Threshing Time

Golden Rice Pours Out of Threshing Machine

Driving along the country roads of Isaan this and last week, you will see many activities in the parched golden rice paddies.  The first indication of what may be ahead as you travel is three to five motorbikes parked along the paved road or just off of the road.

Looking at the paddies beyond the congregation of bikes, you will observe colorfully dressed Lao Loum people cutting rice, stacking sheaves of rice that has dried in the field for about a week, and threshing rice. The people are fully clothed for protection from the sun, dust, and irritation of dry plant materials.

Since the rainy season ended about three or four weeks ago the fields are dry and dusty.  If the farmers are threshing the rice the air is filled with chaff.  To avoid inhaling dust and chaff the farmers typically wrap a soccer jersey around their face leaving just a narrow slot for their eyes.  One benefit to the end of the rainy season is that we often have brilliant blue sky now.  The combination of brilliant blue sky, yellow straw, golden grain and various color schemes of the worker's clothing presents many interesting photography opportunities.

As Children Watch, Rice Is Threshed In the Field

To thresh the rice the farmers contact a person who has a truck mounted threshing machine.  The truck mounted threshing machine go from paddy to paddy all day long with the emphasis on speed.  The farmers typically compensate the owner of the thresher with a share of the resulting rice.  Typically the fee for threshing is one 50kg bag of rice for every 20 bags threshed.  For 100 bags threshed the fee is typically 4 bags.

To minimize the time that the thresher stays at their paddies, the farmers spread a large fine mesh blue net on a flat piece of round.  The rice that had been spread flat out in the paddies to dry in the sun are bundled into sheaves.  The sheaves are gathered and transported to the blue net.  The sheaves are piled high on top of the blue net.  Any rice kernels that separate in the rough handling of the sheaves falls on to the net and at the end of the threshing is bagged.  The threshing machine typically has a two man crew.  One man sits on the side of the machine behind a cantilevered shelf on the machine.  His job is to manually feed the sheaves, that are thrown on to the shelf by the farmers, into the machine.  His partner monitors the various exposed belts and pulleys of the threshing machine to ensure smooth operation.  The second crewman also repositions the chaff shoot as necessary during the threshing operation as well as monitoring the engine.  Together the two man crew sets up and dismantles the machine for transport.

The separated rice grain streams out the end of the threshing machine in a golden flow into 50 kg bags.  The filled bags are carried to the edge of the blue net where one of the farmers closes them and ties them off with thin strips of bamboo.  Once the threshing is completed, the number of filled bags is tallied and the thresher takes his fee before he sets off to his next appointment.

A Woman Ties Off Filled Bags

The farmers then load up the remaining bags of rice on to farm wagons or trucks to be transported to their home.  The bags are offloaded and placed in elevated small storage sheds next to their house.  Eventually most of the rice will be taken to a miller to remove the husk but that is subject of a blog to be written soon.

For some people who have too small a crop to afford mechanized threshing, threshing their rice is done the old fashioned way; by hand.  When Duang was young she threshed rice by hand with her family.

Threshing Rice The Old Fashioned Way

Just outside of Tahsang Village I came upon a man and his wife threshing rice by hand.  I found it very interesting so I stopped to learn about it and to photograph it.  Just as with the farmers who were using a mechanized thresher, these farmers had laid out a blue net and placed their sheaves upon it.  The man used two pieces of bamboo that had cotton rope which connected them together - sort of like "nunchucks".  Two pieces of bamboo connected with cotton string?  I had seen that once before!!  It was during the event that I documented in my blog entry, "Two Funerals and an Excorcism", that I saw young village men using smaller versions of this device to capture the "Phii Ling" (Monkey Ghosts) that had infested their village. http://www.hale-worldphotography.blogspot.com/2011/01/two-funerals-and-excorcism.html  Life can be seen as a serious of isolated events much like the pages of a coloring book with a collection numbered dots.  I still find great satisfaction and joy in being able to connect today's dots to see the depth and magic in current events just as the child connects the numbered dots to discover a hidden picture.  Coloring the ensuing revelation, or in my case photographing it, only adds to the wonder.  Last week's connections of the Royal Barges to the paintings at the Grand Palace and further back to the Thai Epic, "The Ramakian" is another example.

