A Week of Rice Harvest

Cutting begins Monday; new rice is cooked on Sunday. Seven days in Mr. Sato's paddies.

The rice decides harvest day. "When moisture drops below 24%. You decide by biting the grain, not by the calendar." On Monday morning, Mr. Sato bit grains from the paddy's four corners, looked at the sky, and said, "From today."

Monday–Wednesday — Cutting

The four corners the combine can't reach are still cut by hand with a sickle. How you bend, how you bundle, how you lay them down. Three generations of handwork packed into a few minutes. "Machines are fast. But cut the corners by hand and your hands know the weight of this year's rice."

Thursday–Saturday — Drying

Cut grain is dried slowly. Hurry it and the flavor leaves. "Lower the dryer by one degree and it takes twice as long. We go with twice as long." The barn fills with the smell of drying grain — straw and sunshine.

Sunday — Cooking

New-rice morning. Washing: "three times, gently." Water: "with Higashikawa water, a touch less." Beyond the steam from the pot, Mr. Sato says: "Rice is the water's work. I'm more like its assistant."

At the end of the week, the paddy goes back to plain soil. But next spring, water will be drawn here again, reflecting the sky. The water mirror we wrote about in the first issue was there for this week. The harvest isn't the end of the year. It's the halfway point of water's year.