Composition on the days of farming

Farming in front of and behind the house in my hometown is not for the enjoyment of life, but to kill the crazy weeds.

Our family left the village more than 20 years ago, and my cousin lived alone in the house in our hometown. An unexpected wildfire occurred in the spring of the year before last and claimed the life of my cousin. My hometown is deep in the mountains, and the natural conditions for survival are relatively harsh. The implementation of the policy of relocation to alleviate poverty and become rich has reduced this backward mountain village into a veritable hollow village. There are only four villagers left behind, including the cousin who has left. My cousin left forever, leaving our house without anyone to take care of it. Only "General Iron" guarded the door tightly. After several discussions, my wife and I decided to go back and take a look when autumn comes.

It was a sunny day with clear sky and clear sky. My wife and I drove straight to our hometown. Less than three kilometers away from the village, the driveway began to become narrow. Not only was the road less than two meters wide, but half of it was also occupied by thorns on the roadside. If you forced yourself forward, you would be scratched all over. More importantly, my driving skills were not enough to reassure my wife, so abandoning the car and walking was an inevitable choice.

After walking for more than half an hour, we passed through eighteen mountain valleys and returned to the village we had left long ago. We saw the shadow of our hometown house covered by the chun trees and smelled the pears floating in the phoenix. The fruit is fragrant, and excitement arises spontaneously. My cousin, who had always stayed in the village, was so enthusiastic that he didn't know what to do when he saw our return. My wife and I politely declined our cousin's invitation and walked eagerly towards our house. What we didn't expect was that the house was surrounded by dense weeds, especially the gray wormwood (the name of the grass) that was shoulder to shoulder with me, which made my wife and I even more intimidated. I grew up in the countryside, and I know the dangers in the grass. There are not only poisonous insects and scorpions, but also various wild bees that sting people. There are even earth snakes that make people look pale, which may be lurking in the grass. I was enjoying the cool air and wanted to enter the house, but I couldn't clear the passage for a while. The obstruction of weeds made my wife and I feel very frustrated and helpless after returning from a long journey. I only took a detour and climbed up to the nearest neighbor's house to visit the yard. The arrogant weeds were no different from those outside the yard. What made me feel relieved was that the old pear tree that watched me grow up was still majestic. Just as before, the branches were covered with golden fruits. Under the caress of the autumn phoenix, they nodded to me frequently, as if they were expressing their longing for parting. The changing sky and the drifting dark clouds blocked the bright sunshine. My wife and I were in no mood to stay any longer. Instead, we said goodbye to our nephew with deep thoughts and reluctantly left the village. Although the weeds grow on the land of my hometown, they feel as uncomfortable as if they grow on my body.

In the spring of the next year, the song of the cuckoo called my wife and I back. We smashed the rusty 'Iron General' on the door, burned the dead weeds everywhere, and cleaned up the accumulated garbage in the house. The garbage lit the stove fire made of mud, brought the clear spring water from the mountains, and started a new life of "fighting against heaven and earth".

The 'slap'-shaped corner plot in front of and behind the house is no more than ten square meters in size and less than one square meter in size. It does not add up to seven percent of the land, but it has become a place where my wife and I are fighting against each other. 'The battlefield. The two of us used burned grass ashes as fertilizer, used picked stones to block the edge of the ground, used newly purchased steel shovels to dig deep into the soil, and enjoyed spiritual happiness with the sweat of labor.

In this less than 70% of the land, in the gaps inside and outside the courtyard, my wife and I used every opportunity to sow corn, beans, loofah, pumpkins, cucumbers, gourds, tomatoes, sunflowers, and sesame seeds. It can be said that there are all kinds of crops. After spending so much effort and planting so many varieties, will there be any harvest? My wife and I have never thought about it. We just want to stop being arrogant and happy for ourselves.

The weather in my hometown has been dry for nine out of ten years. The land here depends on the sky for food. The expected spring rain has never come, and the seeds in the ground are sleeping quietly and waiting. My wife and I can't wait in the village forever. Things in the city are already piled up. After entrusting our nephew who stayed behind to take care of us, we hurriedly left the village.

