There's a lot of things that will make you down in the field of farming but there are more things that will make you forever grateful. Life of a farmer is up and down just like our normal life but there are plot twist to it that you can never experience in a normal life. But that makes the experience more fun. I'm a farmer by blood and I gotta live with it. I will pass it to new generations in order for farming especially rice farming to continue to exist even if my time comes to an end already.
I've said in my recent blog last thursday that the typhoon Paeng caused a lot of sadness to me especially to my father because of what happened to our rice. Until now the sadness is still present but alteast it's been lessen because our rice has been harvested already and the weather was on our side. We're so happy that it went well despite the harsh effect of the typhoon.
As I've said in my blog that I will do my best to be with my father, in order for me to help him regarding the works to do in our farm and as we harvest the remaining good rice in our farm, I went again to the field to help. So far I'm enjoying this kind of routine and I hope one day that within this field, it may be the way for us to have a better life.
The time has come so I woke up early, stretched every inch of my muscles so that my body is in the mood to help. Because for real when you're body is not in shape when you do heavy works then for sure you will feel a lot of pain when you wake up the next morning. I had my coffee ofcourse, my energizer lol. Well it made me to be fully awake during the process so it's always present in the morning, no matter what things I will do afterwards.
What I did during the process of harvesting our rice is that I was the one who was assigned to arrange all the bundle of rice in a cone shape. You may come up with the question why do we have to arrange it in a cone shape while we can do it in a square shape. Well, as per the veterans of farming rice here in our place and according to 
My dog, Blackie accompanied me while I did the task. He behaved well and didn't leave my side. While I arranged the bundle of rice, he just stayed put by my side as if he's cheering me that I can do it.
While I was waiting for the delivery from the carabao equipped with the cart(pattuki in ilokano) made from bamboo, I took the chance to capture a photo of him while he's very attentive, listening to the chirps of the birds in the area.
As the tower that I build go higher, I called my cousin to accompany me and to look for my phone. I asked her also to take pictures of me while I performed the task for me to show it here and it will serve aslo as a documentation of my journey as I engage in this kind of activity. To be honest, executing this work is very hard especially if you're not used to it plus the rice grains are itchy so it can affect your skin that's why I wear a long sleeve.
While we were waiting for the delivery, my cousin took the chance to ride a bicycle. As you can see in the photo below, she enjoys it very much. Looking at her made me to remember my good old days when I was at her age. What a great memories to remember.
My eyes wandered around the area and I found native fruits that holds a memory also of my childhood. Look what I found, if you're living in the province or lived in the province before for sure you knew these fruits.
According to my lola, this one is called Pusa-pusa in Ilokano while it is called Bush Passion fruit in English. As I looked for more information about this fruit on the internet, I'm surprised to learn that it has a lot of health benefits, according to this website. We're eating this one before when we find some of its ripe fruits without knowing those informations. The taste is a little bit sweet and sour at the same time.
The other wild fruit that I found was this one and it is called Pipi-pipino in Ilokano. It is a small version of cucumber so I assumed this is called wild cucumber. It's taste is tastless like a cucumber but there's a little bit of sourness.
The tower of rice bundles has been made and after lunch we called the operator of the machine called thresher to finally do their thing in separating the straws to the grains. The people you see in the photo below are my uncles who's rice farmers also. They arrived to help us in this process because this one really needs a lot of hands.
After that process, these cavans of rice grains are the final product.
As you can see we didn't have that much harvest this cropping due to the typhoons that passed by in our country. This is the affect of those typhoons to us rice farmers.
Even if the expected number of cavans to be harvested didn't came into reality, still we are very glad to have these cavans of rice that will serve as our stocks to be milled later on. There's no more time to be down with the result. We gotta face the reality and do better next cropping. That's the cycle of our life as farmers anyway.
The rice straws were compiled in one place and as the time passes by, it will turn into organic fertilizer which we can use in our field also. And that ends the process of harvesting our rice.
If you've read this far friends, thank you for reading.