The farmer was very skilled in using the device to select a sheave from the pile, secure the selected sheave, lift the sheave high over his head and flail the sheave four to five times against the ground and growing mound of free rice kernels.  With a quick movement of his wrists. the farmer released the sheave of straw flying to a growing pile of waste.

A Sheaf of Straw Is Sent Flying

The Pile of Rice Grows As Spent Sheaf Is Discarded

Farm Wagon Awaits A Pecious Cargo - Next Year's Food

The normal 40 minute drive from Tahsang Village to our home in Udonthani ended up taking 3 hours on Sunday.  Three great stops to observe the threshing had lengthened the duration of the journey.  The time spent to observe and photograph was for me a worthwhile investment to learn and better understand the life of the Lao Loum farmer here in Isaan.

Rice Planting Continues

Yesterday was a very sunny, hot (35C, 95F), and humid day. No matter the conditions, the month long rice planting, or more appropriately "rice transplanting" season continued.

Duang had gone out to the village the previous day while I remained at home refinishing rattan outdoor furniture and she had witnessed a great deal of activities out in the fields along the country roads out to Tahsang Village. I decided that we would go back out to Tahsang Village to visit family and for me to photograph the field activities.

Where just a month ago the landscape was dotted with rectangular patches of dried weeds and rice stubble, the scenery around Isaan is being transformed into patches of neat and orderly paddies of 12 to 18 inch long rice seedlings set out in a grid. The land is now magically green once again thanks to the frequent rains.

Rice cultivation here in Isaan is all about the water - the availability of water. Rice cultivation here is wet farming technique. The rice grows in flooded paddies. The water that is used to grow the rice comes from frequent local thunderstorms, local impounded water, and to a much lesser extent local streams. The key is the rain from local thunderstorms with the emphasis on L-O-C-A-L.

The local fields around Tahsang Village were either filled with thick carpets of rice sprouts, filled with transplanted rice seedlings in organized grids or were in the process of being transformed from flat flooded mud bogs into the neat grids of transplanted seedlings.

Further down the road from Tahsang Village, the fields around Nong Daeng Village, no more than 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) distant were a stark contrast. Those fields showed a distinct lack of rain and closely resembled the Tahsang fields of last month. In Pattaya, I had witnessed rain falling heavily on one side of the road and completely dry on the other side of the road - 7 meters (21 feet) away. In a metropolitan tourist center such as Pattaya, this micro climate condition is interesting. But in rural and agrarian Isaan, such differences in micro climates is a serious concern and can adversely impact the local inhabitants.

One might expect that one day of rice planting is just like any other day of planting with each season being just like all the previous seasons. I resist that temptation to generalize and bring my camera gear along anticipating the unexpected. I am often rewarded with surprising opportunities to document as well as to share unique events and aspects of Isaan life. Just as the old adage states 'If you go looking for trouble you will find it", my philosophy is "If you are prepared and go looking for something interesting, you will find it."



When we arrived at the first planting site, the farmers had just started a break. They had retreated from the open exposed paddies to the relative shade of a single short tree amongst the paddies. The tree provided about 10 feet by 10 feet of shade where the workers could get a drink of water, smoke a cigarette, remove their head coverings, get their bare feet out of the mud, and most importantly socialize. True to form here in Isaan, people were engaged in loud and animated conversation which Duang all too willingly joined. After about 5 minutes a couple of women became very excited (more so than typical conversation) and started pointing out to one of the flooded paddies. In a flash, two other women rushed across the paddy to where a fish net had been placed. They took the net and walked towards a specific area as loudly directed by others from the shaded area. The carefully stalked their prey and deftly threw the net over it. They triumphantly removed a medium sized mud covered fish to the cheers of their colleagues and placed it into a large plastic bucket along with some muddy water from the paddy. They returned to the shade and continued with their break. I noticed that several people were always keeping an eye on the flooded prepared paddies. A couple minutes later, a shout went out to one of the men still out in the paddy. He grabbed the fish net and in a short time another mud covered fish was added to the plastic bucket. I did not go out to further inspect the catch - I don't relish trudging out in the flooded paddy carrying expensive camera gear and I try to minimize walking along the weed covered muddy slippery dikes bordering the paddies. There are two types of fish that the local farmers are able to harvest from the flooded paddies. The first type of fish hibernates in the ground as the paddies dry up at the end of the rainy season in October. The second type of fish actually migrates over the land from one body of water to the another body of water. The Thai Walking Catfish (Pla Duk Dam) uses its fins to travel over land. The species has invaded parts of the USA due to irresponsible importing and subsequent accidental as well as intentional releases into the environment.

