Peanut time

I miss eating peanuts when I was a child. Although everything is so poor and bare, everything is so rich and stable.

Be sure to prepare the seeds before planting peanuts. Peanut seeds are selected from peanuts with shells that are in the limelight when peanuts are harvested in the first year. The kind with full seeds and two kernels in the shell can't be planted with one kernel and three kernels. Until today, seeds can only be picked by hand, and mechanical hulling will damage nuts and reduce the survival rate. Every year after the Lantern Festival, the aunts and grandmothers in the village gather around to peel peanut seeds. It's not a heavy job, but it's unbearable to peel it by hand for a long time, so there are two wooden clips in each basket, also made of cotton swabs. Bake the semi-dry cotton swab with fire, bend it with heat and set it. When in use, put the peanuts in the middle and gently squeeze out the nuts. In the small village in early spring, everyone found a wall facing the sun. Three people were in groups of five, peeling peanuts and joking. This is really simple happiness and simple earthly fireworks.

I remember peeling peanuts in first grade. The kerosene lamp was still on at that time. This oil lamp was used by my grandfather. The distortion of the lamp is as weak as beans, and the lamp body is oily and covered with a layer of dust, indicating that it is very old. Every night, after I finish my homework with an oil lamp, I gather around with my parents and peel peanut seeds on the hot heatable adobe sleeping platform. The little lamp seedlings are dim, and my mother whispered about her parents' shortcomings. Father either chimed in or told us about the Three Kingdoms, Chairman Mao and the mountain village of unofficial history. With luck, the radio can receive the signal and listen to Liu Lanfang's folk song The Story of Yue Fei. It was the warmest time in my life. Eat a few peanuts when you are greedy. All the children in the village know that eating too many peanuts will swell their mouths. In fact, there are not enough seeds. It was not easy to make money at that time. Peanut is a very important source of income. Peanuts were harvested in one year, so we have to squeeze some oil to sell some pocket money, so there are not many seeds left, and we can't eat them after peeling them.

It's late at night, and my parents are still working. I can't stand being sleepy. I fell asleep against the quilt, vaguely listening to them cleaning up. My father gently put me under the bed, and his mouth was still lovingly calling: Sleeping daughter, sleeping daughter ... At that time, I was the baby of my parents, and they loved me like pearls and jade.

Peanuts were planted around May Day. It all depends on manpower, unlike mechanization now, which was very hard at that time. The land was abandoned in the first autumn. After a winter, shepherd's purse and mugwort leaves were everywhere. In the spring of March, shepherd's purse is all over the ground, and the small white flowers are too old to cover jiaozi, so it's time to spread pig manure and plough deeply. Put the cultivated land there, ridging before mid-April, and then wait for the rain, and start sowing as soon as it rains. Here we are the main producing areas of Yantai peanuts, and the main varieties Huaqi and Qixian are exported fruits, which are characterized by thin skin, sweetness and crispness; Black flowers and double gold are also planted, but the fruit shape is small and the taste is slightly poor, which is generally only used for oiling.

I forgot many details, only remember that the wind was wet when planting peanuts, and the wheat seedlings had already turned green, like thick green carpets; Beautiful scenery, old mouth flowers, wife flowers and some unknown small wild flowers dotted with vitality. When I arrived at the farm, I first went to see where the wild strawberries on the weir grew, so that I could pick fruits to eat later. When we were young, we really had nothing to eat. Wild strawberries are very sour, but they are also indispensable delicacies. Then, search the flowers in Tongshan for bones. This is a kind of wild lily, which is the most colorful flower in our mountain. It usually grows on a large area of grassland, and the flowers with dark orange and black freckles are the happiest beauty in Shan Ye during the wheat harvest.

After a while, I will be called back, my father will weigh the nest, I will plant seeds and my mother will weigh the nest.

Dotting a nest is to make a nest for the seeds. Take a small shovel and use it to make a nest on the ridge rhythmically, which is about the length of a woman's foot. The size of the nest is similar to that of the big white goose's egg, and it can't be too deep or too shallow, otherwise it won't produce good seedlings. This work is very hard. A lutetium always weighs more than ten kilograms. It takes more than one day to plant an acre, and I can't move my arm when I go home at night. It's all male labor. Later, there was an improvement, that is, the wheels of the unicycle were pushed onto the ridge with wooden stakes with equal spacing and appropriate size, which greatly improved the labor efficiency. Sowing is the simplest, but I don't like it very much. Stand on the left side of the ridge, turn the basket with your left arm and sow with your right hand. Hold your fingers together when you come. As soon as your index finger sticks out of two nests, bend back and then stick out again. That's it. You have to stay close to the nest for half a day. After that, my back aches and my arm hurts, so I want to run. My mother taught me that children still have a waist! Come back quickly. I really didn't know where my waist was at that time, but it must have hurt. In this way, after a year or two, my planting technique is perfect, I can sow in the peanut field, walk fast, and I am addicted. Today, every year in the season of planting peanuts, my fingers can't help stretching and bending, as if two seeds rolled down and fell into the mud pit.

