During this process, if the ground of the drying yard became damp, you would first use the wooden teeth of a grain rake to push the grain aside, creating furrows. This exposed the damp ground, allowing it to dry in the sun for a bit.
Once it dried, you would then push the grain into ridges to expose more of the damp ground. After that ground was dry, you would rake the grain flat again, spreading it thin.
The sun was strong, and the ground dried quickly. Lin Lan remembered drying grain as a child. 'This isn't even the hardest part of the day,' she thought. 'The worst is when the sun is directly overhead.'
The air was scorching, and even the breeze was hot, like a wave of fire washing over you. It felt like the sun would bake off two layers of any exposed skin.
People were so tired they felt like they could fall asleep standing up, but they still had to go turn the grain.
