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Ryunan Primary School has been organizing a traditional Festival for the last 40 years: Scarecrow Erecting!

This Festival takes place on the first morning of the second semester of the scholar year.
As I had been invite to attend (I coach cricket there, too) I found myself meeting the kids at 10:40 a.m. in blinding heat!

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The school was founded 46 years and is still a large one by Shizuoka City standards in spite of the declining population.

I told you it was really hot (33 degrees celsius) and the teachers (and I) were wearing bandanas! As for the kids caps are compulsory!

But some kids managed to forget them, which shows that Japanese society is not that much different! LOL

For once I was allowed to take pictures of the kids as this was a public event, and the kids loved the attention (all those V signs!)!

The kids were divided into 21 groups of 5th graders looking after 2nd graders.

The kids who had forgotten their caps were already having second thoughts!

The school rice paddy is located behind the school at a distance and across a wide street.

It is a large rice paddy, by scholl paddies standards, and thekids could walk across it thanks to elevated narrow paths.

That “kakashi/scarecrow” is about to get a sun-tan (or sunstroke!)!

The kids plant their own rice in May.
Until two years ago they used Asahi no Yume/朝日の夢/Morning Sun Dream variety. But they have switcged to Hi no Hikari/ヒノヒカリ/Day’s Sunshine.

I must say were very disciplined and were waiting for their turn to bring their kakashi into the rice paddies with a smile!

Each group went to a preordained spot and waited for their teachers to give a hand (and a hammer) to ercet their charges.

Some kakashi wer cute!
Incidentally, the teacher is not a scarecrow!

This one might scare the crows (loads of them here!) but not the kids!

I’m afraid this one will be eaten by the birds!

Now, what are those red eggs?
The teachers explained that they use only a minimum of fertilizer and pesticide so as not to interfere with the ecology.

-“The eggs of a jumbo Ta Mushi!” as repied one of the kids, taking one of them out to admire…
Big slug!
Actually the paddy is full of life, and the kids have no qualms chasing them!

Smiles everywhere!

The kakashi will stay there for people to admire and birds to avoid until October when the kids will harvest the rice and cook it themselves for school lunch!