A Bit Surprised

I started planting the rice today. It was just an hour this evening, and I only planted seven rows, but it feels great to have finally started. I've been working on a little write-up illustrating the process of rice planting as I know it, but for now enjoy these photos of the friends who stopped by last week to help spread the manure.

One of them was a fireman back home and so really wanted to get a photo of himself wearing my volunteer fire brigade uniform, standing next to the fire truck.

Finally, I'm a bit confused. I almost didn't post this photo (below) because I didn't like it that much, I thought it was "dirty" looking. I ended up posting it simply because it showed the snow at the top of Nonomi. I was surprised to get a few comments on Flickr, and even more surprised to see it on Dave Pollard's How To Save the World when I checked my feeds this afternoon. The biggest surprise, however, came when I saw it on Tomoe's blog! She is the toughest critic of my photos, but somehow thought this one was worthy of posting on her own blog...