A fragrant heart ■ Chen Yong 'an's "Father's Wheat Harvest"

■ Chen Yongan

Father's wheat harvest

one

In June of the solar calendar, the wheat in Shanxi began to turn yellow. This is a touch of golden yellow, full of comfortable but not dazzling light, which sets off the natural color of the Loess Plateau and constitutes the most beautiful and joyful ink painting picture on the Loess Plateau.

Accurately speaking, wheat yellow began in the south of Shanxi, or three days and five days, or ten days and a half months, and turned yellow one by one, from south to north, from south to north, and from south to north, until the panorama of Shanxi yellow was drawn.

My hometown is in Wanrong Village in the south of Shanxi, with Emei Mountain Terrace in the east and the surging Yellow River in the west, which is not too far from the place where Tian Dongzhao, a playwright who wrote "The Yellow River has turned a corner here", is called.

The village of my hometown is the first place in Shanxi to see the faint wheat yellow.

With the approach of June, the village began to get a little busy. From time to time, there will be gatherings of ten villages and eight villages, which is different from business gatherings in the town. At this time, almost all the parties in the village were used to collect wheat, and the names of the parties were tattered, and the dregs were called "broom club". Selling sickles and brooms and repairing Mu Cha are mostly things that men should do.

Even if women and girls have nothing to do, they should quietly put on bright clothes, walk around a hot gathering nearby in groups of three or five, talking and laughing, and take a look at the handsome men and beautiful women who pass by from time to time wearing foreign clothes while their partners are not paying attention. Then, in front of a bean jelly stand, they ordered a bowl of bean jelly, bought a fire and ate it. When they got up, they saw Huang Liang oil cakes, and they bought ten eight for two cents.

In June, when the wheat is busy, the embroidered mother gets up. June is the busiest and happiest season in my hometown.

The men ground the sickle of the wheat harvest early, ground it for a while, then carefully touched it with their thumb on the side of the blade to make sure there was no "inverted blade", and then tapped it gently with the back of their thumb nails, which was satisfactorily placed in the corner. The women steamed a pot of white and delicious steamed bread, but they didn't forget to put some thought into it and wrap some leeks or other steamed buns.

The wheat harvest in my hometown is about to begin.

two

Like all the men in the village, my father happily completed all the preparations before the wheat harvest, purchased and repaired the tools for the wheat harvest, went to the fields again and again to carefully check the yellowing color of the wheat, carefully pinched off one or several grains from a handful of wheat ears, pinched out the hardness of the wheat grains with his nails, and then went home happily.

The wheat harvest season can't be delayed, 70% sickle, 80% sickle, 50% sickle. This is a harvest season, and it seems no exaggeration for agricultural cooperatives to describe the wheat harvest with "Longkou grabbing grain".

Once a year's harvest encounters continuous rain, the mature wheat growing in the field will germinate, and the wheat piled in the field will become moldy. No matter how good the wheat is, it's no use talking about it in the granary.

June is the rainy season, with continuous rain and heavy rain showers. I just saw the red sun this morning, and it was as hot as a steamer. Suddenly, at noon, a few black clouds will blow from where, and without even saying hello, they will spray heavy rain from the sky into the wheat field. I was so angry that the man full of wheat fields shouted and cursed.

Our second master has a bad temper and is the best at swearing. As soon as his temper comes up, Lao Tzu, the king of heaven, curses indiscriminately. One year, Mr. Zhong's family just spread out the harvested wheat and dried it soon. Four-wheelers pulled big wheels and ground them in the wheat field for three or five times, when the sun suddenly disappeared. Soon thunder rumbled and flames soared, and then the heavy rain went down.

Several uncles and aunts rushed to the scene, and Mr. Zhong scolded them. None of my uncles and aunts dared to make any noise. Seeing that Mr. Zhong had been cursing, my aunt smiled and advised Mr. Zhong, "Dad, it doesn't matter. After making love, it will take a minute. "

Glancing at Mrs. Wu, the stuttering master scolded again, "Have you ever had sex?" My wheat field has its way? Why did you pass my wheat field? "

I made several aunts laugh and roll around in the wheat field. Sir Zhong saw menstruation laughing like this, so he stopped cursing the sky and the rain: "Laugh, laugh, laugh. I'm afraid you'll keep laughing. You, your whole life, want to cry, and it's too late to cry. "

Provoked laughter in the wheat field next door.

To be precise, my father's wheat harvest actually started when wheat came into the field.

three

Golden wheat cannot be cut in a few days. In agricultural cooperatives, it is as long as ten days and a half months, and as little as seven or eight days. The wheat on the ground will be piled into dozens of barley piles by the production team with four sets of mule cars, and then the grinding field will start on 1 20.

The land has been divided, and the enthusiasm of each household has obviously increased a lot. In about three or five days, all the wheat sickle harvesters in the field were pulled by ox carts and piled up on their own threshing floor.

The days in the wheat field are the most tiring, accounting for almost two-thirds of the wheat harvest time. Most of the wheat fields of every household are divided into pieces by the production team, and the wheat fields are surrounded by large and small wheat piles.

