This is the scene more than ten years ago. My father stood in the wooden door of the adobe house, looking at the sky and the ground through the misty mist, and then looking back at the bags of wheat piled on the ground, looking dignified and worried! My father is a devout believer. When it rains for a long time and it is not sunny, he always prays to the sky and recites the "Sunny Sutra". I don't know whether the sincerity of farmers moved the sky or the result of natural factors in the universe. In short, it's sunny after the rain and the sun is shining high!
The hot sun has dried up the threshing floor, and my father happily cleaned the corner of the scene with a new broom. At about nine or ten o'clock at noon, my barefoot father felt the ground warm, so he pushed the wheat out bag by bag and put it on the threshing floor in an orderly way. Then pour out the wheat, first push it evenly with a rake, and then push it one by one with a mill. The scorching sun, even stones, can lose three points in this weather! Father said that "stirring frequently" is the key to drying wheat, which means that you can pour wheat grains bit by bit along the starting line with a wooden mill, and taking off your shoes is the best "equipment" to avoid getting wheat grains everywhere! The sun makes people hard to open their eyes. Sweaty farmers wearing straw hats shuttled back and forth on the threshing floor, only to hear wood milling and wheat rubbing "Zha, Zha, Zha" ringing, and the village was full of deafening voices! This is a unique scenery in the countryside during the summer harvest season, which left a deep impression on the hardworking and simple nature of the villagers and reflected their belief in a happy life. ...
I remember that TV broadcast vigorously promoted the "grain insect net" at that time, saying that as long as it was put into wheat, it would not go bad even if it was stored for a year or two! My father never believed it. He has always insisted that nature is the best. Those things are unreliable and definitely bad for people's health. We are farmers who do practical things all day and have enough time to dry wheat!
I remember that year, when I married my daughter-in-law and got married, I separated from my parents. When drying wheat, I stood in the yard, afraid of the heat and too lazy to move! After "basking" in the sun for three times, put the wheat away and put it in a wheat bag! I didn't expect that one day in autumn, when people stood on the ground of the room, they could hear a faint "bang" from the place where wheat was stored upstairs. Did my mother say the wheat "rang"? Sure enough, open the wheat bag made of bricks, and there are countless "wheat cows" inside! If I don't listen to the old man, I will suffer. For the first time in my life, I didn't expect the wheat to be "let", which is tantamount to a vivid education class! The next day, under the eager supervision and guidance of my father, I carried the wheat bag by bag, poured it on the reed mat and dried it again. The sun is shining and the autumn is crisp. Father said: even if it is sunny for more than ten days, it is not as good as a summer sun. After all, no matter what they do, farmers dare not be lazy!
The villagers believe that only by drying the wheat in the sun and putting it in a bag can the busy three summers of this season really end, and only from this moment on can you relax your tired body!
Since my first accident in drying wheat, my father has paid special attention to my work during the summer harvest every year, and specially reminded me to always turn over and stir when drying wheat, and to check and supervise when packing! At that time, my father always braved the scorching sun to grab a handful of hot wheat and bite it one by one. He said, "It's already sunburned when you hear the crisp proof, but it's not enough to show that it's silent or the sound is not crisp." You should bite at least 20 tablets, and the crispness should reach at least 90%. Only in this way can the wheat last for a whole year! Three suns later, my father asked me to pile up the wheat while it was hot and cover it tightly with a snakeskin bag. My father said it would accumulate heat! I remember those years, my wheat drying field was made of soil, and the wheat was mixed with a little foam soil. Father said that soil can not only breed everything, but also support everything, and a little foam soil is more resistant to release! This is the wisdom and experience of an old farmer for decades. It is so grounded, simple! As far as I'm concerned, all the past experiences of drying wheat have now turned into deep homesickness. After thinking for a long time, I can't help feeling: the land is yellow, the wheat is yellow, and even the skin of people living in this land is yellow! -maybe this is the unity of heaven and man, is it the yellow sky and thick soil mentioned in the poem?
