Rev1_Chapter 5: Planting

Building a chicken coop is a grand project. It allows one to test designs they may want to use on larger projects, and if it looks like crap, the residents probably won’t care. Just remember to locate your coop properly. The garden feeds the chickens, the chickens feed the compost, and the compost feeds the garden. Don’t put these things too far apart. You will regret it.

- Kuya Tio on Chickens, Kuya Tio’s Guide to a Healthy and Happy Homestead.

The chicken coop was… Well it was. I had done it myself and it wasn’t filling me with pride. Clearly, construction wasn’t my forte. The fence had been easier, just long saplings interwoven between some posts. Kuya Tio’s Guide mentioned nothing about remembering to put in a gate and… I paused as my finder rested on a sentence in the aforementioned Guide. “And of course, don’t forget to put in a gate.” I would have sworn that wasn’t there. Whatever. I closed the book and cocked my head at the coop. Saito was kicking me out of his barn in about a week, and as long as I didn’t get any chickens for a while, the coop would be livable. The barn was getting smellier with the warmer weather, anyway.

Job done for the day, I had dinner with the Xiao’s. This was normally a mundane experience, but today Yoko and her children joined us. Saito sat stern-faced and clearly upset, but did everything in his power not to let it show, likely for the sake of his grandchildren. I had expected a pleasant meal while peppering Saito about tomorrow’s planting. Instead, dinner was a solemn affair while we all pointedly avoided looking at Yoko’s swollen face and the bruise on her throat shaped like a hand. It was a weird, awkward night and the next morning’s breakfast wasn’t much better, but after that we set out as a group to the village proper for my first planting.

“Kaori, this is my neighbor, Yuji Han. Yuji, Kaori Shao.”

I bowed as Kiyoko introduced me to her cousin. Kaori was shorter with dark brown hair and a darker skin tone than the Yin twins, whether that was hereditary or a lack of sunlight on the twin’s part. I couldn’t say. Her face was cute, but plain and her clothing was well… Nobody was dressed up particularly well except the Yin Twins and some older folks that likely wouldn’t be getting muddy. She bowed back, but I got the distinct feeling Kaori wasn’t meeting me entirely of her own free will.

“Have you planted rice before?” Kiyoko asked.

“No.”

She clapped her hands together. “Great. Kaori, you can show him how to plant seedlings and get to know each other. It’s perfect. Multiple birds and stones and such.” With that said, Kiyoko wandered off.

“Hey.” Kaori started. “No offense, but I want children and you’re not compatible. I’m only here to get family off my back.”

I nodded. That was a fair point. Kind of a major issue between Kitsune and any other race. “I get it. I’m just hoping Kiyoko becomes less… intense.”

Kaori snorted at that. “You get the whole first time’s free thing?”

I looked down at her. She just laughed.

“Dad says I’m supposed to show you how to plant rice.” Ate Wei Lin said, practically startling me as I hadn’t seen her coming. “Especially since you’re standing next to another girl.” She added with a defeated sigh.

“Kaori, this is Ate Wei Lin, not interested in me. Ate, this is Kaori, also not interested in me.”

“We know each other.” Kaori said.

“We got time. I’ll be back shortly.” Wei Lin wandered off, having fulfilled whatever basic instructions Saito had given her.

“Hey.” Kaori said while poking me in the side. “I didn’t say I wasn’t interested. I just want kids, you know?”

“Is there a difference?” There was a difference. I probably should have kept my mouth shut. She stared at the ground, not answering. “What are we waiting for, anyway?”

Kaori was about to answer, but was cut off.

“Hey! So you’re the Han brat I keep hearing about.”

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An older man grabbed my forearm and started shaking. “Uhh, yeah?” He slammed his free hand into my shoulder.

“You look nothing like Lo Bao.”

“Ah, yeah. I look more like my mother, I guess.” The old man was still holding my arm. I must have looked uncomfortable because Kaori giggled and had to turn away.

“Your mother? And just who did Lo Bao marry?”

“Ah, wait. Lo Bao is my uncle.”

“What? You’re not Lo Boa’s kid?”

“No.”

“Oh.” He finally let go. “Oh well, glad to have you around, brat.”

“Sure.”

He left me to assault another man a few paces away. “That was weird. Do you know who that was?”