With some one's dinner safely secured in the bucket, the farmers returned to their primary task at hand - transplanting the rice seedlings. The farmers were covered from head to ankle for protection from the strong sun. I was wearing light cotton slacks, a polyester tee shirt, and running shoes. I lasted only 35 minutes in the heat before I was forced to stop photographing. The farmers would work on for an additional 6 hours - six more hours bent over shoving seedlings into the mud, body wet from stagnant water and perspiration wearing regular clothing, tee shirts wrapped around their face with large hats hiding their face, six more hours of doing what is necessary to survive.





We drove to Tahsang Village where I quickly sucked down two cans of Pepsi. Duang asked me if I wanted "Kaoput". "Kaoput" is corn on the cob and readily available much of the year in Isaan. It is boiled typically over either a wood or charcoal fire. The boiled corn is eaten "au natural" without salt or butter or even sugar and shredded coconut as I had experienced in Pattaya. I was very hot and definitely not in the mood to eat corn on the cob. I said "No" but Duang started to convince me that it would be good for me, and that it would cool me off. I noticed that she was at the ice cream freezer in her mother's market and had an ice cream ("i sah kheem") scoop in her hand. I was about to be introduced to another unique Thai experience - Corn Ice Cream. Duang gave me a cone of yellow corn flavored ice cream which had kernels of corn dispersed in it. Many desserts in Thailand are corn based concoctions. Somehow the possibility of corn flavored ice cream had eluded me up to this time. I had always had "mango" ice cream at the market and never realized that there was also a "corn" option. The ice cream was refreshing and the coolness was very welcomed. Although I would not go out of my way to find corn ice cream again, I would eat it again especially if no other flavor other than Durian was available.

We left Tahsang in the late afternoon. We drove the back roads rather than taking the main highway. The main highway has a great deal of on going construction as well as a great deal of heavy truck traffic. The back road took us by many more fields being worked as well as better glimpses into Isaan rural living. Our route selection gave us another opportunity to witness rice planting but under somewhat cooler conditions.

The Circle Remains Unbroken - Rice Planting Time

Here in Isaan, we do not have Daylight Savings Time. We are not bothered or burdened with having to adjust our clocks and electronic devices twice a year. Because of Thailand's proximity to the equator, there is no much difference in the amount of daylight over the course of a year. I haven't researched it but it appears to me that on June 21, our longest day, the sun sets around 18:30 (6:30 P.M.) and on 21 December, our shortest day, the sun sets at 17:30 (5:30 P.M.).

Here in Isaan, we have just two seasons - "Hot and Dry" and "Hot and Wet".

Here in Isaan the passage of time, besides being marked by personal milestones such as birth ordination, marriage, and death along with religious celebrations, is marked by the rhythm of the land. There is the time for planting rice, harvesting rice, planting sugar cane, harvesting sugar cane, planting cassava, harvesting cassava, as well as planting peanuts, harvesting peanuts, planting corn and harvesting corn. Working and caring for the land is a year long task that like a wheel carries the people through their life.

Today on our trip out to Tahsang Village to visit family, evidence that the wheel of life and the circle that it tracks was very evident. For the third time since I moved to Isaan, the fields were alive with the sights and sounds of rice being planted. We are two months into our "Hot and Wet" season, and the fields that were parched all that long ago are now flooded. The same fields that were dull brown are now verdant rectangles creating a motley mosaic across Isaan.

Last month some of the rice paddies had been sowed with some of the rice obtained in previous harvests. The rice sprouted to create thick brilliant carpets dotting the landscape. Now it was time for the next stage of rice cultivation. The thick carpet of bright green "grass" is harvested, more accurately - pulled up by roots, placed into sheaves, the tops trimmed, and the seedlings are then transplanted in groups of three or four plants into prepared paddies.

The roots of the seedlings are key to the success of the transplant so care is taken to remove any excess mud from them. The sheaves are then placed back into the water so as to maintain their viability. The seedlings are transplanted within 24 hours so as to prevent them from drying out.

