So You Want To Grow Rice?

 I think I'm still recovering from all that pan tossing in the big kitchen ovens.  I was a little sore yesterday ... or maybe it's just too much couch sitting.  At Cooper's insistence, we went for a long walk-jog around the neighborhood.  I swear, he can outrun me every time!!

Now that I was limber enough to crawl under the rig to open the dump valve on the water tank, I got to work sanitizing the tank.  Seriously ... why would they put the handle completely behind the wheel and right over the axle.  I can just see them now ... laughing hilariously at everyone who is going to get wet trying to open that valve. 

Sanitizing means bleach, which has it's down side.  Never EVER wear your best go-to-town shirt while doing this task.  Oh yeah ... bleach all over me from top to bottom.  Once it was done, I was off to town while giving it a couple of hours to work.

Believe it or not, THIS is Target's parking lot.  Wow!!  I really didn't think all that discourse would cause much of a ripple here, but this lot is EMPTY!  You usually have to fight for a place to park.  I admit, I smiled.  Their choices are sure hitting them in their bank account.

Back to the ranch ... so you want to grow rice, huh??  Well after leasing the place for cattle, we leased it for farming.  They grew sweet potatoes and tomatoes.  It's interesting that you can't grow some of these products two years in a row.  Apparently they suck all the nutrients out of the soil and your second crop will fail.  

But before you can grow ANYTHING, you have to rip that hard packed hardpan as deep as possible.  That's what this rig is for.  Talk about earth shaking ... it takes a lot of power to get those shanks through the first time.

Sometimes it even takes TWO cats to make it happen, one pulling the other to add extra power.  Once the fields were ripped, they were disced over and over again to break up the big chunks before being leveled and the contours made.  It was hit or miss back then ... but now they have GPS and a computer that tells them exactly how much soil to move and where to put it.  Pretty cool.

Way WAY back in the day, we used this tractor and plow for that purpose.  It mostly just scraped the topsoil so we could plant oats for hay.

Now you use something more like this.  It's the only picture I could find, because the tractor and plow we used was twice this big.  You've probably seen them around the country here and there.  Massive pieces of equipment they are.

So now that the water has been drained and the rice harvested, there was a break in the action.  It was time to repair any and all broken equipment and get ready for the next planting.  All the rice chaff is left on the fields from the harvesting machines.  It's hardy stuff to say the least, and will NOT decompose if plowed under.  

So what do you do with it?  You burn it off.  We would go out very early in the mornings with big spouted cans of gasoline and a lighter.  Which side you started on first, depended on the direction of the wind.  We poured liquid fire out of those cans by hand.  

Twice I got myself in a pickle and had to run like crazy to get out of the path of the fire.  You learn that part very quickly when your hair gets singed.  You also carried a shovel because on occasion the fire would go where you didn't want it to go, or even jump the ditches.  We would shovel like mad to put it out.  The chaff would go up in a big flash of flames, but once it burned the dry stuff, it would back off a bit and be more controllable.  

We did that for years, as did every other farmer in California until they decided we were polluting the air.  A law went into affect saying we could not burn any more.  So what do you do with all that chaff?  It's not edible by any creature on earth and cannot be plowed into the soil since it won't decompose.  

Come to find out, it makes good straw for leach lines and septic systems.  We started baling it into huge bales and selling it to contractors.  We didn't even get enough to pay for the baling, but we had no choice but to lose money every year.

Once that was all cleared off, it was time to hit the D9 Cats again and plow the ashes under.  That's where I learned how to run a D9 and how I fell in love with heavy equipment.

More on that story tomorrow .......

In the meantime, since I was driving right by Habit Burger ... and it screamed my name ... I folded and picked up a BBQ Bacon Burger and onion rings.  Don't ask me what was in the white container ... it was runny like water and I threw it away.  

I complain about the prices of these things, but it makes two complete meals for me ... so that makes it much more palatable ... and mighty tasty!!!