Whenever I see wheat and smell the fragrance of wheat, my childhood memories will come flooding back, and the background is always the endless waves of wheat. That kind of muddy emotion sneaks into the bottom of my heart and ripples, with fragrant sweetness and heavy bitterness.
In my childhood, May and June were the harvest seasons and the most tempting.
In mid-May, the green and yellow wheat ears in the fields are full and full, with an upward edge and a fragrant fragrance. We children couldn't stand this temptation, so we invited our friends to the wheat field closest to our home, randomly pulled off an ear of wheat, put our hands together and rubbed it, then blew a long breath, and the wheat husk was covered with It blew away, leaving only the plump wheat seeds lying quietly in the palm of my hand. I couldn't wait to put it in my mouth, and a fresh and sweet aroma filled my heart and spleen. Chew it in your mouth for a while, and you can also chew it into bubble gum. The friends blew bubbles together and competed with each other to see who could blow the loudest. The laughter and laughter floated far and wide along with the undulating waves of wheat. The adults picked up sickles, cut a few sickles in their wheat fields, kneaded the wheat seeds at home, sprinkled them with salt and fried them to give teeth to their children as a memorial. That salty deliciousness still lingers on my lips and teeth.
Beginning at the end of May, the wheat turns yellow, and under the sunshine, the fields shine with golden light everywhere. My father had packed up his family's wheat field in advance and used oxen to pull the stone rollers around to crush the porcelain. The wheat threshing field is a large piece of flat land very close to the village, and the team members share a piece of it for threshing and drying the wheat. ?Beans are ripe for a week, and wheat is ripe for a while. At this time, my father would go to the field every day to look at the wheat. He would break off an ear of wheat and rub it a few times. He would then blow on the wheat husks and fly them out. Only the wheat seeds were left in his hands. When you chew it in your mouth, you will know how ripe the wheat is. Mother took out the straw ropes and sickles that had been collected during the wheat harvest in previous years, removed the weak straw ropes, and added some more by rubbing wet straw into them. At that time, students were on the wheat holiday, so I would make straw ropes at home. The straw ropes I made when I was seven or eight years old looked pretty good. The sickle needs to be sharpened again before it can be used. The father held the sickle head in his hand and sharpened it back and forth on the curved whetstone, grinding the sickle into a shining crescent, as if sharpening the knife to the pigs and sheep. Mother also has to steam the steamed buns in advance, prepare boiling water, and wait for the wheat to be harvested.
When the father gave the order "cut the wheat", the whole family entered a period of intense competition to seize wheat from the tiger's mouth. Several acres of wheat at home are harvested manually, one sickle at a time. It was dark in the morning, summer insects were chirping, and the moon was in the west. Adults and children came to the fields together. The whole family lined up at the edge of the field, squatting, and launched an offensive against the wheat field. Bend in the large waves of wheat, bow in the field, wave the sickle, the wheat falls down, and there is a neat row of cut wheat on the ground behind you. At the beginning, I still feel energetic, but over time, my waist will hurt. It took a long time for my parents to stand up from the wheat row, stretch their bodies, and wipe the sweat from their heads with their hands. The children looked up at the endless wheat fields and began to cry out that they were thirsty and hungry. They went to the end of the field to eat steamed buns and drink boiled water. The cut wheat stubble is very sharp and can pierce the ankle if not careful. There are always wounds on the ankle.
Near noon, the sun is scorching the ground like fire, and the surrounding fields are like a big steamer. ?You are full of rustic weather, and your back is scorching with the scorching sky?, the scorching sunshine above your head, and the hot earth under your feet. Even though you are wearing long-sleeved clothes, the sharp wheat awns still leave blood marks on the exposed areas. After being soaked with sweat, they are burning. pain. Cutting wheat is an overload of physical labor and severe physical exhaustion. After a few days of tossing, the whole family is very tired. Everyone looks haggard, with dirty clothes and faces covered with dirt, just like a child who has just experienced the ravages of war. The Japanese soldier has a beard, but his face is filled with the joy of harvest.
Finally, all the wheat was put down, and then they began to bundle the wheat. They tied the wheat into bundles with straw ropes and sent them to the frame truck. The father laid a straw rope on the ground, and everyone began to carry the wheat to the straw rope. The wheat heads had to be placed crosswise, and finally the strong father tied them up. After everything was tied up, we started to carry it to the field and load it into the car. Finally, we have to pick up the wheat ears in the field and return them to the warehouse. There are also tricks to loading a car. It seems that a pair of small frame cars can be loaded as high as a small hill. My father used a thick cable to strangle the whole car from back to front. The rope was tied into a slip knot at the two handlebars. , and began to hitch the oxen to the threshing field. Sometimes the oxen cannot pull the cart, so people have to pull the cart. The road surface at that time was bumpy and bumpy, so you had to be careful when pulling the cart to prevent it from overturning. I remember one time when my brother was pulling a car and I was following him, the car overturned on a slope. We both were dumbfounded. My brother was standing guard while I ran into the field and called my father to reload the car. My father, who has regarded food as a treasure all his life, finally squatted on the ground and picked up all the scattered wheat seeds one by one. He was busy for two hours. Thin beads of sweat flowed down everyone's face, forming a glistening stream.
