Reborn in the 70s / Reborn in 1978

Grandpa nodded, walked into the house with his pockets in his hands, and said, "How many can there be? Twenty or thirty, there are more than a dozen of them, which is quite generous." Grandma said, "It's not all theirs." Brother, pretend to be a good person, look at their parents, one by one, and stay away from them in the future, do you hear?" The last sentence was said to the two brothers.

Grandpa said: "Adults are adults, why are you talking about children? Besides, Qing Ge is not bad, not like Qing Fan." Qing Ge is Mancang's father, and Qing Fan is Zhang Xingming's second uncle.It is said that Zhang Xingming's grandfather has passed through several generations, and he is also related to Zhang Xingming's family. Grandpa Fan Wanzi is from the same generation as Zhang Xingming's great-grandfather, but he was born five times earlier.In rural areas, you can talk about relatives by pulling anyone up to count up a few generations.

At dinner time, grandma took care of the toad, put oil in the pot, choked the pot with green onion and garlic, put some miso, put the toad in, added water, let the water cover the toad, boiled the water, simmered on low heat until the soup was thick, Take the pot and put it in a bowl, the oily sauce is fragrant.More than a dozen toads filled a large bowl, and after 90 years, this bowl can be sold for more than 100 yuan.

It's dark, wash your feet and get into bed.

The elder brother asked Zhang Xingming in a low voice: "You said the one who ran away, where did he go? Can he still be in the pigsty?"

Zhang Xingming was speechless and ignored his brother, lying there staring at the wall in a daze.In summer in rural areas, the curtains are not covered, and the moonlight outside the window shines through the window. Everything is hazy, and I can’t see it clearly. Three rounds are floating in the air, floating in front of your eyes, floating...

The old cat silently jumped onto the kang, walked over on the edge of the kang, sniffed Zhang Xingming's face, lowered his head into his bed and lay down, purring, purring...

Chapter 15 Autumn Harvest

Midsummer is here, the grass on the mountain is starting to turn darker and yellower, and the children have new activities, stealing edamame and peanuts, and taking them to the edge of the forest to burn and eat.

There is a kind of peanut and edamame leader at home (like a traitor, leading someone to steal your home, this is normal at that time), the big one steals, and the small one goes home to hold firewood. In fact, it is also stealing. If adults see it, they will definitely be beaten of.A group of furry children gather at the edge of the forest to eat, covered in black ashes, and they will inevitably be beaten when they go home. This is the fun of mountain village children.

Until the autumn harvest, there were no groups of children running around, and they all voluntarily and consciously stayed at home to work.No matter how naughty a child is, he will stay at home and work when he can do it himself.

Breaking corn, digging potatoes, shaving sweet potatoes (sweet potatoes), smoothing edamame, turning peanuts, washing tomato seeds, washing cucumber seeds, picking eggplant peppers, and picking kidney beans are all children's work.

Zhang Xingming and his elder brother also carried a small basket and followed grandma to the field to break the corn. There would always be red marks on their faces from the corn leaves, and they would feel a little sweaty and painful.The corn cobs are broken off and hung up to dry. The freshly peeled corn feels soft, like a puddle of water under a layer of skin. After a few days in the sun, it will become hard. Pick off the hung corn, the family sits together, rubs the corn, twists two corns horizontally together and rubs, the corn grains fall off, and the rubbed corn bones are piled aside, this can be used for fire, and the corn grains are still You have to dry it again, or you won't be able to let it go.

Every house is covered with shops, and the old chickens are secretly nagging a few times, knowing that they will be beaten, the little chickens are so happy that they rush directly to the pile of corn.Zhang Xingming and his elder brother had to watch the chickens and geese in the yard. The ducks would not stay in the yard to eat corn. Their goal was the creek and the big river.

Dry them in the sun during the day, put them in sacks at night, pour them out to dry in the daytime, and repeat this process until the corn kernels are hardened all over and can be stored, then put them in sacks and put them in the barn.Zhang Xingming and his elder brother were also liberated, and they no longer had to sit by the corn pile in a daze every day.

Digging potatoes and digging sweet potatoes is nothing to do with Zhang Xingming and his brother, they are still young.This is a job that requires strength and skill. Although Zhang Xingming's strength in this life can do it, but think about it. The dug out sweet potatoes and potatoes were burned and eaten, and my face was covered with black, which made my grandma laugh.

