Rainy Harvest Experience

(This is a blog translated into English using chat GPT）

Even though it was sunny on Monday and Wednesday, it strangely rained heavily on Tuesday, the day of the harvest experience. Apparently, there were interviews and filming scheduled, and due to adult circumstances, they couldn’t change it based on the weather.

The teacher apparently told the kids the day before, “Those who have them, come wearing raincoats and boots tomorrow!” But Fionn didn’t say a word about it, and I found out late at night, around 8 o’clock, when a friend messaged me, “Seems like we’ll need raincoats and boots tomorrow.” Fionn casually replied beside me, saying, “Oh yeah!” but it was too late, right?

Luckily, I managed to let him wear a raincoat that a friend had given me when Fionn was 4, so that was fine. But since I don’t usually wear boots, I didn’t have any, so I went to look for and got them early in the morning and delivered them to the kindergarten.

Despite the unfortunate rain, they set up tents and made various preparations the day before, which was really helpful. So, first, they started with harvesting corn! They listened to the instructions and “snap!” broke off the corn. Now that I think about it, I’ve never harvested corn before.

After corn, we moved to another field and harvested carrots.

It would have been great if it were a sunny day today, with the beautiful contrast of blue sky and greenery for photos and TV footage, but oh well, it’s the height of the rainy season, so it can’t be helped.

The carrots were really impressive. Some of them struggled and pulled them out, saying “Yoisho! Yoisho!” It’s a nice-looking carrot with leaves, so I plan to check some recipes and try eating the leaves too.He always say that he wants to taste the vegetables he has picked himself to see what they’re like. That’s what food education is all about!

After that, we returned to the greenhouse and had a taste of freshly harvested corn! It was the kind that was steamed and then seared with a burner, giving it an authentic look. At first, he was skeptical about eating the black parts, but once he tried it, he found it delicious and said, “The black part is tasty!” He learned the goodness of the charred flavor. At home, we usually just microwave it, so it’s nice to have something like this.

There were also corn ice cream and other treats made from corn. And after they finished eating, they heard about composting the vegetable waste from cooking and after meals for reuse. It’s amazing!

Oh, and by the way, this was something that was supposed to be done in the rice paddy! Can you guess what we’re catching? It’s tadpole scooping! Haha, the farmers couldn’t do it because of the rain, so they caught a lot of tadpoles from the rice paddy the day before and prepared various creatures in boxes.

There were already many tadpoles with legs, and the kids were super excited!

When I posted this on my Instagram story, a friend from Tokyo said, “I’ve never seen tadpole scooping before!” They must have thought it was normal in Kochi. Well, well, even I saw it for the first time! Haha.

Lastly, we picked sunflowers to take home as souvenirs. We carefully wrapped them in newspapers, but by the time we arrived home, half of the petals had fallen off, haha.

It was such a fantastic event, even though the weather was bad. The kids had a blast, and I’m really grateful for the amazing experience we had.

But then, at the end, they were like, “Madam! Could you please do an interview?” (Oh, yeah, I’m the PTA chairperson this year, by the way.) So, both me and Fionn ended up being interviewed on TV. It’s funny because I never get nervous during presentations or hosting events, but for some reason, I got oddly nervous and my face was all tense while talking, haha. Ohhh, I hope they don’t use my comments!