The wall is an adobe wall. After the adobe base is completed, a layer of yellow mud needs to be applied on the outside. Wheat straw is sprinkled into the mud, and the men use their thick feet to trample the mud and wheat straw evenly. After stepping on it, wipe the wall. The sun caused a few cracks in the wall, making it stronger.
The blue sky and the yellow wall are so beautiful.
Plant lentils under the wall.
After a few heavy rains, the lentils started to grow. The low earth wall couldn't stop them at all. After a few clicks, I found the old elm tree next door. It was growing lushly all the way around. I didn't even say hello, and I couldn't drive it away. . As a result, the two families had more space for talking, chatting and laughing.
"His aunt, look, she's pestering your tree again."
"Hey! I have nothing else in this shabby yard. It’s just good feng shui.”
The chatter and laughter were scattered in the morning light, as if one person was ringing a bunch of copper bells, ding-ding-dong-dong, ding-ding-dong-dong.
The air is cool on a summer morning, and dewdrops hang on the grass blades. The top of the pumpkin has yellow flowers blooming brightly. Pepper tweed, with white petals and green core, blooms very quietly. On this side, a small table was set up under the lentil rack, tea was made, and neighbors were invited to come over and drink. A watermelon was cut on the other side and handed over across the wall. It had red flesh, black seeds, and green skin, watered by the Yellow River water, and was sweet.
Sometimes, a half-grown boy poked his head out from the wall and greeted me with an eager expression. The sun has heated up the river water. Are they going to swim? He can't sit still for a moment, he is such a boy. Sometimes he would shout loudly through the wall and ask someone to go down to work with a shovel. That was the man of the house. What about the housewives of the two families? They were also climbing on the wall to say something, with a few lentil leaves waving above their heads, looking a bit like guerrilla female militiamen. Between two housewives, private topics must be discussed with bricks or ponytails. Laughter rolled down from the layers of leaves, like dewdrops, like raindrops, "hiss" - absorbed by the soil, leaving no trace. Or there were rumors of some big change, which made them sigh, each other's expressions were solemn, and they fell into reminiscing about some trivial details. When the smoke starts coming from the kitchen, it’s time to make dinner, clap your hands, lay down the bricks or the mat, return to reality, and everyone goes to play their own roles. The wall they leaned against was still warm.
Have you ever had a quarrel or quarrel over trivial matters? Have you ever tore the neighbor's lentils off the wall because they got over the wall, causing two families to get bruised and swollen? Have it? I have never seen it in my memory. In the village, some people quarreled and cursed, some used picks and shovels during fights, and some brothers fought so hard that they never came to the house for the rest of their lives. But being neighbors is a completely different matter! Even if they haven’t studied much, they probably know the saying “near neighbors are not as good as distant relatives.” Neighbors on the left and right, who bump into each other every day when they go out, who doesn't have three disasters? Who doesn’t need whom?
As a result, the etiquette between neighbors was silently followed by Chaimen Caoqiang.
So, day, just like this, one step deeper and one shallower step forward.
The lentils are blooming, a brilliant purple.
Next to the firewood gate, on the low wall, there are bright flower buds raised one after another. Their beauty is often surprising. It is the youth of the village, the buds of cardamom year after year, the power that is enough to make people forget the chaos around them and leave only a clarification in their hearts. The peach blossoms in spring are also beautiful, but there is a difference in this beauty. The peach blossoms in spring make people feel restless, stuck in something, want to shout, want to run. Run, run far down the road. Running and running, I want to fly again. Standing in front of a rack of lentils, watching a wall of green leaves trembling in the wind, the original restlessness disappeared little by little, and my heart gradually calmed down. The hens put their heads under their wings and stood motionless in the shade of the bean rack with one foot on the ground. You can hear the soft sound of dew dripping, and you can hear the shouts coming from the streets: those selling fried dough sticks, those selling chickens and ducks on credit (they also shout like this when they come to collect bills in autumn), those collecting scraps, knocking on the door, etc. The people selling tofu with their clappers... The sounds of people in the market are superimposed on the river bank over time. Their reflections are mottled and faint, sinking silently to the bottom of the water. Sadness and joy are like weeds, growing again and again in the spring breeze.
The lentils are bearing fruit. Thin wicker baskets were filled to the brim and sent over with the friendship of living a serious life. A basket of green lentils was sent over, only to be pushed back. "Whoever grows up in the family belongs to whom!" The hearty laughter scattered in the autumn wind. Eat it, pick it now, cut it into shreds, and stir-fry it with bright red peppers. The red is fresh and the green is emerald. Just looking at it can whet your appetite. As soon as the autumn wind cools down, the lentils are too thick to eat, so I put them in a pickle jar, add shrimp paste to pickle them, marinate them thoroughly, wrap them in noodles and fry them.
One family cooks and two courtyards are happy.
How many years ago was this? Later, I entered the city and ended my days of cuddling with the land. The roads in the city are made of asphalt, cement, and gravel, and there is not a trace of Saturn in them. How can we breathe when the land is covered with cement and asphalt? There are strict barriers between neighbors. When we meet and greet each other, everyone is polite, but yet so polite.
When walking in the world, whenever I feel bored or filled with sadness, I always want to go back to the countryside to get some air, to put my chest against the mud wall and smell the soil. The smell of wheat straw, I want to blow through the hall under the bean shed flower trellis, I want to understand something.
In the dusk, the smoke was rising, and a new moon was rising. The moon in August is particularly large, and it slants the shadows of some trees and the chirping of insects. This feeling makes people feel a little sad and a little happy at the same time.
(Author’s unit: Binzhou High-tech Zone Middle School, Shandong Province)