast).

Thankfully, my plants grew green and tall. I was beginning to rest easy. But then, my panel of advisers (specifically the technicians from the crop science division, and Kuya Jun and Kuya Ferdie) kept on reminding me that the tough part wasn’t over yet… the plants should flower and the grains should grow plump; otherwise, my work would have been a huge waste of time. So, I continued to water them until the early days of April when the summer air began to scorch the field.

I was so happy to see that my rice grains were plump and filled. The next challenge was to harvest all of them in the shortest time possible. That ordeal began on April 5. The novice that I am, I had no idea how to work the fastest until the next day. The advisers were all thinking it would take me a long time (at least a week) to finish up. But, surprise, surprise! I was done with 3/4 of the "farm" by 5pm yesterday. The only setback was I was dead tired. I was on the field from 9am (right after getting updated in the lab) up to 12nn (no snack break… when I’m focused on one thing, I act like the Energizer bunny). Lunch was a welcome break because the sun was so intense! But after getting cooled down a bit, I had to return to the field to work. So I was there again at 1pm til 5pm. I was working at a fast pace because I wanted to finish harvesting before the weekend. But I was too exhausted to carry all the harvested seeds by hand; I had to load everything in the car. Everything ached, even my fingertips! When I got home, I couldn’t sleep!

Today, I was back in the field from 9am until the lunch break. The good thing was that before I left, there were only around 12 pots left. So right after lunch, it just took me an hour (seems slow, maybe, but considering that I was really tired and my knees were ready to give out — after three days of working like this) to finish the harvest. Sa wakas!

After three days of field work, I got roasted to a beautiful golden brown complexion, just like my lola’s fried chicken. Anyway, I was religiously applying sun block spf 30 so I wasn’t worried about sunburns. Only the legs remained pale because I was wearing pants. The joke was I was sun-bathing on the field. Hehe.

As I was harvesting my plants, I was reminded of the Tim Allen-Kirstie Alley movie in which their characters hid in an Amish community during the planting season. Allen’s character was amazed because the plants he cultivated were all grown up, and he only watered them. I share the same sentiments. I am amazed that the seeds I had three months ago matured into grown plants with fruits of their own. And all I did was water them everyday (well, God made them grow; that’s in answer to my prayers that the plants survive the summer conditions). Really amazing. It was quite sad though, to see them wither and die.

Then again, that’s life.