Code nesting seems simple, but it is not easy. Bend down and close the soil on both sides of the nest with your hands, but don't press it too tightly, so that the seedlings won't protrude. Bending for a long time made me very tired, so I couldn't help kneeling underground to code; At the end of the day, my knees and hands are covered with a thick layer of dry mud, which is dirty and tired.

When all this is done, you should tow the bag away. In order to make the soil on the ridge even and smooth, soak the old straw bag in water, then tie one end of the straw bag with a rope, tie it around your waist and drag it on the ridge. I like this job. It runs like a rabbit, spreading joy, laughter and jumping in the field.

Peanuts will sprout in about six or seven days after planting, and small clods will bulge in the soil. Adults will go up the mountain to check for leaks and fill gaps, and then start a long weeding. Before there were no herbicides, weeding depended entirely on manpower. Wait until the vines of peanuts are knee-high just for summer vacation. The summer vacation of rural children is either in peanut fields or in airtight cornfields. In the morning, when the weather is not hot, they pull weeds, and at night, when the sun goes down, they pull weeds. Only at noon and in rainy days can they catch cicadas, fish and make noises in their nests.

Summer grass and kudzuvine root purple are the favorite in peanut fields. The name of summer cursive script is crabgrass, which is very good at expanding. It can take root, and especially likes to root in the soil around peanut roots. Summer grass can grow to the size of a futon and is the natural enemy of peanuts. Shuigezi is a Polygonum flower in Lu You's Several Polygonum Flowers Drunk in the Clear Autumn. It looks beautiful, but after a few days of sowing, the seeds can cover the peanut fields. Although the grass in the peanut field doesn't have to squat between two ridges like the corn field, it is also very scary. Because it is too dense, I don't know what I will step on. Sometimes I start a titmouse, and sometimes I jump out of a frog. What worries me most is the hissing sound. A green snake is likely to run out. Of course, sometimes I meet rabbits, but rabbits in cornfields are easier to catch, so I'd rather squat in cornfields.

This is also a wonderful time. The cuckoo is cooing in the distant mountains, and the wild strawberries on the weir are ripe. No matter whether they are red or purple, they are stuffed into their mouths, and their mouths are sour while eating. There are yellow seedlings everywhere, and the yellow petals are delicate and charming with dew or rain. Every day after work, I pick a handful and weave a small wreath on my head, and then take half a basket of bones home to cook cold dishes. My mother will also give me twenty cents to drink a bottle of soda, or buy two popsicles at the canteen. At that time, I didn't know what was outside Shan Ye, but I felt happy and satisfied.

In autumn, I am busier. In the blink of an eye, it was August 15, and we began to scratch our faces.

I don't want to sleep late in the morning. I got up early, and it was covered with a layer of white fog. First, I walked along the path in front of the door until I reached Pingtang in the east. There are big blue bowls of flowers along the road, scattered by the weir and hung on the corn stalks. They are very beautiful, and the flowers are stained with dew and shine in the morning light. This is a beautiful sight that can only be seen in the autumn morning. As soon as the sun came out, they withered. What I am looking for is a big bowl of purple flowers. There is a big pu in the Guizijiang bush on the west of Pingtang Road. Every morning, delicate flowers are intertwined with yellow flowers in Guizijiang, which makes people unable to see enough. This is my morning alone. Looking at the nearest bowl of gorgeous flowers across the grass, I counted a few, touched them and praised them for their beautiful appearance. I picked some ripe black seeds and wrapped them in homework paper, thinking of planting them on my own land next year. Then walk across the flat small pond against the rising sun. The fog hasn't cleared yet. Xiaguang sprinkled on the aquatic plants on the shore. The white flowers of reeds are swaying gently. The water is sparkling, shining against the distant mountains in the nearby farmland. Occasionally, one or two small fish jump out of the water and make ripples. The morning in the country is sunny and melodious.

