Mountains and water control

 Looking over the flooded rice paddy at the mountains in the distance. The river that passes close to my apartment arises in the valley in the middle of the picture. Once it cools off a little in the fall, I plan to take a bus into the valley and then walk to the shrines and temples in the hills. There are also the remains of some thousand year old fortified places, dare I call them 'castles'?

This is one of the water control canals that are used to flood the rice paddies, just before the seedlings are planted. in the middle of the picture you can see two wooden boards that are currently blocking the exit. There are sandbags backing up the boards and blocking some of the leakage. Also to left of the boards, you can see the slots for a board which would block all the water flow in the main canal. This would be used when the two boards were removed. All the water in the canal would be diverted into the paddy. Many researchers believe that the need for constructing extensive canal systems to bring water to the paddies, the necessity of sharing the water in some fair way, the maintenance of the system, and construction new of canals as needed are the root source of the trend toward socialistic governmental systems were rice paddies are a major crop.