In this vast land, although people live extremely hard, they are still full of infinite expectations and yearning for a better life! There is a story in the countryside. An old lady is over 70 years old and weak. After harvesting the new wheat, her children quickly ground a bucket and wanted to roll out a bowl of longevity noodles for the old man! Home and filial piety, happy to the old man from ear to ear, holding a bowl and sitting under the eaves, before the first swallow, a piece of pottery eaves was blown down in the middle of the door by the wind and died! Although it is a tragedy, the old man's body is full of comfort. He is really smiling! I remember those years, in the harvest season, when I watched the whole grain of wheat covered the threshing floor, I would always hear an old man laughing and joking: so much wheat looked at my mouth, I might not be able to swallow it! This is the old people's calm attitude towards life after being weather-beaten, and this is their heartfelt sigh in the face of a better life. ...
In those years, farmers had the task of selling public grain every year. When drying wheat, they often have to dry the surplus public grain all day. That's not enough. We must use the wind to purify it! At that time, my family had a wooden hand-cranked windmill. I remember that a few days before the sale of public grain, the villagers would pull the wheat over for artificial purification again. Time flies, the years have passed, and today's social scene has undergone earth-shaking changes, and the grand occasion of farmers selling public grain has gradually become a memory!
I remember that there is always a unique piece of wheat on the edge of my home drying wheat fields. In fact, it was not the wheat that my mother picked up and rubbed, nor the wheat that she directly swept back from the ground with a broom! Mom said, bask in the sun, pick it up and raise it, and you can change watermelons to eat! Farmers are very busy in the wheat drying season, so businessmen transport watermelons to the village entrance. The tweeter kept shouting: change watermelons ... my mother always wants to improve the food at home. When she heard that a catty of wheat can only be exchanged for a catty of two watermelons, she was a little reluctant to part with the wheat, saying: white rice and fine flour feed people, watermelons are water, so what if you don't eat them! My mother experienced a hard time in the first half of her life, and naturally she has an unforgettable love for food! Of course, in the end, it is inevitable to replace the picked wheat with one or two big watermelons and take them home excitedly to greet the lost people to eat enough!
In those years, under the guidance of my father for several years in a row, I mastered the temperature of drying wheat very accurately, but found that the old man's teeth were getting worse and worse. Gradually, I couldn't bite the crispy wheat any more!
In recent years, due to my health and work, I no longer grow wheat at home, but planted various trees in the responsible fields! My father is over 70 years old. Every year, he always sets aside a piece of land to grow some wheat. Working in the fields has become his lifelong habit, and this complex has been integrated into the depths of the lives of old people! In fact, this phenomenon is very common in rural areas. Almost all the old people in rural areas are hardworking and frugal. They live and work nonstop until they are too sick to move before they really enter the rest stage!
Every time it's time to dry wheat, I think of my mother's "water surface", which is made of strong salt water, soft and tough, and difficult to knead! Mother mixed the dough with a black glazed porcelain basin, adding water bit by bit, first beating it into floc with her fingertips, then kneading it into dough with her palm, and finally adding water to the dough bit by bit with her fist. Mom says this is the most basic way to adjust the soft noodles. I stood by and watched, but I couldn't help at all. My mother said, "three lights" in face-face light, hand light and basin light. Then mom took out the dough, put it on the chopping board and covered it with clean plastic paper. In the gap between noodles, my mother began to mix "water and water" (the juice when eating noodles), pounded garlic in an iron pan, burned oil and spicy seeds, and baked vinegar in a hot pot. After a series of complicated and trivial ways, a pot of mouth-watering delicious soup was served on the table. At this time, the noodles have been cooked, and my mother will roll them out with three hammers and two arms, but not too thin, and then cut them into strips with a kitchen knife. When cooking, grab both ends and do it on the chopping board (Biya)! This kind of gluten is soft and refreshing, and often half a noodle can hold a bowl. ...
Nowadays, my father and mother are old and weak, and they are stumbling. Father has long been unable to bite crisp wheat grains, and mother has long been unable to knead solid dough! Another year of drying wheat, I can't help thinking. I always want to go home and relive the little things I spent with them. ...