Mother and the Harvest

The family farmed a total of six acres of rice. With many children and no other income besides a few cows, pigs in the barn, and a bunch of chickens, the family's livelihood depended mainly on the harvest. Everyone kept an eye on the rice grains, my mother often said. Farming was mainly about labor, another saying of my mother's. The labor needed to work in the fields was highest during the harvest, so in addition to harvesting our own fields, those who were good at it could go out and harvest for hire. We were afraid of not having enough strength to do the work, but we weren't worried about running out of work.

Báo Phú Yên•11/05/2025

When the rice begins to bow, the ears of rice begin to turn yellow, mother will remind father to visit the fields regularly; watch for ripe rice to harvest immediately to avoid summer rains and strong winds that will knock the rice over. Mother tells father to estimate the time when the rice is ripe, set a harvest date in advance so that mother can also proactively arrange to receive work as a hired harvester or harvest by hand for the villagers. In short, when the harvest season comes, mother has no free days. Harvesting the fields outside. Harvesting the fields inside. When there is no work near, then farther away, if anyone calls, mother will rush to pick up the sickle and go…

Harvesting rice for hire in remote fields requires waking up early in the morning, eating cold rice to fill the stomach before leaving. Usually, hired harvesters only work in the morning, then rest in the afternoon to recuperate, but if someone hires them to harvest in the afternoon, Mom will also accept: harvesting for this owner in the morning and harvesting for another owner in the afternoon! Other people who go to harvest for hire only carry a sickle, but Mom carries a pair of shoulder poles. After finishing work, on the way home, she stops by the rice threshing machine to ask for a load of fresh straw for the cows. Mom says: Fresh straw is delicious, where can we get it after the harvest season? Be patient so the cows can have something delicious... Just "taking advantage" of it, because before the harvest season, Mom quickly goes to meet the familiar field owners who don't raise cows to ask for straw. Nowadays, people sell straw, but in the past, if you didn't raise cows, the harvested straw would be generously given away by the field owner. Saying that, Mom also behaves very understandingly: to repay the person who gave them straw, next season, Mom will arrange to help them harvest a few sessions. She can also help dry the rice or clear the stubble...

When she was well, after harvesting during the day, at night, my mother would go to the barn to shake off the straw to find leftover rice. If there was no straw, she would work hard to drag the pile of broken rice or sweep the brick-paved drying yards, picking up all the "golden grains" mixed with dirt and sand hidden deep in the cracks between the bricks. It seemed like a small amount, but after the whole season, she was able to collect a whole bag of broken rice and dirty rice (half-broken rice mixed with dirt and sand). My mother looked very satisfied. She said: "I have something to feed the chickens and ducks for almost a month, saving rice (in the) barn..."

Now the harvest season has come, the combine runs smoothly and in less than a week the fields are clean, unlike the old days when we had to harvest and thresh manually for months! To tell the truth, I am a true "stubble" person but I am very afraid of the harvest season. Not only is the work hard, but the rice dust causes pain and itching. Once I blurted out: I wish the harvest would end soon but why is there still rice in the fields... Mom listened and calmly replied: I keep looking for it to stay but it doesn't work. Being a farmer is the best when you can always harvest rice, my child...

Source: https://baophuyen.vn/sang-tac/202505/me-va-mua-gat-f291b34/