After breakfast, I went up the hill. Peanut is the least mechanized crop. From seed selection to harvesting, almost all depend on manpower, and only those who have planted it know the hard work. At that time, there was no walking tractor, so I dug it out one by one with a big shovel and then manually removed the sand from it. I crouched behind my father's shovel, grabbed the peanut vine with my mother, shook it, removed the soil on it, and arranged the fruits in one direction in rows behind me. This process is called bright colored peanuts. Peanut is a crop that likes sandy soil. The peanuts in the sand are white and fat. When harvesting, you don't need a shovel, but you come out by hand without touching the soil. But the yellow mud should not only be planed, but also hit with a wooden stick in bad weather. We are the fifth production team in the village, and most of them are yellow mud. In autumn, it doesn't rain for several days, the yellow soil is dry and hard, and a whole piece of yellow soil is heavy and strong. My strength can only pick up a lump of peanuts at a time, hold it high and then fall heavily, and then shake it off after repeated times. At that time, I didn't know to wear a scarf or a mask, and my face was covered with dust and mud all morning. The nose I dug out was hard mud. It's really hard Squatting on the ground, pulling the muscles of the whole body forward step by step, so that peanuts scraped out by crime are not expensive.

Tired after working for a while, I sat in the mud and picked big peanuts to eat. When the shell is black, the seeds are the most full and can't be squeezed out by hand. After pulling it open, I slowly tore off the red peel inside and exposed the white nuts. I couldn't stop chewing. As long as no one stops, I can eat for half an hour, not only full, but also lazy to have a rest. There are many white and fat big carnivorous insects called interceptors, which intercept the roots of plants. They also like peanuts very much. Maybe the nutrition of peanuts is too high. This guy is thick and strong, with a big black ass and tight, fat and tender skin. My deskmate told me that he had eaten this dish, and it was especially fragrant when fried! I couldn't help looking at him again. No wonder he is so tall and strong. It turned out that he ate the black ass of the insect catcher.

Usually, even if the peanuts in the sand are planed and cut, it will take a day and a half to finish, and it is common to eat them in the yellow mud for 4.5 days. I can't honestly sit underground for four or five days. I have too many things to do, so I sneak out as soon as I have time.

I have to find a kind of millet (local name for sorghum), which is sticky, not rice. I'm looking for rice millet. Its ears are big and loose. The straw has a special smell. The hard skin outside is peeled off, and the pulp inside is as sweet as sugar cane. The ears of sticky millet are small and compact, and the straw is sweet but not chewy. This is a rare natural dessert. When you find it, fold a small bundle and hide it under the straw bag to eat slowly. It's a pity that every household doesn't grow much millet, and even less rice millet. In many cases, we can only fold some corn stalks back. The sweetest corn with insufficient yield is that it smells like corn seedlings and is not as pure as rice grains.

There is a river to the south of the peanut field, and tall grass grows on both sides of the river. In autumn, lush grass is turned red by frost. This is the paradise of bean baby (a kind of slug) and our paradise. After a lush summer, the bean kidnapper looks really mighty, wearing hard armor, or purple-brown or green-brown, singing loudly in the dense grass. It is very clever. It stops singing immediately when it hears someone's footsteps in the distance, but I know it is there. I slowly bend down and stare at it, never letting go of a sound. Sometimes it tries to escape but reveals its whereabouts, and sometimes I find it when it thinks the alarm is off and starts singing again. A good boy who catches beans is brave. He wouldn't let go of his two thick chins biting his fingers. He can bite his finger out of a big purple bean for half a month. Find the correct position of the bean baby, quickly pinch its neck or put your hands into the grass to clamp it hard. If the speed is slower, it will run away. As long as it runs away, it will never be caught. After clamping, slowly let go of your hand and pull the grass one by one. What is left in your hand is beanstalk. This is a dangerous arrest. The prey is in the palm of your hand, but the tender little hand is at the mouth of the prey. Ha ha laugh ... as long as you can catch two beanstalks every day, it is the happiest harvest, even if you are bitten, you don't have to scream in pain.

Some friends like to raise bean girls and listen to her cry. They woven a small green cage with corn stalks and put some cabbage and grass in it. Bean girl sings happily every day and can feed her for about a week. I can't weave a cage and like to eat. At this time, the baby bean is fat and big, and its belly is full of golden seeds. Take it home and wrap it with corn leaves to prevent it from escaping. When the fire in the stove stops, press it under the ashes for about 5 minutes and it will be cooked. When the seeds are cooked, they are slender, transparent and golden yellow, but they are really fragrant!