The actual process of planting rice at this time of year is actually a series of ongoing parallel tasks - all in close proximity to each other. The seedlings are pulled from the muddy paddy and gathered into a bunch. The bunch of seedlings or sprouts are slapped against the harvester's bare foot to remove excess mud. The bunch of seedlings is then tapped against the bottom of an overturned plastic tub to square off the roots. Once the bottom of the bunch is squared off the bunch is converted into a sheaf by binding the sprouts together using a couple of the plants as a string. After the pointed tops of the seedlings are cut off with a heavy machete type knife, the sheaves are stored roots down in the flooded paddy. One of the farmers periodically gathers the sheaves, and carries them, often using a long bamboo rod across his shoulder., to a near by paddy that has been prepared for transplantation of the seedlings.

The sheaves are then distributed throughout the flooded paddy roots down awaiting planting into the soupy mud of the paddy. Several workers, male and female, grab the sheaves and break them apart. The worker then selects the seedlings, three or four at a time, bends over and thrusts the seedling's roots into the viscous mud of the paddy. The farmers work in sort of rhythm under the overcast and heavy Isaan sky to place the rice plants in a grid across the paddy. Their efforts are only interrupted at times by their amusement towards a falang (foreigner) spending so much time photographing them.

The workers are a combination of the land owner's or lessee's family and day labor. The hired help make about $3 to $4.50 a day for an 8 hour day. Part of their compensation includes being fed by the land owner or lessee. Payment is made on a strictly cash basis. There is no immigration status checking required. There is no employer portion of Social Security - Old Age Taxes to be paid. There is no employee portion of Social Security - Old Age Taxes to be withheld by the employer. There is no employer portion of Social Security - Medicare Taxes to be paid. There is no employee portion of Social security - Medicare Taxes to be withheld. There are no Federal Income taxes to be withheld. There are no State or Local Income taxes to be withheld. There are no Unions. There are no written contracts. There is only the trust and bond of the employer's and employee's words. It is the free market distilled to its basic components - demand and supply.


In a paddy next to the paddy where the seedlings are being transplanted, a farmer uses a machine to prepare a flooded paddy. The mechanical buffalo ploughs the soil and smooths the ground to create the viscous mud required for transplanting the rice seedlings. In a third paddy a portable pump is set up to be driven by the power drive off of the mechanical buffalo to transfer water in order to flood the paddy.

After photographing two different groups of farmers planting rice, I returned to Tahsang Village to visit our grandson, Peelawat, and to have my lunch.

Laos Day #2 - Long Journey Back to Luang Namtha

It had taken us 2 hours to go from Luang Namtha to the market at Muang Sing. We finished our market visit around 9:00 A.M.. Since we had hired the "Taxi" and driver for the day, we were free to explore the countryside during our return trip to Luang Namtha. As it turned out, our return trip took 5-1/2 hours!

The weather forecast for the day was a 80% probability of precipitation. Duang at sunrise was concerned that it would rain. I assured her that it would not rain until 3:00 P.M. I don't know why I gave that prediction, but I believed it without reservations.

After some early morning fog, mist and somewhat threatening sky, the day turned out rather good. There was some sun light, and cool temperatures - just right for travel.

Outside of Muang Sing, at the village of Baan So, we came upon farmers preparing the fields for a second planting of rice. Just as in Isaan, the primary rice crop is planted in July and harvested in late November. Some North West Laos farmers with reliable and abundant sources of water, like some in Isaan, plant a second rice crop in January. These farmers were using the same type of "iron buffalo", Kubota - after the Japanese company that builds and markets them, to smooth out the ground in the flooded paddy. Duang shouted out to the driver to pull over and stop so that I could take some photographs. She got out along with me to stretch her legs. Besides being able to photograph these types of activities, stopping and walking a ways gives you the opportunity to listen, smell, and closely observe aspects of daily life. Several workers passed by us either riding bicycles or walking along the road. They seemed as curious about us as we were about them - the main difference only being that I had cameras to take their pictures.

Our driver quickly understood that I enjoyed photographing people. He willing stopped whenever we came upon something or someone interesting - Monks on bicycles, men working in rice paddies, workers harvesting broom plant, Hmong villages, etc, etc. It ended up being a fantastic day with the rain holding off until 2:30 P.M. just as we entered the hotel reception area after our long day on the road but 30 minutes earlier than I predicted.




