Published on 19/July,2020 but realized maybe chanslate to English for easy reading by more people. (it was done automatically in Google translate if anything wrong please be tolerant.)
I was born in a small town by the Qiantang River in Zhejiang, and I can't remember my childhood. This is a big family. The father has three brothers and three sisters, and the mother has three brothers and one sister. The ancestors fully responded to the call of the Mao Zedong era. I don’t have the slightest impression of my grandfather in my mind now. Maybe it was because I was too young at the time. I heard from adults that when I was very young, my grandfather fell off a ladder to help me get something from a height and passed away soon after. Whenever I think of this, I am very sad Guilty. It was too poor at that time, and it was impossible to leave any pictures of my grandfather in the thatched house. It was always a regret in this life. There are many family members, and it is difficult for the grandparents to take care of our juniors like they are now. My mother said that she was very afraid of my grandmother when she was young, which is a typical mother-in-law relationship.
Changshui Cao Village is in the southernmost part of the town. A Duotou River runs straight from the southwest corner of the village to the northwest and then joins with another east-west cross-cun River. It is said that this river can reach the Qiantang River. Because it is called Shuicao Village, one can imagine how small this river is. To the east of the village is a stone road called Zhenxing Road, which has not changed its name for decades. There are fields to the south, which are very large. About 2 miles away, there is another slightly larger river. After crossing this bridge, you will arrive at the village where the grandmother lives. In the 1980s, the reform and opening up, our parents' life was still relatively hard, but they have moved out of the thatched house and have their own tile house. Dad worked in a cotton factory to resist 200 catties of cotton bales, and my mother worked in a "very fierce" master's factory. will give me a look. Before I reached school age, I had no conditions to go to kindergarten. My mother was afraid that I would run out and have an accident, so she had no choice but to lock me in this tile house. I have nothing to play, what can I do? The left hand of the tiled house's entrance is the stove. There is a window on the stove. Although it is blocked by a wooden fence, you can still see the window. I climbed onto the stove, sat in my pot, and stared out the window. Now I'm curious why the pot didn't break for me. Occasionally, people from the village pass by and talk to me, which is also a great comfort.
When I was about 7 or 8 years old, the family let me go out to the wild, and my life seemed to be open from then on.
In spring, the spring silkworms spin silk and rapeseed flowers bloom, and they walk for more than ten miles with a child who is slightly older than me in the same village to the mountains to pick mulberry leaves and pine flowers. Make some dumplings and eat them. The soft and slightly sweet dumplings are wrapped in golden pine flowers. It is delicious in the world. Even if I don’t like sweets very much, I can’t help but eat a few more. When the wind picked up, I went to the village to find bamboo, cut it into 3 slender pieces, tied it into a "dry" shape with sewing machine thread at home, pasted it with newspaper, pulled two threads down at the two intersections of the "dry", and tied it into a shape. Triangle, the most important thing is this triangle, the angle must be just right, the kite can fly far, and I am the best at doing this. In the end, it was made into a kite with the tail on it. In my impression, it is carried out every year almost every year. On a spring day, sitting in the grass seed field and flying a kite until it became a very small point, it was a carefree good time before going to school and having no academic burden.
In summer, when the grapes, melons and fruits are gradually ripening, they will touch other people's fields and steal a few melons back. Some farmers in the rice fields and sugarcane fields will sprinkle some melon and fruit seedlings, and pick them together when the crops are harvested. Let me tell you, I saw the field where the vines are emerging, and I got into it and found it. I can't forget a green-skinned vegetable melon. It's not sweet, but it's very refreshing. When I take a sip, the water can easily be squeezed out of the melon and into my throat. It quenches my thirst immediately, and I can burp when I'm full. It was hot and we could go down the river. At that time, the river was always clear. We stood in a cement boat under the bridge. The boat was loaded with some large stones picked up from the road and smashed it on the water peanuts growing on the water. , The big fish hiding below was frightened and jumped into the boat. What a big fish, I can't hold it alone.
At that time, it was very hot, and the river was often almost dry. The little friends, each with a big bag, went into the river silt and felt the mussels happily. They would not hesitate to fish for the small ones. Treasure hunting with your feet in the mud, if you step on something that is smooth and a little flat, it is probably a mussel, and you can touch a big bag in an afternoon. Take it home, make the fat into fragrant pickles and copy the mussel meat, and basically feed the rest of the meat to the ducks raised in the house. Those ducks should not be too happy. When they see the mussel meat, they will flap their wings and fight for food, with their flat mouths from the ground. The piece of meat raised his neck and swallowed it whole, and he would stretch his neck to fight when he was in a hurry. After driving so many mussels, I have never seen any pearls, which shows how difficult it is to naturally form this thing. There were times when I was unlucky when I touched the mussels. Once my feet were cut open by the glass in the mud, and the blood was gurgling. Fortunately, I was close to my grandmother's house, so I quickly went ashore to bandage.
The farmland needs to be irrigated. There is a pumping station at the head of the village. The pumping station is about 50 meters away from the cement canal. When the pumping station is turned on, the waves are surging. That is our playground. , don't have to work hard, the back is pushed away by the water waves, and it can slide out a long way. One time I played too much, and the pants on my butt had two big holes in the cement canal. I found out when I got home, and was scolded by my mother.
