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The terraces behind the inn were flooded last week, and the first seedlings went in by hand on Sunday.
Every year the whole house takes a morning for it: the cook, the carpenter, and the guests who ask. The mountain water is cold, the mud is warm, and by noon the terraces look like a field of mirrors.
That evening the kitchen served the first dinner of the season: last autumn's rice, young bamboo shoots, trout from the river below the bridge. Nothing on the table had travelled more than a kilometre.
If you are here in the second week of May, ask at the desk: there is always room for one more pair of boots.