At a rice field along the way, I noticed a group of farmers, collectively catching up on their planting activity. That familiar smell of mud is in the air. Recalling those childhood adventure of planting rice along with my siblings and cousins. Working in the farm, mostly during school vacations with cousins of our age was a great experience.
At the place of my cousins in the rice field of Barangay Casig-ang farming was the sweetest experience to remember. Earning extra money for the coming school days was never an easy thing. Negotiating with our old folks to give us the ratoon plants as our share of the farming season was not free of trouble. The practice of "ag-ag", by sieving those left-over rice straws thrown by the motorized treshing machine and using the weaved nigo to separate the chaff from the palay seeds by inviting winds to make life bearable.
Palay seeds were sold to an enterprising neighbor. However, portion of the earned money went back to such neighbor whose store was fully supplied with all sorts of sweets and candies that had wondrously thrived in the middle of rice paddies of the remote barrio.
We got into those amusing game during rice planting with my cousins. For us kids coming from the town, we were considered as slow planters compared to our cousins in the barrio. In fact, our cousins' agility and swiftness in planting had easily trapped us during such intermittent play. They used to call the game as "baboy-baboy" which depicts a pig trapped in the pen. Many times we were pigs on those play. They could easily outpaced us during planting and eventually entrapped us when they successfully blockaded our lane.