These shots are all of the massive fields of rice patties that span the stretch between Humphreys & Osan.

I still don’t know if one mega-company owns all of it, or if it’s a patchwork of individual farmers’ lands.

But they’re starting up again.

The fields were burned, then tilled & then flooded.

And now it’s time to plant.

The mud is so thick & deep I always wonder how the heavy equipment doesn’t just get stuck in it.

But this is the shot I wanted to show you.

Last year I missed this part. I came in just a week or two later.

It’s a rice planter.

Look at the shelves on either side of the driver.

They hold trays & trays of germinated rice.

The trays are then slid into holding grooves while slowly - one by one – each individual rice plant is poked into the mud.

Ta-dah!

But I think our neighborhood farmers plant them all by hand.