There are cattle in the village, which are used to cultivate the land. Usually, each family takes turns to take care of them. The family entrusted this honorable task to me. The morning cow walks on the country road, the big copper bell-like eyes stop to nibble when the grass is fresh, and I will drive it into the canal, so that I can stand on the ground and then climb on its back and sit . The cow is very docile, you can sit and eat its grass on its own. Later, there were tractors in the village, and there were not many opportunities to use cattle. Some private people built a cattle slaughterhouse on the other side of the village river. They stunned the cattle with electric rods before slaughtering them. Cows are also human. Seeing that they are about to be killed, their big eyes will cry, which is really pitiful! This kind of situation will never be forgotten in a lifetime. I don’t know how these people did it, but then again, the beef soup in the cauldron of the slaughterhouse is so delicious, my mother will often go back to scoop a bucket and cook noodles for us, that The fresh aroma is a hundred times more delicious than the beef noodles on the market today, but unfortunately I can't eat it anymore.
The family also raises rabbits, sheep and pigs. The rabbits are kept in the rabbit cage. They usually have to pull the grass to feed and clean the rabbit cage. The feces are really smelly, but they are also very fat. There are several peach trees next to the farmhouse, and I cover them with rabbit dung. Keeping the peaches that grow are big and sweet.
The pigs slept in the pen to eat, eat and sleep, only when their father grabbed their two big ears and pulled them out to slaughter, would they scream like a heartbreaker.
The sheep had to be led outside to graze, and they had to tie a rope and find a stick to stick in the field, otherwise they would run around. I also like to tug-of-war with a sheep, find a stronger one, grab its two horns with both hands and pull it to my side, and it will instinctively retreat in the opposite direction, with great strength, and each other wins and loses, sheep are never more arrogant. Will deliberately rush towards you and make me fall on all fours. A few times, the big-bellied ewe suddenly fell out of the back of the butt, and when I saw it, my God, it was a lamb, and I didn’t know how to do it. I quickly asked my parents to come over and be a midwife. When the lambs grow up, they have some hair, and it is very fun to baa and baa when you hold them in your hands and brush their hair.
I also had a dog named Da Huang, who was very obedient and clever. Later, it accidentally ate the poisonous fried dough sticks that were thrown on the ground by the dog dealer of the medicine dog. My parents went out to find it, but when I got home, it was dead, foaming at the mouth and crying. Wang Wang, heartache! Dad found a place to bury it, and since then, the family has never kept a dog.
When the rice is ripe, I have to help my family to cut rice. At that time, there were no small jobs. It was this family that wanted to collect grain and asked a few relatives to come over and make an assault together. I'm impatient, and having me cut a line of rice in an afternoon is killing me. But I didn’t dare to disobey my parents’ orders. After all, my parents worked harder. After a piece of rice was cut, the field was much refreshed. Many big frogs had nowhere to hide, so they jumped up and down next to the rice that had just been cut and lay down. , hurry to find the net pocket and catch all the frogs. The frogs end up miserably. They are peeled and made into a dish, which is chopped and fed to the ducks, but I like to use the frog meat to fish for crayfish. There is a pond at the north corner of the village. When it is hot in summer, those lobsters will spit bubbles and float to the surface. Find a bamboo pole, peel the frog and hang it on it, and dip it into the pond. The frog meat is really fragrant. In the blink of an eye, a crayfish swims over and grabs it, and when you raise your hand, you catch it in the bucket. It's really stupid. Knowing that he is caught out of the water and does not loosen his claws, he deserves to be eaten. In fact, it is best to use snake meat for crayfish fishing. Occasionally, a water snake will run into the field and be killed by me, skin it and put it in the pond. That time, I can catch 5 or 6 lobsters, which is quite spectacular.
When I grow up, I know that frogs cannot be harmed. After all, they help us catch pests. However, in those days, the material was poor, and everyone did this, and it was understandable.
The sacrifice of the frogs was exchanged for a large bucket of crayfish, washed and braised, and it was the most suitable for Dad to drink.
Autumn is the time to harvest. Needless to say, rice has to be harvested for another season just like summer. Sugarcane and sweet millet stems (sweet millet in Shanghai dialect) also grow to the height of one person. Rice is a large-scale seed in paddy fields, and sweet crops are generally contained in their own plots. When you want to eat sugarcane, you usually grab a few (Bah-Simen dialect), cut it off with a kitchen knife and take it home, cut it into pieces, and bite it directly without peeling it after washing. In a time when candy was hard to come by, this was the sweetest thing I've ever eaten. By the end of autumn, there are still a lot of sugarcane in the private land, what should I do if I can't eat it? Dad had already figured out a way to dig a big hole and put a felt cloth on it. The sugarcane is dug out from the ground and piled up and put into the soil pit, covered with soil, and then plucked out in the spring of the next year to continue eating. Generally, it is not bad.
I actually don’t like autumn very much. When the autumn wind comes, my lips are about to crack, and it hurts so much that I can’t help licking it with my tongue. In the end, it looks like a sausage mouth. There was no lip balm to sell at that time, and it was a pain to go on like this for an autumn.
After harvesting the crops, the haystacks protrude in the field, one to the other, sometimes I will pull out a few bundles from the middle, hollow it out, then climb in and seal the outside. Lying inside daydreaming, no one can find me. At that time, I got a football, the one with poor rubber leather, and I threw it in the field and kicked and ran. The whole field was my playground.
Burning wildfires in autumn is also a must. Find one or two companions and bring fire tools. In the fields, where the grass is withered by the ditch, light the fire, and watch the beeping, beeping, and blazing, and you will be happy. Sometimes I bring a few raw sweet potatoes, throw them in the fire, and when the fire is finished, I can eat the fragrant roasted sweet potatoes.
The cold wind from Siberia blows, and all things need to recuperate. The roots left by the rice in the autumn in the farmland form a thick frost, and winter comes quietly. The adults have been busy for three seasons, and it is time to take a good rest. Warm a pot of old wine, fry some stinky tofu, and chat with the wine to tell us the truth of life. The sky was getting colder, and soon the snowflakes were falling, and in just one night, thick snow had accumulated on the ground on the eaves.
Just this article to mourn my parents July 2020