After photographing the men preparing the rice paddies for planting, we drove to Ban Singhyuan (sp?). In Ban Singhyuan we encountered a crew of workers working in a very large watermelon patch. The driver pulled over and stopped. I hopped out with Duang right behind me. We joined the workers out in the middle of the patch or more aptly "field". The workers, a mixture of men and women ranging in age from approximately 15 to 45 years old, were trimming the vines by pinching off "runners" with their fingers. This would increase the productivity of the vines. Some of the workers were delicately picking up the vines to dip the flower blossoms into a clear watery liquid contained in the inverted top half of a 1.25 liter recycled soda plastic bottle. The vines were cultivated much like cultivated strawberries - planted in plastic covered long furrows of soil. The vines grow up and out of small holes made in the top of the plastic. As a furrow was completed, the crew moved over to the next furrow to repeat their activities. Although it was still early in the morning, temperature around the plastic sheeting and dry compacted clay soil was rapidly rising. The workers were very friendly as well as sociable - the younger women joking about wanting to find a foreign husband. I have written about farm workers making between 100 baht ($3.00 USD a day) for garlic workers near Maehongson and 150 baht ($5.00 USD a day) for rice workers in Isaan (Tahsang Village)so I was interested in knowing how much Lao farm workers were paid. They told Duang that they make 120 baht a day.


Our next stop on our trip back to Luang Namtha was a Yao village called Ban Namai. The Yao people migrated from China and are typified by the large red fluffy trim on woman's jackets. The Yao, also known as Meo, people are well known for their cross stitching and embroidery. Duang and I had purchased some Yao textiles during our trip to Chiang Rai two years ago. Upon our arrival in the village we were besieged by women with textiles and handicrafts for sale. It is often difficult when there are so many people trying to earn some money. You want to help but there is only so much that you can do. We ended up buying a beautiful piece that had an embroidered butterfly and flower motif. The young man who had made the piece has gone to school in China, speaks Chinese, and speaks rather good English. The piece 31 inches by 50 inches cost us $42 USD. We bought some smaller items and having felt that we had done enough for that village's economy, we beat a hasty retreat.




We stopped in the Tai Dam (Black Tai) village of Ban Nong Bua. We found a woman who was weaving cotton underneath the shade of her home. I watched for awhile and took some photographs. Duang and she entered into negotiation over some of the woman's work so I left to tour the village on my own. In the end Duang had purchased two hand woven and sewn Tai Dam shirts for our one year old grandson for $1.00 each and a man sized traditional shirt for $6 USD. I went down one of the side streets of the village and encountered women wanting to sell me textiles. I turned and although I did not run, I walked fairly fast to another part of the village. In this part of the village an addition was being constructed to one of the homes. The men were using lumber levers to lift a part of the house onto stones for a better foundation. I lent my weight if not expertise to the operation and the house was easily lifted and placed. The construction effort was a family effort by husband, brothers, grandfather, and sons. Aunts, grandmother, daughters, and wife were occupied in cooking food on wood fires for the construction crew. I was there for quite awhile and Duang finally found me. She had been worried about my fearlessness to discover things in these villages.

In Ban Tin That, we found workers harvesting broom plant. Throughout the district broom plant has been cut and is laying out in the sun to dry in huge fields, alongside the roads, and inside the villages. Broom plant is a reed with a large soft head. The reed stems are bound together to form a handle and the fluffy heads are swept across surfaces to clean them. We use these types of brooms in our home as just about everyone else does. The harvested broom plant is exported to China, turned into consumer products for domestic consumption as well as export. I had walked out to the workers alone and after engaging them in conversation well beyond my verbal and pantomime skills I called out to Duang for assistance. Of all the workers we encountered on our return trip these workers were the most friendly as well as the youngest. They were gathering up the broom plants that had been cut three days ago. The cut plants had laid spread out in the sun to dry out. The Chinese companies pay 1,200 KIP ($0.14 USD) a kilogram for raw material but 2,000 Kip ($0.24 USD) a kilogram for dry product. These workers were gathering the dry plants and bundling them together with strips of bark to create sheaves that were then hauled over to a small spring scale to be weighed and loaded onto a large truck. I joked to the workers about all the plant going from Laos to China so that China could send it to America. I learned that these workers make less money, 80 Baht a day, than farm workers in Isaan. Duang is able to talk to most of the people so we learn a great deal about their life and work. She is not able to speak to some of the minorities such Akha who speak only their languages and not Lao.

