There are not only apricot trees in the apricot garden in West Street, but also other fruit trees: tall and vigorous persimmon trees, medium-sized apricot trees and several pear trees. Once upon a time, an apple tree was planted. The most vigorous growth is walnut tree, second only to persimmon tree. However, even the children in the village can see that they are the younger generation in the garden by touching the smooth bark. How many generations of old persimmon, apricot and pear trees have lived in the garden, which has become the constant memory support of several generations.
In early spring, the fruit tree bloomed for the second time. The children in the village, led by the old man, went into the apricot garden and started their daily activities until late autumn. First, the largest number of apricot trees in the garden bloom at the same time, and the apricot garden of more than 100 acres seems to have become an ocean of flowers overnight. The pale pink apricot blossoms set off the apricot garden day and night, and the whole Guo Valley was integrated into a fragrant apricot village. The children in the village frolicked through the apricot flowers, and the fragrance of the flowers smelled fragrant, which suppressed them all winter and suddenly filled them with vitality.
The happiest thing for the children in the village is to dig small apricot trees on the soft ground moistened by the spring rain. When the apricot blossoms faded and the leaves began to appear, I bent down to look for them, and I didn't let go of every corner. Seeing an arched place, I squatted on the ground and carefully picked up the soil: Wow! Fat and tender little apricot baby! It holds its little head and sleeps in the soft soil. Oh, it should be said that after a spring rain, they are full of vitality and ready to break through the ground and stretch their strong little bodies.
Small apricot trees all carry two fat almonds, from which their lives come. In biology, what is it called? It's called embryo base or cotyledon, right? Hold your breath and dig out the apricot tree. Never dig out the fat embryo base or cotyledons, otherwise apricot trees will not survive easily.
At this time of the year, there are often stories among children about which little friend dug several small apricot trees, or even which little friend suddenly held out a nest of apricot babies. He became the lucky one worshipped by his partners.
The friends are immersed in the joy of finding a small apricot tree. The apricot blossoms on the old apricot trees gradually withered, and several pear trees began to bloom pear flowers. Pear flowers have pear leaves, and flowers are mixed among the leaves. It doesn't look as exciting as an apricot tree full of flowers, but from a distance, white pear flowers and oil-green leaves set each other off and give people a vigorous vitality.
When the apricot blossoms completely withered, the small apricots began to be covered with branches. After a while, Xiaoxing will grow to the size of a finger belly, and it is early summer. The most pleasant season in North China Plain has arrived, and the old people will take their children, move a few small benches and formally settle in the apricot garden. They play and rest under the apricot tree. People with many apricot trees will build a thatched shed under the big apricot tree and cook under it. When the apricots are ripe, people will live in sheds at night. In the next few months, neither the elderly nor the children will go out of the apricot garden. Families with ripe apricot trees and clean trees, pear trees and persimmon trees will move pots and sheds to persimmon trees or pear trees and continue their pastoral life.
There is an old persimmon tree in my house. Two adult men can't hug each other. I don't know how old it is. A shady place under the tree is another home for three generations in memory. From the light yellow persimmon blossom, grandparents took our grandchildren to the persimmon tree, until late autumn, when the persimmon turned into a red lantern. On and under the big persimmon tree, countless stories of childhood and adolescence are recorded. To this day, even though the old persimmon tree was cut down many times, I walked under it and closed my eyes. I always heard the laughter of my childhood, the laughter and shouts of my grandparents in another world, and their long yawns in the afternoon. ...
When I returned to my hometown for a short stay, I was surprised to find that the rural economy was developing at a very high speed and the new rural construction was in full swing.
Regrettably, the dream apricot orchard is shrinking, or it has disappeared, and the apple tree has long since disappeared. There are only a handful of apricot and pear trees left, and the remaining three or two old persimmon trees are wrapped in dense, tall and fast-growing Yang Shulin, dying. Walking in the apricot garden in name only every day often leads to a kind of pain and loss. The old trees bearing the history of Guo, like precious cultural traditions, are being destroyed by cheap things such as fast-growing poplars. What is even more shocking is that in the process of building a new community, some old trees that have grown on this land for countless generations have been uprooted.