Speaking of which, I have to mention burning peanuts. In autumn, the pot ash in the stove is of great use, and everything can be buried in the stove ash to burn. For example, there are potbellied mantis and looms in peanut and peanut fields, soybean worms, corn and black beans in sweet potato and sweet potato fields, insect cocoons on Ailanthus altissima trees on both sides of mountain roads and so on. Maybe I ate too little at that time, and the children didn't have any snacks. These things are fragrant when they are burned, and you can still smell the burning smell many years later. Peanuts still burn the most. Choose ripe and unripe, and burn them into charcoal. Every morning, after my mother finished burning the fire, I strolled back from the path and leaned my face against the oven door. I counted the peanuts and put them in the stove. I remember the general location of peanuts, and then cover them with red plant embers. After about ten minutes, I gently brushed the pot ashes covered on it, and then took them out one by one for counting to prevent omissions. Peanuts with different wet and dry tastes different when burned. Wet peanuts that have just been planed are dry outside and fragrant inside, soft; Semi-dried peanuts, burned out; The dried peanuts are cooked, fragrant and crisp, and the burnt smell is tangy. In this way, in an autumn, our hands full of pot ashes kept burning and eating.

Pull the good peanuts home and put them in the field every day. In that evening, the sun had fallen into the mountain nest, and the red afterglow dyed the earth red. The wind in the mountains is warm during the day and cool at night. The crickets and crickets in the field are one after another, and the sound is long. I lay on the weir, waiting for my father to send peanuts back. As night falls, the deep blue sky seems within reach. The stars are dense, shining like countless diamonds, and there are many fireflies in the mountains. At this time, they come out in groups and fly very low, and they can always catch more than a dozen every night. When my father took the peanuts away for the last time, I sat on his unicycle, staggered and flattered, and accompanied my father singing and singing all the way home.

Peanuts have to be pulled into the ground to get them off. Repairing fields half a month before peanut harvest is called "Chang Cheng". Get rid of the weeds first, and when the rain is not dry enough, spread a layer of fine sand in the field, and then drag the stone back and forth until it is firm. Peanuts are picked, dried and planted in the fields.

The pronunciation of the word Kun is not found in the dictionary. Use Kun instead. The tools were too simple at that time. Everyone found a big stone with a solid bottom and a sharp and flat top and put it in front of them. Then they sat on a small bench and pushed the peanut vine on the stone in their hands, and the peanuts fell. I am not qualified to sit in Kun, so I can only hold peanuts for adults, straighten out the vines and send them to adults for later use. At that time, washing clothes was made of slate in the river, and peanuts were made of stone tablets. Many years later, I will subconsciously look at those slightly larger stones: is this good for washing clothes or peanuts?

On the court, the bird was released. Forty or fifty households in a production team are all in one place, and the children of each household are also in the field. When there are many people, play with eagles to catch chickens, and when there are few people, play with rice. I have a bag full of colorful glass beads, and they all want to win a few, so there is a constant stream of friends who come to play with me and often forget to work, which makes the mother shout: Who, who, hurry!

It is even more lively at night. We play hide and seek. There are hay piles in summer, corn piles in autumn, and peanut vines that have just been planted. You can hide anywhere you want. Screams and laughter came and went until the middle of the month when I was too tired to go home. In those families with more peanuts, people will stay for performances at night. They will tear down a door at home and put it on a brick mat. Then they will bundle corn stalks and put them on both sides of the door panel. The joints on it will be covered with a tarpaulin and tied with ropes to prevent rain leakage, so that they can tie a simple shed and sleep in it at night.

In the Mid-Autumn Festival countryside, the sky after midnight is extremely beautiful. At this time, the noise of human beings withdrew from the stage, and the whole night sky was dominated by nature. The moon hangs in the southeast sky like a golden disc, shining brightly and softly on the whole sky and the earth. The endless night sky is pure and clear, and there are not many stars, but each one is bright and dazzling. The mountains are illuminated like daylight, and there are nocturnal insects singing in the surrounding Shan Ye. Occasionally, some big birds are babbling in their dreams. In the time when human beings are sleeping, nature drops the beauty of night to the extreme. I've seen this before. Therefore, I am fascinated by this small shed against thieves. What a wonderful experience it would be if I could stay outdoors for one night.