We stopped at a Hmong Village several kilometers outside of Luang Namtha. It was rather new and did not have a name. Children were headed out into the forest with woven bamboo baskets on their back. The children gather firewood to bring back home and food for the family meal. It is a constant wonder to me to see small children making significant contribution to the family welfare. Children too young to go off in the forest, contribute by caring for their baby brothers and sisters. Spend some time in these back waters of SE Asia and you soon realize that childhood is a luxury that is affordable to very few people.

That night it rained most of the night. We slept very well to the gentle sound of rain on the wood shingles of our cottage and the lack of roosters proclaiming their presence. We slept 12 hours after our journey in the pickup bed taxi truck. A great way to end a great day.

A Good Harvest

Saturday, 21 November, was the completion of the family rice harvest.


Cutting the ripe rice had taken three days of many family members in the heat and under the glaring sun. Four rhai, 1.58 acres of rice had been completely cut using only sickles. After laying in the sun for three days to further dry out, the cut stalks were bundled into sheaves using stalks to bind the sheaf together. Many of the sheaves had been gathered the previous day and transported to a central location of the paddy to create a large mound atop a fine mesh blue plastic mat. The mat captures for storage any rice kernels that fall off the stalks due to handling of the sheaves. It is surprising how much rice separates from the straw just through manual handling. The family are subsistence farmers so there is a great deal of motivation to minimize waste. The harvested crop will feed the family for the next year. Although there was a large mound awaiting the arrival of the threshing machine, there remained many sheaves scattered about the paddies.

The first task of the day, was to gather up the scattered sheaves and transport them to the large mound. Workers gathered up the dried sheaves from the field and tossed them up to another worker who stacked them up in the back of the farm truck. Once the farm truck was filled it brought the sheaves to the big mound where they were off loaded by hand.




The family uses the services of a local man who owns a rice thresher. The man is from Tahsang Village which was fortunate. The family field could be accessed using dirt roads through the sugar cane and rice fields rather than on the public highway. The threshing machine was mounted on the back of a pick up truck frame. It appeared to me that the vehicle could have been a 1957 Chevy. The vehicle was handed painted blue and I would not be surprised to determine that the paint was largely holding it together. There were no doors on the truck and the interior was completely gutted with wires, and remnants of fabric. I did not see any registration plates on the truck, or an inspection sticker on the windshield.


The man with the threshing machine does not get paid in cash for his services. He charges 4% for threshing a crop. For every 100 50 KG bags of rice product, he receives 4 bags of rice in payment. This may explain the dilapidated condition of his transport vehicle. The actual threshing machine was in better condition so once the machine got to the field, there were no problems or concerns. The Thresher goes from paddy to paddy, by appointment, each day threshing the rice of his neighbors. At the end of each day he returns home in his rig with his bags of rice payment stacked around his machine. On a typical day, he earns 8 bags in payment. Each bag is 110 pounds, 50 kilos, of rice and is sufficient to feed an Isaan family of four for two months.

The thresher eventually showed up at the paddy and was set up on top of the blue mat next to the large mat. The thresher is set over the mat to capture any spillage of rice from the process. Family workers took their work stations and the process was ready to commence. The owner of the threshing machine took his place on a small seat that protruded from the side of the thresher. In front of his station was a flat shelf that served to feed the sheaves into the thresher. With his hands the owner ensured a smooth and constant flow of material into the thresher. Workers atop the sheave mound threw sheaves down to other workers who through a combination of tossing and placing got a constant stream of sheaves on to the feed shelf. A chute located on the opposite side of the threshing drum forcibly ejected the waste straw, dust, and dirt off to the side to create a large pile of straw that will be used for animal feed. The afternoon winds blew the debris everywhere. To get the sun at my back to ensure better photographs I was often in the vicinity of the debris stream. When I changed locations for different perspectives, I was surrounded by straw cast about by the winds. The workers were also in the predicament - just a part of the job. Immediately upon returning home, I was banished to the shower to wash away the dust and straw that I had accumulated over 4 hours of watching and photographing the threshing operations.

At the end of the threshing drum, a screw conveyor ejected the rice. Other workers manned this station to fill the grain bags. Local hardware stores sell the bags for 6 baht each $0.18 USD each. Many of the bags have advertising on them for fertilizer as well as grains. These bags are apparently surplus, rejects, or recycled from others. Little is allowed to be wasted here in Isaan. The heavy flow of rice from the thresher filled the bags rather quickly and constantly. There was a choreography of motion to ensure that the bags were completely filled, removed from the discharge chute, and a new empty bag put into position to be filled without wasting rice as the machine continually shot out rice.

