October

October is the dry month, the biggest rice harvest of the year for farmers. October is the month when I follow my parents to the fields to harvest rice. My parents harvest, and I catch fish.

Oh, I miss the fat green octopus, but the wooden octopus with its dry straw-colored wings, silvery white, is also fat and round. When the last stubble in the field is cut down, there is no place to hide, they fumble and struggle to find a place to hide, but it is only a futile effort. I wonder what they eat when the rice in the field is dry, the rice stalks are dry, the rice leaves are also dry, but they are still so fat?

I remember October because I used to cut rice, do all these things during the harvest season when I was twenty. The sickle was twice as big as the cutting sickle. The curve was as wide as the beak of a Giang bird. When the rice was cut into rows on the dry, cracked field, the cutter began to work. The left hand lifted the rice mound, the right hand held the sickle, the rice was gathered into a bundle and held against the left foot. At this time, the sickle was pushed down, pulled up with a swipe and the rice was in the hand. Every three hands could cut a large bundle.

In October, the rice threshers’ left legs had no hair left because they rubbed against the stubble, and all the leg hair was torn off. My legs were thin and still chafed, red and raw, my ankles looked like the necks of fighting cocks. I can’t forget the days when I worked as a rice thresher. At the age of twenty, I came home with a sore back and cartilage, lying down all night before feeling better. In October, after a day in the fields, at night, every household would arrange rice in a circle in the front yard, then stand inside and lead the four buffaloes to tread the rice. If you wanted a buffalo to tread the rice, you had to borrow it the day before. Children like me were assigned to be on duty, holding a basket in my arms covered with straw, ready to catch the manure. After a day of eating and drinking, while treading the rice, the buffaloes would often stand up and poop when they needed to. You had to carry the basket quickly so that the manure wouldn’t fall into the rice.

Threshing rice on moonlit nights is still fun. If it is the first day of the month, you have to light a three-string lamp hanging in front of the door to get the dim light to control the buffalo and pick the straw afterwards. Luckily, the October rice crop is not as prone to rain as the May rice crop. After threshing the rice, the next day is the day for my mother and sister to rake and collect all the debris, leaving only the rice grains on the yard. They have to dry in the sun for a few more days, when the grains are crispy when bitten, it is done. That is when the straw is piled up and the rice is put in the barn. The process sounds simple, but one year I heard my mother complain, this harvest was exposed to the west wind, the rice was rotten, many grains were broken, the rice was not delicious. At that time, I did not understand why it was like that, what kind of west wind blew and when. There are some farming experiences that I still do not understand.

In October, a month after the harvest, plowing begins, the soil is turned over and exposed to the dry sun for about a month, the water in the soil evaporates, the soil dries out. During that time, every household prepares for the Lunar New Year. After the New Year, water is poured into the fields. When the soil is dry, the soil becomes mushy wherever the water goes. Just a few harrows are enough to soften the soil and spread it along with compost and green manure that have been well-composted on the field before water is poured in. In October, sometimes after the harvest, some households take advantage of the plowing, making ridges and hastily planting a few acres of short-season sweet potatoes, both to eat as green vegetables, to get some more tubers, and to improve the soil's color. But at that time, few households did it, for reasons unknown, but perhaps because farmers at that time were less proactive.

My hometown, Ban Ngoai, has two winter-spring rice crops a year. But the winter-spring rice crop is short-lived, often having to be harvested in the rain, and the fields are muddy, not as exciting as the harvest of the winter-spring rice crop. Thinking back to my hometown, for me, is missing October, the harvest season, and waiting for the traditional banh chung festival, the happiest of the year!

Source: https://daidoanket.vn/thang-muoi-10294433.html