“No. Not his name at least,” Kaori said before continuing to giggle at my expense. We moved closer to the rice paddies as everyone else seemed to congregate there. Ate Wei Lin silently showed up, and we watched an old gray-haired woman carrying silver incense balls start walking down the path between paddies while chanting something I couldn’t understand, assuming they were even actual words.

“How long…” I started to ask before both Ate Wei Lin and Kaori shushed me. So I stood and watched along with the rest of the village as the old lady made her way up and down the paths. I had to assume the weather was perfect for this. The air was still cool, but the nearly cloudless sky was a bright azure blue and the sun was shining brightly. It felt like the world itself was trying to give me a good first planting experience. We all waited until the woman finished her chanting walk around the paddies. Long enough for my feet to hurt. Then we spread out to a couple of paddies, grabbed baskets of rice seedlings, and waited.

“What you think? We stand on each side of the new guy. He does a single row and if he keeps up, give him two on the next pass.” Kaori asked Wei Lin.

“Sure.”

I spent my time looking around while the two girls chatted about how to make me not useless. Most people were linking up in the water of the paddies, but several of the older folks were heading into the village and hauling back tables and benches. Kenta was taking a seat at a very large drum while chatting with the Patriarch. He took a drink, presumably water, picked up the large drumsticks, then beat a rapid staccato beat that got everyone’s attention.

“All right.” Ate Wei Lin said while shoving a basket of seedlings in my arms just before Kenta let out another staccato, followed by a steady beat. Suddenly I was trying to keep up as the two girls on either side of me were pulling exactly three seedlings out of their baskets and shoving them into the muck of the rice paddy in perfectly spaced rows. My only job was to fill in the missing space with a single seedling. It took about ten seedlings before I got the hang of placing them. As I got comfortable shoving the little green shoots into the paddy, I had enough time between rows to realize everyone else was following the beat of Kenta’s drum. When we reached the end, Kent played the staccato again, and I saw him nod and grin to the person next to him.

“You’re doing two rows now.” Kaori told me as the line of villagers reset themselves to go back across the paddy.

It was harder to keep up with two rows, but after two passes, I was handling it and was promoted to three rows. It took until we finished the first full Rai before I could keep up. When we reached the end, I stood up straight and let my back pop. This was going to hurt by the end of the day.

“Hey Yuji!” I looked up to see Kenta standing over his drum, yelling at me with his hands up to his mouth. “If you think you’ve got it now, we’d like to speed up so we can finish planting before winter.” I felt my face heat as literally the entire village had a laugh at my expense. I looked at Ate Wei Lin, who had a hand over her mouth and couldn’t look at me.

Kaori poked me in the side. “Just hazing the new guy.”

They may have been hazing me, but I think Kenta may have been serious about speeding up. Every time I thought I was keeping up, I found myself behind. I was the last person to finish at the end of every row, but Kenta seemed to wait for me to finish before playing the quick staccato beat that signified finishing a line. The day became a frustrating game of keep up. My back hurt. I was sweating like a madman, and I was completely out of breath when we finished a full Rai seized paddy. Then Kenta started playing something completely different. It was less a beat and more of a single tone song. It had a lot of ups and downs and Kenta himself was grinning like a madman while flourishing the drumsticks. The song ended on a single solid hit to the drum and I realized I was completely alone in the rice fields. Abandoned by everyone, including the girls, as the older villagers served lunch.

It took two days to plant the village’s paddies with literally everyone pitching in. I spent the next day with Ate Wei Lin planting the three, quarter Rai at the Xiao place and then by myself planting my single quarter full of stumps. It was the first time that I had taken a really good look at the seed starting setup. It consisted of a large straw lined box with several barrels inside. The seedlings were started in the barrels and every night Wei Lin or Saito would drop heated stones into a bucket of water and place blankets over the box. Basically, the seedlings had to be babysat every night until it was warm enough for them to survive normally. It never dawned on me that rice, this far north at least, needed so much care in order to get a harvest.

Saito told me to take the next day off to get some rest, but that just meant I was hauling water for the Yin twins and transplanting sprouted plants into my garden. Sore as hell, primarily in my lower back, I took Kenta up on his offer for a free massage. Which I barely managed to get, because everyone schedules him a week before planting. All that said, the planting was over and it was time for the spring festival.