Several workers shuttled back and forth from the threshing machine to an area where the filled bags were being stored and sealed. One worker ensured that the filled bags were placed neatly and vertically in neat rows. He twisted the tops of the bags closed and tied them off with bamboo strips. The bamboo straps for tying the bags had been cut and shaved from local groves.

As the sun came close to setting, the threshing was completed. For the 4 rhai (1.58 acres) of land that had been planted in July, 38 bags of rice had been produced. The yield ended up being 2,645 pounds per acre - well below the United States average yield of 7,039 pounds per acre - a testament to the poor soil in Isaan as well as the lack of applying fertilizers. When the rice seed was first sowed, fertilizer was hand broadcast lightly - the first and only time that fertilizer was used. I have tried four times to grow some vegetables and herbs at our home - I have failed every time. The closest to any degree of success was squash which did at least sprout!

The thresher was paid one bag for his services. Thirty six bags were transported back to Tahsang Village to be stored in the raised rice shed at Duang's parent's house. Two bags will be reserved for seed to be used next July. The remaining 35 bags will be milled in about two months and used to feed the family and others over the next year.

The family will have plenty of rice for morning, noon, and night for the next year, so despite the low productivity when compared to United States standards, this year's harvest was a good harvest.

Threshing Rice Outside Tahsang Village

On Friday morning we drove out to Tahsang Village for a couple of reasons. Duang's daughter and her husband were still busy with harvesting the rice from the family paddy so we had the chance to care for Peelawat. Secondly, some of Duang's 93 cousins were going to be threshing their harvested rice just outside of Tahsang Village so there would be photography opportunities for me to take advantage of.

On our extended visits to Tahsang Village, I bring my camera gear as well as my laptop computer. While Peelawat sleeps I use the computer to organize and edit photographs. Lately I have been waiting until around 2:00 P.M. to go out to the fields to commence photographing. I find the lower light of the late afternoon more conducive to photographing the workers and harvested rice. The late afternoon sun gives an overall golden hue to the scenery.

On Friday afternoon when we was going out to photograph the threshing operation nearby, Peelawat was awake so we decided to take him with us. It was a bright and hot afternoon so we attempted to shield him with a large hat. Peelawat would not cooperate and kept brushing the hat off of his head. Fortunately near where the work was going on there was a typical rest platform. Rest platforms are scattered about the fields and provide some protection for the workers from the sun. The platforms have either a thatched or corrugated (usually rusty) metal roof. Workers eat their meals underneath the roofs and sometimes take a nap in the middle of the day to deal with the heat of the day. This was a good place for Duang and Peelawat to sit while I went about the field. Peelawat watched me the entire time.

The rice in the paddy had been cut and bundled into sheaves previously. A very large mound of rice sheaves had been created in one corner of the complex of paddies. The mound had been built up upon a very large blue mat of very fine mesh plastic netting. The netting captures the rice kernels that fall from the stalks due to handling. The threshing machine is also set up to ensure that the loss of product is minimized. There were also many sheaves of rice stalks scatter throughout the paddies. The first task of the day was to gather up, transport the scattered sheaves, and add them to the large mound. The workers set about gathering the sheaves and piling them into a wagon pulled by an "iron buffalo". The workers were in fine spirits, singing to the Mahlam Lao music that blared across the paddies from a portable radio that they had placed on the ground - UNTIL - until one of the cousins backed up the rice laden wagon over the top of the radio. The last song abruptly terminated with a large scrunching sound.

After awhile the threshing machine arrived. It was the same machine and operator that I had photographed a year ago at another cousin's field.

The machine was set up on the blue netting and the crew began feeding the sheaves into the middle of the machine. Dust and straw was forcibly ejected from a chute at the other side of the threshing drum. Additional debris was ejected from a screw conveyor beneath the drum at the same side as the straw ejection chute. Rice kernels left the machine at the back end in a heavy stream.. The rice was collected into 50 kilogram bags. As the bags were quickly filled, they were carried away to a storage area where their tops were closed and tied off with thin strips of bamboo.


We spent about an hour and one-half there before returning Peelawat back to his home. The little guy had done well on his first photo shoot in the field.