The dust and earth of the field and chaff from the plants clings to the tiny seeds of barley, wheat, and peas. To clean them you need a water canal with a drop, large woven cloths, willow sticks, tools for stirring, good neighbors, and just the right flow of frigid water.
This is one of those things we would never have been able to learn on our own. But the ancestors cleaned grain every year, and they figured out how to do it right.
Is the grain washed and sorted to remove debris like pebbles or chaff, then dried in the sun? How do those tiny lizards survive the harsh cold of Tar winters? It gives me great pleasure to see the community processing essential food.
Yes the chaff, the pebbles, the dust and dirt get washed off. Then the last image is of grain laid out on blankets on the roof for perhaps three days, which is enough in this dry climate, especially if there is good sun.
And those lizards? They must go into torpor or hibernation for the winter. We see them throughout the warm season, often coming out of stone field terrace walls where we assume they have burrows! The Ladakhi word around here is “gyalchik”.