Seeing the swollen roots of old persimmon trees and pear trees thrown on the roadside, watching the European-style residential buildings that have sprung up, watching the villagers' private cars and listening to the developers' poor Mandarin, I really want to shout to the villagers: men and women, living in tall buildings, driving cars, dragging a few words of "foreign language". It is really Kaiyang's meat. Sincerely bless everyone! However, if we don't cherish the old trees, apricot orchards and traditions, the new rural construction will lose its vitality.
The apricot orchard is disappearing, but the apricot orchard in my heart can't be destroyed by any powerful force.
One evening, the temperature suddenly rose, and I was walking in the apricot garden in slippers, listening to the sound of "poop-poop" when my feet stepped on the thick dust. It occurred to me that I simply walked barefoot on the loess. The dust in April is still cold, but I can still recall the warm and hot feeling of walking barefoot on the dirt road in the summer countryside when I was a child. Look up at the vast starry sky and laugh. Come on! Come on!
The land of Apricot Garden and Dapo has lost its original geographical features after numerous ploughing and transformation. Guo still has a living geographical history, only on some ancient gourd ditch walls and ancient dikes stretching for miles on the western edge of Guojiapo. Hulugou, which runs through Wudao Street and Guoguji Village, is a relic of an ancient river. According to the oral legend handed down from generation to generation in Guo Dynasty, the ancient dike weir stretching in the hinterland of Guo Jiapo belongs to the legacy of Hanwu era. In these ancient sites, wild Lycium barbarum shrubs grow in the dark, and together with dark brown lichens, they stubbornly cover the ancient face of Guoguji area.
My old persimmon tree grows beside an ancient gourd ditch. Only ten years ago, there were thick lichens, wild chrysanthemums, dandelions and several Lycium barbarum seedlings on the edge of the ditch wall. It seems that in the blink of an eye, due to the reclamation of wasteland and the coverage of fast-growing poplar, the ditch wall has weathered and disintegrated at a faster speed. Lichen disappeared, wild chrysanthemum disappeared, dandelion disappeared, but Lycium barbarum seedlings grew at a crazy speed and almost spread to the foot of the old persimmon tree.
I like squatting under the old persimmon tree, or simply sitting on the swollen nodule, watching the tender Lycium barbarum seedlings grow at a speed that seems visible to the naked eye in the warmer and warmer spring breeze: yesterday, they just arched their fat little heads; Today, the buds have scattered; Maybe tomorrow, they will stand up like babies; If it happens to be a spring rain, the next time you notice it, it will grow into clusters of vibrant wolfberry seedlings.
On a spring night, when the moonlight is clear. A south wind gently brushed my face and blew the music bell of Guogu Temple Middle School three or four miles away. That's the bell of my alma mater! Repeatedly played is a familiar but forgotten name of light music melody. It is a sad song, and there is a kind of remoteness and nostalgia in sadness.
In the hometown of life, listening to the same melody, less fatigue when running around, less confusion after drinking, only wandering at home. ...
The quarrels in the classroom and the lectures of teachers with different timbres: Du Zongzhe's cadence in reading ancient Chinese, Wei Fakun's long "aha method", Ding Bojun's sharp questions, Mao Genshan's simple and honest eyes, a little stuttering. ...
More beautiful than light music is the school bell:
Dangdang Dangdang Dangdang ... prepare the bell;
Dangdang, Dangdang ... This is the preparation bell, right?
Dangdang, Dangdang ... Obviously the bell rang;
When, when, when ... the bell rings.
In primary school, the bell of Guo primary school is on duty by teachers in turn. The elegant and quiet ringing of the bell by the chubby and personable headmaster is vivid in my mind. In junior high school, it seems that there was a teacher who specialized in ringing bells in Guogusi Middle School. On both sides of the avenue in the middle of the campus, poplar trees cast a faint shade in early summer. Mr. Zhong, tall and thin, walked slowly to a tall poplar tree and reached out to pull the iron bell hanging high in the canopy, clang, clang, clang. ...
Dangdang Dangdang Dangdang Dangdang Dangdang Dangdang ...