If cattle are used to pull the wheat field, the smaller wheat field can make do with it, and the wheat field crushed by four-wheeled vehicles is narrow and tight, so the vehicles can't turn around at all, so the adjacent wheat fields are combined together. This time it's you, and tomorrow it's him, with the wheel in the wheat field.

Grinding the field is not a big problem, but cultivating it.

Farming is a technical activity, which looks simple but is extremely difficult to do. Every time I start to lift the handle, I will take a closer look at the wind passing around the wheat field. When the wind is strong, it will rise from the side of the wind, throw the shovel out very low and face the wind, so that the strong wind will not blow the wheat grains to the distant wheat straw shells and other debris.

When the wind is weak, the angle will be changed, shovels will be scattered in the wind, wheat grains will fall on the wheat pile not far ahead, and debris will be blown everywhere. Without the wind, it is more difficult to raise fields. The shovel was swung high and thrown out, and the wheat grains fell on the distant wheat pile, and the short straw and wheat husk fragments scattered around the field.

There is a woman named Qiu Guo in the team. When the wheat is harvested, the production team often sees others raising fields, thinking that raising fields is a very simple matter. That year, she got married in the neighboring village of Balitun. When she saw that there was no show in the neighboring village and the heavy windmill was heavily shaken by several strong men, it was laborious and time-consuming. Qiu Guo took her coat and sleeves and told the captain that she would show up. The captain was very happy that everything was under her command. As a result, a lot of good wheat sundries were pushed to the east of the field by her command, and then to the west of the field, and it was not until dark that a catty and a half were raised. Finally, I have a brand-new daughter-in-law. I have never called Qiu Guo's name, but I have been nicknamed "old and young" for decades.

After rolling the fields at noon, it is usually two or three hours before sunset. The wind in June will blow for a while in the afternoon, strong or weak, and the sun will stop setting. As the saying goes, strong winds are afraid of sunset. It seems that the crystallization gathered from thousands of years of folk practice is not fabricated.

A few hours before sunset is the busiest period.

Father is a famous publicity stunt in the team.

four

I don't know who my father learned his promotion skills from. As far as I can remember, I haven't seen a good trick that can surpass my dad's promotion in a production team of three or four hundred people.

When I was in the production team, my father was the production captain for many years. As soon as the wheat harvest arrived, my father arranged the work in the team early and began to work wholeheartedly in the wheat field. After noon every day, several hills were piled on the threshing floor of the production team. Wheat, straw and chaff were mixed together, and my father took advantage of the strong wind to catch the fields.

Workers in sheep farms hardly go home at night. When things are smooth sailing, no matter how sleepy or tired they are, they can't rest. Occasionally, without a trace of wind, people in the sheep farm will fall down beside the wheat pile and take a look.

The village was electrified very early. In the early 1970 s, it was famous all over the country because it was drilled into a deep well with a depth of 664 meters by manpower. Therefore, this village was electrified earlier than the neighboring villages. Wheat fields brightly lit all night are rare in nearby villages.

At dawn, more than 10 thousand Jin of extremely clean wheat was piled in a sack in the wheat field.

After the land was decentralized to every household, my father was still a busy man in the wheat field every time the wheat was harvested. Because of my father's clever promotion, my wheat field ended first. At that time, I followed my father and learned to raise fields very early. Even if my wheat field is a little late occasionally, I am the first to clean it.

My father won't stop after finishing his work. A sip of tea can help families without farms. In the production team, my door is relatively large, and there are seven or eight uncles at home.

The grumpy Sir Zhong's family has a large population, and five sons are indispensable to harvest wheat together and help him raise the fields. Sometimes the weather is bad and the whole audience seems to be crazy. My father saw that my family had raised half of the wheat, so he left me to continue raising it and helped Mr. Zhong and Mr. San's family with a shovel.

The old man in the team died a few years ago, and his son was still young. One of his arms was drilled by a Japanese gun while running in Japan in his early years, and the other right arm struggled to support the wheat field. Whenever my father is free, he helps the old man in the stone cabinet, and sometimes he drags me to help Uncle Shi.

Small intestine is the hardest, most tiring and dirtiest job, and my father never gives up and is always available. My father, who is in his fifties, has endless energy and endless happiness as soon as he enters the wheat field.

The wheat harvest in June passed happily in the intense work. The tireless father who silently drank two or three painkillers every day to relieve pain and refresh himself and kept helping others to promote the fields would become seriously ill after the wheat harvest.

Wheat yellow has been written into the bumper harvest year after year in people's hard work. Year after year, the days have passed in blowing in the wind, and the sight of wheat fields has gradually become a memory.

Later, large machinery moved into June, and a piece of wheat field became the base camp for farmers in the village group to get married and separate. Later, less wheat was planted in the village, and some fruit trees and nectarine economic forest trees covered the golden color of the village in June.

Later, my father smelled a burst of wheat fragrance floating in the distance that year and waved goodbye to his happiest June.

The June wind is blowing, blowing away from home.

June in my hometown blurs the busyness in my memory, but the wheat yellow in June and my father's wheat harvest are getting clearer and brighter, and the bright wheat yellow is like a touch of golden light.