A controlled (?!) burn

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Geo: 16.3833, 103.933

Spend about three hours working at the farm this morning taking advantage of another cool start to the day.
In the afternoon Jai's nephew Tia comes to see us and buys six trees from Jai's woodland to make a house for his sister in law. He needs cash so Jai also buys some of his rice from him at an advantageous price. We now have more than enough boiling rice as well as sticky rice; in fact about 1000kg !!!
Late afternoon we both go to the farm to burn off the rubbish that I have cleared the last few days. We also decide to have a controlled burn on another piece of land that we would like to plant up. Everything is very dry and the flames leap up to 20ft+ and it is a bit scary for while as I pictured the fire raging across the dry rice fields and into the woodland. I got a camera out to take a few photos but quickly realised that I needed to be helping Jai beat down the flames to keep it under some sort of control. We were both pretty hot and tired by the time it had burned itself out and there is still a lot of stuff that will need clearing by hand but it does look a lot better already.
We have told Jai's nephew Tia that he can plant cassava between our rows of trees for the next couple of years which he is considering. It would be good for him to have a bit extra land to work and good for us inasmuch as he would keep the grass etc clear from the trees at the same time.
In bed that night Jai comes in from watching the TV to tell me that Prince Charles' wife has just died from the shock of finding out she was having a baby !! I am thinking that she has to be in her late 60s and that this is a story that I will have to check further next time I'm at the internet.

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