Even before the first seed is sowed into the field working in a rice farm actually begins with the repair of each "bund" that the combine harvester has ruined during harvesting. A bund is the one that separates each plot of a rice field. Each bund is strategically placed to even the level of water in each plot. The placement of a bund may not be pleasing to the eye but it needs to be where it is located. A bund's purpose is like a "dam" it holds water inside a given plot and prevents it from spilling into an adjacent plot.

During the rainy season, there are almost no intact bunds after the harvest because they are soft and were not able to hold the weight of the combine harvester hence they break just like clay but were sturdy enough to hold the weight of a person. Most of the time repairing bunds starts when the rainy season starts in May and then planting the seedlings will follow the next month of June. A rice farming season usually lasts for more than three months (from planting the seedlings to harvest).

As I said earlier the bund is the one that separates each plot. It acts as a mini dam that is used to hold water in a plot. In the gif image below I can be seen pointing to a part of the bund where the wheel of the combine harvester passed making the bund a little bit lower than before.

Here is the close-up of the bund that I am pointing to from the previous gif image. As you can see water is flowing from it. If this bund is not repaired the water is just going to flow through. One of the reasons why we farmers doing an early repair of bunds is to keep the water from flowing.

During my childhood and today, most of the farmers here in my town including my relatives used to work in the rice field barefooted. And since I was exposed to the internet ever since in the 1990s I knew that wearing some protection when doing something saves you from future problems like getting cut on your feet and then getting infected with germs and bacteria. I used rain boots for the protection of my feet. Aside from wearing some protection, the tool that I am going to use in repairing the bunds is a shovel.

Just like any other shoveling job repairing a bund starts by digging some clay and then putting it on top. Here is where the rain boots are very useful, your feet are not going to get hurt when pushing the shovel to dig some clay.

A here it is, a patched bund, water is now contained.

As can be seen in the previous gif image above patching/repairing a bund is all but the same. Dig some clay, then put it on top of the lower part of the bund so that water will not flow.

That is all for now guys, catch you up with the next one. Wishing you all safety, good health, and abundance.