Minna no toue-rice planting by hand with Menno people

Hey everyone, Kenji posted a short bit yesterday, but here I am, with a big sigh of relief to be back online, it was an oddly disconnected feeling to not be able to reach any of you with a simple tap of my fingers, although I did have more time for other things....we hope you are all marvelous and we apologize for any unanswered emails, we'll get to them one of these days I promise. life is moving along and we are all adjusting quite well I think. we are just going to fly into what is going on here at the moment and I'll catch up with other details later. Yesterday was a gorgeous day for the yearly rice planting, an event held for several years now. Many people, mostly CSA members and church members come to help plant one rice field by hand and to hang out on the farm, they'll come back later to weed the same field once and then to harvest, all by hand. the rest of the rice fields are planted by machine as is common these days. It was possibly the warmest day we've had here yet with beautiful blue skies. Just wonderful and great fun.Enjoy the pics. Unfortunately I didn't have the camera when Akiko was teaching a traditional rice planting day dance taught to her by a very old rice farmer from around here, it was traditional to this area and was danced by the rice planters at the end of a day of rice planting to celebrate. She had a tape of the music, it was really pretty cool with movements derived from the motions of planting rice by hand. We have had fun reading your comments so keep in touch all and don't despair, HOPEFULLY we won't have any more long periods of silence!