[upbeat music] ♪ Chue and Tou Lee wanted to bring a little bit of home to their Lee's One Fortune farm by growing popular Asian fruits and vegetables on their Hmong family farm and selling them at markets.

But when the Lees figured out a way to grow heirloom rice in the foothills of North Carolina, they became a sensation and started out growing and harvesting the rice by hand.

As demand rose, they now use a harvester.

I am so excited to see just how they do it.

Good morning.

- Good morning, Sheri.

- Hi Sheri.

- How are you, friends?

Good to see you.

- Good to meet you.

- Welcome to Lee's One Fortune Farm.

- Lee's One Fortune Farm, I love that, I love that.

So how long have you been here?

- This is our third year on this property.

- So you grow all kinds of things.

Is the rice around here?

- [Chue] The rice will be over that hill, down all the way to the bottom.

- [Sheri] And why is it in the bottom land?

- [Chue] It is a lot of woods, rice spot, and a few little streams.

- Can we walk or is it a ride?

- We prefer to ride because I've always joked about it.

It's a mile down and 10 miles back because it's all uphill.

- Well, definitely I'll meet you down there.

See you down there in just a minute, okay.

- Sounds good, let's do that.

- Sounds good, let's do that.

You got your boots?

- Yeah, mine aren't as cool as yours.

I should have brought my more heavy duty boots.

So, and just looking at this, I mean, if I, if I was out here walking, I would not look out and say, oh, there's a rice field.

Because I think like a lot of people, I'm not sure I ever knew what rice plants looked like.

- So this is the part that make the rice.

- Oh, the little individual grains.

- [Tou] Yes, that's what we harvest.

And this is what we call green rice.

- Because it's not mature.

- Yes, it's not mature.

It's perfect for green rice.

- And that's edible too, but in very small amounts, right?

- Yeah.

- Very, very good rice.

So the window to collect these would be like three days, and right now's the best time.

- Really?

- Yeah.

- Is it a certain moisture level you're looking for?

How do you know when those magic three days come along?

- When they're just like that.

- Okay.

- When they're not, the head is not all the way down.

It's just halfway down, and you see the grain is halfway filled.

That's a perfect time.

We're gonna cut, but we're gonna look at the rice when they're mature like that, that's when we're gonna cut.

- Just cut the mature one.

And I'm gonna go ahead and set up the tarp.

- [Tou] Okay, just like that.

- So you're gonna do as many and with every.

- Yes.

- Like side and down.

- [Tou] Yes.

- All right, okay.

I can't do the whole handfuls, Chue.

I'm gonna have to do mine one at a time.

- You could do one at a time.

- Okay.

- Okay, this is how we tie it.

So that it will stay in one bundle.

- [Sheri] Okay.

- [Tou] And then this is how we lay it on the stock right here for a day.

- [Sheri] To dry.

- To dry.

And then when we gather the bundle to go to the tarp, it'll be ready to thrash.

- So if you're harvesting this whole field, is it one field per season?

Is it sequential planting?

Or is it one and done in a season?

- One and done in the season.

- [Sheri] Okay.

- Yeah.

- [Sheri] Oh, well you weren't kidding about the muck.

- [Chue] Yeah.

- Oh my goodness.

Y'all, I'm going down.

I knew it was happening.

All right, you grab one side.

My boots are stuck.

All right, lesson one in far rice farming.

So you just lay it on the tarp.

Do you wanna spread it out or just put in in little bundles?

What do I need to do here?

- No, we're gonna thresh it today.

- [Sheri] Oh, okay.

- [Chue] It don't really matter.

- [Sheri] Okay.

- But if we're gonna leave it to air dry, yes.

Now you notice the green ones don't come off as easy as the... - Right, because they're not ready to let go.

Like, yeah, okay, all right.

- [Chue] You wanna give it a shot?

- Yeah, I wanna give it a shot.

Oh yes, let's do that one that she so kindly already tied clothes together here.

- [Chue] See how that just comes off so easy?

- [Sheri] There you go.

- [Chue] And the nice is you can beat it as hard as you need to, yep.

- I'm thinking about that mud.

That's what I'm thinking about.

- I'll tell you what, I've lost so many things in the mud pit.

I don't take phone, jewelry, or good clothes into it because of that.

- All right, well friends, I don't know when I've had a more fascinating day.

I mean, it was, it was, I've never seen anything like this.

It is such news.

And y'all understand why it's so special and why you guys are the experts.

I cannot believe we're in the foothills of North Carolina doing your family's farming, both of you.

Thank you, thanks for putting up on me.

- [Chue] Yeah, thank you so much for coming.

- [Tou] Thank you for coming.

- And the mud is clean, so everything else is good too.

- You know what, you can do a spa thing.

Y'all can add a mud bath side hustle to this.

- That's a good idea.

- You got it, you got it.

- That's in the future.

- You can name it for me, the Sheri Boggy Spot.

- That's right.

[everybody laughing]