The wheat field is the most vivid stage for displaying labor skills. Maizi was dragged to his own yard. As soon as the cable car rope was untied, he fell down in an uproar. Then he went to the field for a second time and a third time until all the wheat was harvested. Then he entered the most critical step? threshing the wheat.
The wheat brought back from the wheat field was spread out in bundles in the field, letting the scorching sun shine for a while, and then oxen were used to pull it up on the stone roller. Behind the stone roller was also dragging a large and flat stone iron. The father raised it in his hand. The long whip kept shouting, the old cow turned slowly in circles, the stone rolling creaked and sang, and the whole village was filled with this ancient rural wheat field song. . During this period, the wheat straw must be picked up with mulberry branches, like rolling waves, which is also called "picking the field", and then continue to be crushed. The only thing children can do is to look at the sidelines and stare intently at the tail of the cow being crushed in the field. When the tail is raised, it means it is about to poop. They quickly run over to catch the cow dung with a shovel and throw it to the cow. Go in the shit bucket.
The wheat seeds are crushed until all the wheat seeds are separated from the mother body. Pick the wheat straw aside, and the remaining pile is the semi-finished product of wheat bran and wheat seeds. Then start to "wink the field" to completely separate the wheat bran and wheat seeds. During the winnowing, the sound of the wooden shovel and the rustle of the broom came from the wheat field, like a classic mountain symphony. As long as there is a slight breeze, my father can skillfully perform. At this time, the father held a wooden shovel and brought out a shovel of a mixture of wheat seeds and wheat bran with a "Chu" sound. He lifted it diagonally upwards into the air lightly and drew a rainbow arc in the air. The chaff floats away in the air like a goddess scattering flowers, while the wheat seeds jump playfully vertically and fall to the ground. Then use the broom to gently stroke back and forth on the wheat seeds, and the debris will be swept aside. Repeatedly, all the wheat chaff and wheat grains were separated, and the pile of wheat grains became larger and larger.
The piled wheat straw and wheat bran need to be crushed for the last time to remove as much wheat as possible. Wheat straw was a treasure at that time. It was the winter ration for cattle, and no one was willing to throw it away. The extremely smooth wheat straw is gathered on the threshing floor and piled up into a tall pile, which is euphemistically called "wheat straw stack". The wheat straw stacks look like thatched houses from a distance, and they also look like beautiful mushroom clusters after the rain, forming a beautiful landscape after the wheat harvest. The stacks of wheat straw were piled firmly, which was the best place to play in my childhood. My friends and I played games there unscrupulously, such as hide-and-seek, squatting, and doing the splits, leaving behind happy childhood memories.
Next, let’s start drying the wheat. Spread the wheat seeds as thinly as possible on the wheat field and allow them to be exposed to the sun for three to five days to completely dry out the moisture in the wheat grains. This way, they will be piled up and stored in the warehouse to avoid mold and deterioration. The children played an important role at this time. They had to push a bamboo rake over the wheat grains regularly to create small "trenches" so that the wheat could be fully dried. They also had to chase away the sparrows that were stealing food from time to time. After the sun sets, each family piles up the wheat seeds they spread out during the day to prevent moisture from returning, and then spreads them out again the next day to be exposed to the sun. At night, children will follow their adults and spread out a bamboo mat in the wheat field to sleep and watch. At night at this time, the children are the happiest. The adults are no longer tired and tired of harvesting wheat. They are all laughing and chatting loudly. The children played barefoot in the wheat field until late at night, then lay down amidst the calls of adults, looked at the stars in the sky, their boundless imagination flew across the sky, and fell asleep unconsciously. ?It’s raining, harvest the wheat soon!? I don’t know who shouted first in the middle of the night. The adults suddenly lost all sleep, the children opened their sleepy eyes, and the wheat field became a battlefield, full of people. People hurriedly put wooden shovels and dustpans into snakeskin bags, and started a battle with God for food. The sound of pushing and loading wheat became the main theme. If the weather is fine, the sun-dried wheat seeds can be taken home and put into storage if they make a popping sound when bitten into your mouth. In the dark attic of my house, there is a square granary built with bricks, and there is always endless wheat in it.
?It’s a June day, and the face of a child changes at any time? Farmers are most worried about continuous rainy days during the wheat harvest. When the weather is cloudy and rainy, the wheat field will become silent, and only the rain will flow along the wheat stacks. The sound of sliding. The smiles on people's faces also condensed, becoming as gloomy as the sky. The wheat seeds that have been exposed to rain will germinate, and the steamed buns made by grinding them into flour will be very sticky and lose their original sweet flavor.
Flowers bloom and fall, and the world changes. Decades have passed, and the wheat field no longer exists. However, the rolling and singing stone rollers have always been in my heart.
I miss my childhood that I can never go back to, and the traditional farming era that I can never go back to.
Public account: Writer Wenyuan