After planting peanuts, we should plant wheat. Before planting, we will go to the fields to pick up the missed peanuts. The adults put pig manure into the ground, and the children picked it up from one end of the ground with a rotating basket next to them. Pick up where you see white, but you can still pick up a basket after picking it up for a long time. At this time, the sweet potato in the next field also leaked out. The sturdy body lifts the melon ridge, digs down along the handle and digs out a big one. Mother cut some grass on the weir and put it in the middle of the ground for father to make a fire. We burned the sweet potato, and the fire was very fierce when it was burned by the hook. The seeds kept burning and clicking, and the fire slowly went out. Mother broke a cotton swab and kept beating the sweet potatoes and peanuts that had just been taken out, knocking off the soil and grass ash on them. Sweet potato peeled off the charred skin, golden inside, braving the tangy aroma. It took a bite and softened, trying to swallow its tongue. That kind of time will never be found again. I still remember the cool mountain breeze blowing through Shan Ye, with the fragrance of weeds, wild chrysanthemums and earth. The three of us sat in the field eating delicious sweet potatoes and peanuts, and happy laughter floated in the field with the mountain wind.

Corn, soybeans and sweet potatoes are all home, and winter is coming. Peanuts are picked for export, then seeds are left, and the rest are shelled by machines. Shelled peanuts should be screened with a sieve, and then picked after screening. Leave some of the big kernels on the sieve for distant relatives, fry them during the New Year, and oil the rest. Under the sieve, there are some unripe peanuts and some small peanuts that have not been shelled. These sieves are all good things, which can grind our teeth all winter.

When it's time to pick peanuts, it will snow outside. Mother sat on the kang with a dustpan full of peanuts in her hand. In front of her was a row of gourds and scoops, full of mud, broken, shelled and sprouted. This kind of peanut with long buds is fried and eaten, which is especially sweet and crisp. Those who eat My Sweetie's stomach raw, and those old people with bad stomachs in rural areas, have peanuts in their pockets all the year round. Stir-fried, crispy and sweet, not tired of eating for a long time. I want to talk about those peanuts with shells under the sieve. They are very delicious and are indispensable snacks in winter.

The small peanuts with shells under the sieve are only as big as kidney beans, because they are too small, and they were missed when the machine was shelled. Some of these peanuts are full, and some are not grown. You can pick out more than a dozen spoonfuls every year. Stir-frying this kind of peanuts is a test of the stove, peanuts mixed together, can not be clamped, not fragrant; You can't burn the cake and eat it with bitterness. Mother took the cooking (a tool to brush the pot with sorghum ears) and buried her head in the cauldron to stir fry. The wrinkles of the cake slowly turned to the side of the pot and were not angry. When the heavy appearance was smooth, she turned to the bottom of the pot and became angry. Huotoujun is not easy to do either. It can only burn the finest straw, and the fire will spread around, not just the bottom of the pot, which will be burnt. At this time, my superb ignition technology came into being. Take only a bundle of wheat straw as thick as corn straw at a time, divide it into two parts, and send it to the left and right sides of the stove bottom. You can't keep burning it. Wait for a bite, the grass will be restored and the fire will go out. Pick up the red grass ash with a fire stick and blow it at the seam, and the fire will come up, and the "Teng" will come out from the pot hole. If you can't dodge, your hair and eyebrows will burn. Liu Haier in front of me was burned several times, and it smelled like a pig's tail stick burned in the village at the end of the year.

Stir-fried peanuts are put in a basket, which can be eaten with radishes or cooked dried sweet potatoes. Father came back from work, sat down to eat two handfuls and had a rest. My mother didn't eat at noon because of work, and she also ate two seats. When I came back from school, I was hungry. In this way, the days in the mountains are full of spring flowers, summer rain is carefree, autumn wind is hot, and winter is soothing. These dozens of spoonfuls of peanuts were fried by my mother for more than half a month until the end of the twelfth lunar month. Peanuts have been harvested, the Spring Festival has arrived, and a new year has begun. We begin to peel seeds, plant land, sow seeds, weed and harvest again and again.

Time is like water, like a slowly flowing oil painting, beautiful, quiet and vivid; Time flies, how many years have passed; The time when I ran on the ridge with peanuts was a treasure given by years. I miss its joy when the days are dull, its simplicity and gentleness when the days are smooth, and it is like a bright lamp when the days are hard, which illuminates my journey and warms my heart, inspiring me to stand up from the mud and steer firmly in the Wang Yang.

Miss the time when there were peanuts! Miss the warm and simple mountain village years!