One of the little things that I have been wanting to do for almost a year finally got done today. I redrew all of the Oyama Senmaida work maps. The old ones were scans of photocopies of mimeographed sheets that had been hand drawn at some point in the distant past. They were hard to read.
The new version is clearer and will mimeograph nicely. Although the paddy shapes are less precise – I used a combination of Google satellite view and the old maps to make the new ones – the blocks are anchored with landmarks, the work paths are shown, and the font is large enough to read without glasses.
But I have a mystery on my hands. There are 375 rice paddies in the tanada – that’s what we tell all the school groups. It’s what’s in the brochures and on the website.
As I was tidying my Illustrator files, I counted up my layers. I only drew 190 little fields across the five blocks:
A block: 49
B block: 35
C block: 25
D block: 30
E block: 25
+ 26 additional paddies that are fallow, special purpose, or doubled into one “set.”
So where are the other 185??
Ushimura-san showed me that there are some paddies not in the blocks I worked on today. About 25 fields loop around C Block below the lookout point and parking lot and are reserved for large groups and companies. And 16 on the north side of the street are for school programs and mochi rice.
That still leaves 140 unaccounted for. I will ask the head of the NPO next time I see him. If anyone knows, Ishida-san does.