Bud grains go into the warehouse, potatoes and sweet potatoes go into the cellar, and leeks grow as they are cut. Three to four stubbles can be cut a year.Pick up green onions and garlic, leave the seedlings in the ground, and take back the rest, and they will grow old if they grow.Cowpeas are also harvested, save some to eat fresh, and cut the rest with a knife to dry in the sun, and save them to eat with water in winter.

After finishing these, we have to cut the stalks of corn and sorghum and take them back.The sorghum stalks are thin, which is not considered tiring, while the corn stalks are thick and hard, which is really hard work.The child couldn't do this job, so grandpa took a sickle and started from the ground and downed the chaff stalks one by one along the ridge. Zhang Xingming and his elder brother followed behind and neatly cut down the chaff stalks one by one. Gather together, in a pile in a half-ridge.

When all the chaff stalks in a field have been laid down, grandpa will re-bundle them from the beginning, and bundle each pile that Zhang Xingming and his elder brother made into two bundles. Time to set it on fire.The sorghum stalks had to be handed over to the team, and the ones that were shredded were the rations for cattle, sheep, donkeys and mules in winter.

At this time, sorghum stalks still had a very important function in the countryside. Every family would harvest some, cut them into ten-centimeter sections, split them in the middle, and put them in the latrine. .Until the 90s, you can still see people going to the toilet like this in the rural areas of Northeast China.

Cucumbers, eggplants, kidney beans, tomatoes, and peppers don’t need to be harvested. Eat them now and pick them. They can be eaten until the frost. After the frost, they can’t be picked and eaten. They are too old to chew, so they are used as seeds. Cucumbers and tomatoes The seeds need to be washed, and the cucumbers that have turned yellow and the tomatoes that are red and purple are crushed. Put them in a large basin and add water. The mature seeds will sink to the bottom, and the flat seeds that float on the top will be thrown away directly. not alive.

Sorghum and soybeans are rarely grown privately, and most of them are the collective property of the team. Each family shares some, and the rest has to be handed over to the state.The team will distribute pork and mutton from time to time every year, not much, and each family will share a little meat and a small pot of bone soup. This is not included in the work points, but it is the welfare of the team.Sometimes in autumn, sometimes at the end of the year.

The people in the fort will drag their families to the team’s yard on the day of meat distribution, like going to a market, where they can have a delicious meal, but Zhang Xingming and his brother have never participated, and grandma and grandpa just go to get some Meat and soup come back.

The autumn harvest will last for more than a month, and the same ones will be collected, the same ones will be processed, and they will be put into the warehouse. This year's work will be considered as finished.

After the autumn harvest, it’s time to go up the mountain. Every family, men, women, old and young, set out for the mountains with sickles, pockets and big baskets.

The mountains are rich and generous, with all kinds of wild fruits, yamazuki, pecans, hazelnuts, round jujubes (kiwifruit), mountain grapes, plums and chestnuts.All kinds of wild vegetables, fern, cat's claw, chili seedlings, monkey legs, sting pockmarks, dog treasure (bellflower), screw turn, yellow flowers, mushrooms, fungus, celery, celery, cress, and many things on the mountain I can't tell the name, and every family has a bumper harvest. Large bags and baskets are picked, dried, boiled, chopped, and smashed. From September to the end of October, as long as you work hard, you will get a harvest when you go to the mountains.

Rural people are very willing to work hard when they go to the mountains. Children eat a little, mainly to sell some money. If they want to sell more money, they can carry it out and sell it by themselves. Most of them wait for outsiders to come into the village to collect it.

By the end of October, the weather was getting colder, and the number of people going up the mountain gradually decreased, except for the children of course. It was not until the mountain was covered by heavy snow that the children were stopped from going up the mountain.

The children are also happy these few months, Dashan will take care of everyone, the adults will have the harvest of the adults, and the children will have the gifts of the children.

Not to mention all kinds of wild fruits, there are Physalis grasses all over the mountains, a large piece of Pufen, you can eat and play with mushroom mothers, you can’t eat and play with bitter mushroom mothers, children are in a group of seven or eight , a group of more than a dozen spent the whole day in the mountains, even eating and playing, and at night they brought a basket full of harvest to the adults, and they were rarely praised.

Sun-dried vegetables, soaked sauerkraut, repaired the cellar, received potatoes, sweet potatoes, radishes and cabbage in the cellar, made vermicelli, and ground rice and noodles. Winter came to the earth amidst this busyness. (The scallions are generally not put into the cellar, but hung under the eaves, and they are also eaten when they are frozen)

Before the heavy snow comes after the autumn harvest, another important activity is to sieve house grass.

