Rice paddies

 Mirikaroden is the large building on the left. There are rice paddies to both the north, the side where I am standing, and the south, the far side of the buildings.

 The rice is nearing the time for harvest. The individual grains are quite large, nearly their final size. After this the leaves will start to turn yellow and in just a few weeks it will be time to run the harvesting machines through the paddies. This year's rice is expect to be quite poor, well below the normal quality. The reason is the terrible weather, too much rain and not enough sunlight. This year seems to be unusual in that there is still water in the paddies. I don't remember ever seeing standing water in the paddies at this time of year. However, there is still time for the paddies to dry out before harvest.

One result of all the water is that there is a huge number of snails crawling around in the paddies. This snail was huge, almost three inches long, about seven centimeters.