I am "Isaan Adjacent" in almost the dead centre of Phetchabun province. The Lads are finding it a bit that way this year, soil here is generally fine but because even this part of the family's holdings covers miles and miles of land - with a river going through it - it can be patchy: clay, loam, or just cruddy lifeless sand. (For the latter, I suggested they grow some "mun farang" (potatoes) but they looked at me as if I had two heads. Some places need fertiliser every year, some every third. This patch (if you look at my photos above) generally doesn't require a dose but with a poor start to the seson it was on the cards. Hence my comment in my post above. The photo of the growing rice is it at a few weeks. The dried ground with the guy spreading "growth accelerant medicine" whatver that is... (i thought it NPK fertiliser but apparently it's some yellow power) after they had to dig in the first seeding as there hasn't been enough rain for it to shoot. So they're re-preparing it. I honestly don't take much notice any more and probably get the process order wrong or even miss steps in explainations but people in the farming areas are really struggling, arent they'? In 2016 it absolutely pelted down and they got two full harvests and a small-yield third one. In 2022(?) they almost ha no yield at, this house (that'd be me) LOL had to buy rice for about four months - even the other brothers and sisters that share the 10-rai yield bought for the last six weeks/two months. This year, the 2025 harvest gave out in May. And planting hasn't even been completed! Fortunately, apart from whatever they have hoarded in bank accounts, they all have other work. And, of course, even though I'm only a tenant, my landlady and her family aren't going to go hungry if I'm around. As for other ides for unused land, you had fish, I thought of goats! I explained that they'll clear all the bushalnd between the ricefields and we can them Down South to wholesaler to Hotels Indian Restaurants. "Raise goats to kill them?" "Er, yeah. Your sisters have 100 chicks at any given time running around and they get sold" "Yes, but I don't. Not good." Okaaay. Some more Buddhist than others. It explains why she asks me to kill any live fish that are brought to us by some well-meaning nephew . I suppose, spending time at the dam or river with a net or rod after a hard morning of cucumber picking and packing is relaxing.