It rained. Although it was not very heavy, it was enough for the seeds to sprout and take root. My wife and I stood in the city's silk rain and sincerely blessed the seeds buried in the soil of our hometown.

My cousin told me on the phone that due to several intermittent and timely rains, the unearthed seedlings were very good. Even if there were occasional defects, he also replanted and transplanted them. He put my mind at ease in the city and I thank him. After taking care of things in the city, my wife and I drove back to the village. The simple road for the last few kilometers had been widened, and my car was unimpeded. We parked directly at the wheat field in the village.

The green seedlings are growing healthily, varying in height from one inch to one foot. The daring weeds of all kinds want to run wild among the seedlings, which is unbearable. My wife and I had no time to rest, so we entered a new chapter of the battle - weeding. We did not use weeding agents, not only to keep the crops green and environmentally friendly, but also because we were afraid of affecting our cousin’s bee production. "It's noon on the day of hoeing, and the sweat is dripping from the soil.

"After my wife and I finished hoeing the weeds in the field, after we removed the excess seedlings, and after my wife and I set up the shelves for beans, cucumbers, loofahs and gourds, my wife and I started to Resting under the pear tree in the yard, adding water to the iron pot on the stove to cook, the smoke climbed up to the roof and rose into the beautiful sky. At this moment, my wife and I were greatly relieved of our nostalgia. Comfort.

Walking back and forth between the city and my hometown, I reaped the fruits of my self-reliant "battle". Beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, gourds and pumpkins surrounded my wife and I, waiting on the stove. A few meters away, when the water in the pot is about to boil, when the oil in the frying pan is about to smoke, the vegetables are picked from the ground, and there is no need to add seasonings except oil and salt. The fragrance is overflowing, and this feeling is something that people in the city cannot enjoy! The life cycle of mature vegetables is limited, so my wife and I cannot enjoy them all ourselves, and we give them to others around us. Dear fellow villagers, this is a gift for my relatives and friends in the city, and for tourists coming from afar.

This year’s good weather has fulfilled my wife’s wish, and we have overcome the overwhelming weeds and achieved something unexpected. Unexpected rewards. 'The beans climbed up the pear tree, the tomatoes grew as tall as one person, the loofahs were full of knots, the pumpkins were all over the slope, the corns were confident and strong, and the sunflowers bent over with laughter.'

With the change of solar terms, my wife and I continued to open up wasteland and planted radish and cabbage, so that we could enjoy the fruits of our labor in winter.

Autumn is coming, and the crops that are about to mature have attracted the intrusion of sparrows and the patronage of wild boar. They are all protected animals of the country. We cannot use extreme measures, but can only scare them with scarecrows. , used fake wire nets to scare them. Even with such efforts, the villagers' losses could not be completely avoided. A field of corn planted by a fellow villager named Ma in the same village was robbed by wild boars on a dark and windy night. My wife and I moved the ripe pumpkins into the yard, dried the excess loofah into shreds, made the thick-skinned gourds into gourds, boiled the bright red tomatoes into sauce, and put the peeled corn on the windowsill. Let it dry naturally. The radish and cabbage are growing happily. They compete with the frosty days. The bleak autumn wind is here again. Instead of the disappointment of last year, it is really a "change in the world" with the joy of today's harvest.

When my wife and I lived in the city, the early winter snow hit the crops that were still growing in the fields. Thanks to my cousin in the village who unearthed my radishes and cabbages in time, otherwise they would have been Nothing was found. My hometown was beautiful after the snow, and the tired land was especially peaceful. Before the arrival of the New Year, my wife and I went back to our hometown again and put the radishes that could not be taken away into the earthen jars and added them to the cabbage piled in the yard. In order to keep warm. After leaving the corn on the windowsill to dry, only the empty corn cobs were left. The full corn kernels were stored by the field mice in their own granaries. Fortunately, the two intact ears of corn were left behind. My wife and I returned to our home in the city and hung it prominently on the wall in the living room.