At that time, the countryside is full of thatched houses. After one summer, the thatch has turned black, which is because of the natural rot of thatch.After the autumn harvest, when they are free, most people start to clean up the house.The grass must be turned down and replaced with new grass, otherwise the grass will be rotten and it will leak next year.The strong laborers in the village organized themselves, one by one, to help lay down the old grass and put on the new grass, spread it evenly and compact it, then crush the old grass with a guillotine, mix it with yellow mud to plaster the walls, and clean the dry and cracked grass, which was destroyed in summer. The places washed away by the heavy rain were pasted again, and the whole thatched house took on a new look.

Three or five people worked hard for a long time, and the house was finished, drinking hot water, smoking a cigarette, and each person was paid one yuan.People with good conditions will take care of the meal, and those with poor conditions who want to take care of the meal will not eat it. They all know the basics and are afraid of being scolded when they go out.

House grass is to be bought, a few dollars.But there are still some very poor families who can’t replace the grass once in a few years, until the rain leaks, and they will find out where the leaks are.

When most of the houses in the village have a new look, autumn will be far away. The mountains are already golden, the pines and cypresses have faded from their emerald colors and become dark, and the leaves of other trees have all fallen, and the mountain wind is also cold. Wake up, when you get up early, everything on the earth will be covered with a thin house of frost, which shows that winter is coming.

Every family began to put away summer things, take out winter things to dry and mend, install door curtains and hang curtains, change window paper, and prepare winter clothes and children's cotton clothes.

The temperature is dropping day by day, the south wind has turned into a northwest wind, the flowers in the mountains and fields have completely faded, and the eyes are full of bleak withered, broken grass and branches.Without any warning, suddenly woke up one day and one night, outside is the world wrapped in silver makeup.

At this time, you can't tell the sky from the earth, the mountains from the road, everything is hidden under the snow, and when you look around, it's just a vast expanse of whiteness. The pines and cypresses look black in winter, but they look white from a distance. Pieces of black on Liaoyuan, like ink painting.The withered grass was overwhelmed by the heavy snow, forming arched packages on the snow surface, undulating.

Winter is happy for children, hunting birds, hunting rabbits, catching pheasants, hunting pears, picking pine cones, skating, and various games emerge in endlessly. (Rural children rarely take pictures of snowmen and make snowmen, at least I have never seen it.)

Hitting and climbing pears is the most exciting activity.

Climbing pear is a means of transportation for every household in the northeastern countryside. It is a two-legged wooden frame made of sixty-nine square wooden squares. The front of the two legs is upturned, like a sled, and it is [-] centimeters high.In winter, it is covered with wooden boards, and it saves effort to pull things on the snow. A child can pull one or two hundred catties and run around.

A group of children pulled Puli up to the hillside, and then everyone huddled on Puli and rushed down the hillside. Although Puli's lower legs were made of wood, there was no resistance at all on the snow, and the hillside was a bit longer. The speed can reach seventy or eighty miles, and then rush into the snow below the mountain, only to see snow waves several meters high as if exploded. Ten meters, and then the children laughed and came down, and then pulled the climbing pear up the mountain, and the cycle went on and on, with endless enjoyment.Don't look at the speed, but because of the heavy snow, it is not dangerous at all.

Sometimes the car would overturn due to the weight, so the children rolled down the hillside with climbing pears, all of them were like snow monkeys, and they would not be injured because of the heavy snow, and climbed up the mountain with a smile.Sometimes I rush into snow pits, which are earth pits. In winter, these earth pits are filled with snow, which looks like a flat snow surface. If the speed is not enough, Climbing will break through the snow surface and get into the pit. Go, the speed of the sinking is very fast. I saw a canopy of snowflakes flying up Laogao, and even the climbing pears and people disappeared from the snow, and everyone went to dig people with a coaxing laugh.The snow under the snow skin is very fluffy. If it is shallow, it can stand up and crawl out by itself. If it is deep, it needs help from others. Smiling and cursing, it scrapes the snow away, and pulls out the people and climbing pears inside.Then the younger children will avoid this place and find a place to skate again, and the older children will start betting to see who can climb over the pit as quickly as possible. Falling into a pit, making the neck full of snow in the clothes and trousers, being dug out and running home to change clothes, they always have to be scolded.

