I always know that autumn is really here when I see the rice fields become slowly surrounded by these incredibly bright red flowers. I say slowly, but actually they seem to appear over night. Apparently they were introduced because moles don't like them. Moles make tunnels in the banks of rice fields. This leads to all the water in the rice fields draining out. so anything that will help to keep the moles away has to be a good thing. Unfortunately they are extremely hardy though and manage to spread themselves everywhere - and are quite hard to get rid of once you have them. I'm guessing that in a few more years the desire to deter moles may have been overtaken by the desire to get rid of a few of these pretty flowers. Until then... I'm going to enjoy them! There is some more information about these flowers here if you are interested.
In other news - our sports day tomorrow has been postponed till next week due to the typhoon that was going to hit here, but now looks like it will head off to the east and we may miss it completely. Gotta love making decisions concerning the weather early!
One of my favorite flowers! Thanks for sharing your pictures. I often come to oita for onsen. Love the way you show countryside!
ReplyDeletehiya im Ellen, im doing a diary entry on rural life in japan and was hoping you could tell me what it is like in farming season and whats nice about livin out there!! :) i have to askare you situated on kyushu or??....
ReplyDeleteNew fan here. LOve the blog.
ReplyDeleteJapan is so interesting.
And the rural setting is beautiful indeed.
And another reader joins the mix...