It is harvest time at Legacy school in Chiang Mai. The rice is ripe and ready. Professor Ong-Art, who runs an organic farm near our rice fields told us we need to harvest NOW because our rice is so heavy it will begin to break the stalks!
So, classes are cancelled and all the teachers and students have headed for the fields to bring in the harvest before the King’s Birthday holiday this Thursday, December 5.
T. Leon Sexton
Tugay helps load truck
Ne Blu Too helps harvest
Legacy Farm pickup loaded with harvested rice
Legacy Teacher Meagan Garrant bringing in the harvest
Legacy students harvest the rice with Kay U in foreground
Fred the scarecrow overlooks the harvest
Ne Blu Too joins in the harvest
Moe Paley harvesting ripe rice
Stacking the rice for threshing
Moe Paley displays cut sheaf
Zac Coish (in red shirt) and team ready to begin harvest
Ready to harvest
Black rice ripening
Three acres of rice ready to harvest
Harvesters hard at work
Rice sheaves ready to pick up
“Bringing in the sheaves”
(L to R) Tyler Kincade, Seng Aung and Zac Coish harvesting rice
Tyler (L) and Seng Aung harvesting
Tyler (L) and Seng Aung harvesting
Tyler (L) and Seng Aung harvesting
Seng Aung binds the sheaves
Hom Mali rice ready to harvest
Seng Aung binding sheaves
Tyler, Seng Aung and Zac inspect rice to see if it is ready to harvest
About a month and a half ago I was in the middle of our corn field doing a happy dance. The corn was taller than me and looking so strong! All our hard work had paid off and the corn was growing taller and faster than we had hoped. The following day we show up to the farm and a great amount of the corn had fallen over! I was devastated! The previous night there was a huge storm. The rain flattened out the mounds that the corn root buried itself into and with no foundation; all 7 feet of the corn had fallen over. Also there were some casualties just because the wind was so strong as well. Upon seeing the damage that was done I knew that we needed to fix the problem. So I cancelled planting beans and tending to our other farm in order to keep this corn alive. We went through each row and created stronger rows and mounded them up. We went in the jungle and cut down 10 foot long sticks to dig in next to each plant and we tied the corn to the stick so it could stand up straight. This process took 3 days to accomplish.