Speaking of snow pits, for children, it should be the biggest danger in winter. At this time, a heavy snow can fall more than one meter deep. In some places, it can reach two meters due to terrain and wind problems. Heavy snow blocks doors and windows. It happens every winter. If a person accidentally falls into a snow pit, he basically has to wait for the next year to find his body. The hope of climbing up is negligible.Children will consciously play in familiar places, and will not easily go to dangerous places. Of course, there are also bold ones, so they are beaten up by adults, and they will never dare again.

ps: Thanks to Wind Crossing, tiger955, Fighting Tianmei, Xiaocao fluttering in the wind for recommending tickets

Chapter 16 Winter Fun

There is also work in winter, such as collecting firewood (firewood), hunting, and setting trees, all of which are winter work.

Every family in the team has a mountain dedicated to firewood. In winter, the family carries axes, saws and hemp ropes, and goes up the mountain to collect firewood. Children are tied around the waist by adults with hemp ropes. I was afraid that the child would fall into the snow pit.

Firewood is divided into fine firewood and chopping firewood. Fine firewood refers to shrubs and other trees that are not useful. They are cut off from the roots of the ground with a sickle, neatly stacked and then tied into bundles with a kind of mountain vine. This is a technical job, and strength alone is not enough. There is an adult's thumb that is thick, and it is not only by brute force that it needs to be cut off with one knife.

Splitting wood is a tree that has become a tree. Generally, those trees with a diameter of more than ten centimeters are placed. First, use an ax to cut a gap, and then use a saw to bring it down. There are also people who don’t need a saw and just use an axe. It all depends on strength. up.After the tree was brought down, the branches were cut off with an axe, and the trunk was sawed into sections more than one meter long. When they were taken home, they were split into petals with an axe. They were mainly used for burning kangs.

Zhang Xingming and his elder brother will also go up the mountain with their grandparents, but they just follow them to make trouble. After the grandparents have laid the firewood and tied them, they will sit and climb the pears and come back. Not only will they not feel the hard work of collecting firewood, but they will become happy winter outing.

After the firewood comes back, the fine firewood needs to be piled up neatly as high as a house, and then the roof is made of sorghum stalks and corn stalks, so that it is not afraid of rain.The chopping materials are piled up in the yard and chopped as they are burned. Generally, one chop can burn for several days.

When splitting wood, my elder brother led Zhang Xingming to squat by the side and waited. A big-headed worm would come out of the pine wood, a white mollusk with a black piece on the top of its head, which was its mouth.No one knows what this thing is called, but it can only be found in pine and birch trees in winter, and it is white and fat.

When splitting the wood, grandpa will take a closer look, and if he finds an insect path, he will hook it with a wire, and after a few strokes, a little white fat man will come out and put it in the canning bottle held by his brother.After chopping wood for a day, I can find more than a dozen of them, and then my grandfather made some charcoal fire, and my brother burned them one by one. The taste is very fragrant and the taste is also good. .

Collecting firewood is a heavy job, and it has to be done intermittently throughout the winter. In summer, firewood cannot be collected, so the firewood collected in winter must be used in the next winter. In winter, it is necessary to burn a kang, which is very expensive, especially firewood.

In the countryside, the greatest joy in winter is catching birds and setting rabbits.

At that time, people in the mountains still had the habit of hunting, and there were many animals in the mountains, including deer, roe deer, badger, deer, wild boar, squirrel, fox, pheasant and hare in groups, various birds, wolves and tigers.

In Zhang Xingming's last life, he had never seen his grandpa fight big things, probably because the two brothers were too young and grandpa didn't dare to take him and his elder brother there. Later, when he grew up, the animals in the mountains died out, but it was a very memorable thing to set up rabbits to fight pheasants.

Grandpa made a case out of a ponytail, tied it around his waist, and carried a foreign cannon (an old-fashioned shotgun, equivalent to the first generation of thermal weapons, the kind that filled gunpowder and lead pellets from the muzzle) on his back, and led Zhang Xingming and his brother up the mountain.It was said that it was up the mountain, but it was actually on the edge of the forest. Grandpa lowered his head to observe on the snow, and then buried the covers one by one, and led the two brothers back to another place to hunt pheasants.Pheasants live in groups and look for food in the snow. There are many ways to hunt pheasants, but they don't know how to use guns.Hunting guns like foreign cannons can't shoot birds, and the birds will die if they are shot, but the dense lead pellets hit the birds, and they can't be eaten.