Greetings!

Today, I am going to share with you guys another job that farmers like me do during the rice farming season. The job is "checking the water level" of the rice farm and also checking if there are holes dug by freshwater eels. Water is vital to producing a good yield for rice crops so it needs to be checked from time to time if not every day.

Checking the water level

Checking the water is simply by looking at the water level visually and measuring it whether by using any measuring instrument or just by fingers. But most of the time, we farmers, already knew if the rice field needs water or not. For those who didn't know, we always maintain a 3-5 centimeter of water needs until it starts to develop grains, and at least 5 centimeters of water level when grains start to develop inside the body/stem of the rice plant.

The photo below illustrates how I usually check the level of water on our rice farm (a gif image is also shown).

Sometimes I do use the shovel that I always brought with me but it is quite tricky that is why I do not usually use the shovel in measuring the water level unless, of course, I can clearly see the soil under the water. Aside from visually checking the water level I commonly use my fingers to measure the level of the water on each of the rice plots.

Looking for holes dug by freshwater eel

Usually, when I go inspecting the water level on our rice farm I always check for holes dug by a freshwater eel. Holes with a diameter of one to two inches if left alone will drain the water in a plot within twenty-four hours. Below is a photo of one of the two holes that I found in our rice farm (a gif image follows).

Eels on our rice farm back in the day are none existent. But when irrigation was built and water started to flow eels from the dams were carried away by the rushing water and found their way to our rice farms. Today, freshwater eels on rice farms in our town are now common.

Below is a gif image of the beginning and end of a hole dug by an eel. This kind of hole if left alone can drain the whole plot in just twenty-four hours.

A surprise

Ok, so, this may not be a surprise. While I am looking for holes dug by eel something passed by near me, a hand-tractor with a trailer (photo below followed by a gif). This kind of machinery is the one that we used for transportation in our town back in the early 1990s and earlier.

Another hole

Before I end my video recording I found another hole on our rice farm which luckily the last that I found on our rice farm (photo below followed by a gif image). This one seems to be a little wider than the first one because the current of the water is a lot faster than the first one that I found.

And here's the video of me checking the water level and finding holes.