Lazy Farmer's Farming Log 6: Is the sore back just a habit, or has the back already become hunched?

Because of work, several times when I went to "patrol the field" in the evening, I could not really work my muscles and bones properly, and could only stand on the field ridge with my camera, observing with my eyes. The rice in this field is dancing in waves. Looking over from the road, it is divided into four sections, growing tall, short, tall, short in order. Why does it form like this? There is still no correct answer to this day, and the elders in the village present two schools of thought.

One school says: "This is because when you scattered the fertilizer, you did not spread it evenly. Some places had fertilizer, some places had none." I do not quite agree with this explanation. Thinking back to how carefully I threw chicken manure into the sky back then, even if my face was covered in chicken manure, after the tiller mixed the soil, how could the fertilizer possibly not be even!

The other school says: "This is because you scattered too much fertilizer, and right after scattering you released water and transplanted the seedlings. The fertilizer fermented in the water, and the seedlings got choked." I agree with this explanation more. After all, this time I scattered 34 bags of fertilizer, and the fertilizer money came to nearly one half of the entire budget. This explanation indirectly means I will not have to spend so much money the next time I farm. It is an explanation that can both save money and let the rice grow well. I like it.

I deliberately wore sports shorts and slippers to patrol the field. Thinking back to when I decided to farm, it was so that in the evening I could go to the field, walk a bit, move a bit, and relax. Before I even entered the field, the landlord's older brother could not wait to walk over and say: "Others shake their heads when they see it. No one's field is farmed like this. If there is too much grass, the rice seedlings will not grow well." I thought to myself, of course no one farms like this. I farm this way precisely to change the traditional conventional farming method and change people's values about farmland. If someone farmed the way I do, then I would not need to take such pains and toil.

Holding the little red bucket, I walked into the field and began today's grass-rubbing exercise.

"Oh my! With so much grass, how can you ever finish rubbing it all? Oh my! Good heavens!" From time to time, an older woman riding a bicycle past would shout loudly at me.

"This needs herbicide spray! You need to hire workers to rub the grass! You need to scatter fertilizer!" Several older women would stop by the roadside and start giving technical guidance. On the surface it seemed like they were discussing my field with one another, but they all raised their voices, wanting to pass these messages to me. And I also very attentively experienced the feeling of rubbing grass. Besides the warm, moist touch of walking in the soft muddy ground, I began counting in my mind how long it would take before I felt a sore back.

Rubbing grass and scattering fertilizer produce different kinds of fatigue in the lower back. If I had to compare the difference between the two, I think the "back-breaking" of fertilizing is the fatigue brought by the repeated motion of straightening up and bending down, while the "back-breaking" of rubbing grass comes from the fatigue brought by continuously bending at the waist and slightly bending the knees. By the time I rubbed the second bucket of grass, when my right hand pulled grass, my left elbow naturally rested on my left knee, and when my left hand pulled grass, my right elbow rested on my right knee. Is this not exactly the standard posture I used to see farmers use? That is right, it eases the fatigue in the lower back a great deal.

Although herbicide can be sprayed to solve the weed problem, spraying herbicide harms the rice. In order to let the rice grow well, many farmers still rub grass by hand. If the time spent rubbing two buckets of grass makes the lower back ache, then what happens after rubbing grass for a lifetime?

Is it a habitual sore back, or has the back already become hunched?