Back view in spring

Article | Liu Demin

(Photography/Liu Haiyong)

The spring of my childhood was actually the sound of those few bullwhips, loudly coming from the village The sound started.

"Click" and "Click", the old scalper began to walk clumsily on the streets of the village. Amidst the sound of the cattle whip and the constant shouting, When walking to the fields outside the village, spring has really come in my village located on the north bank of the Dawen River, near the Taifei Mountains.

It’s the Spring Festival of the lunar calendar. Although spring has begun in the solar term, the weather is still very cold. The cold wind is blowing everywhere with its thorns, and the land in the fields outside the village is still frozen and hard. People who have survived the cold winter know that it will be some time before warm weather comes. All that can be done at this time is to start cleaning the pig pen, filling it with fresh loess, and storing fertilizer in the ground for a new planting cycle.

As soon as February 2 of the lunar calendar passes, when the dragon raises its head, spring plowing begins, and spring officially kicks off in the countryside.

When I was a child, there were still traces of a farming society in my hometown. Before planting crops, the first plowing, flat land, and loose land were mainly done by cattle. At that time, cattle were the main production tools and were registered. They could not be slaughtered casually unless there was a disease that could not be cured. Each production team has two "carriage drivers". Their main task in spring is to plow the fields. Each production team also has two breeders. They have a clear division of labor with the "carriage drivers". The breeders are only responsible for feeding the animals. The "carriage driver" was only responsible for working the animals.

The cattle in the cattle shed of the village production team are held by the breeders with ropes and tied to the wooden cattle piles outside the breeding shed. The breeder swept the cows with a broom again and again to let them receive the sunlight. People gathered in the breeding shed, fried soybeans and black beans in large iron pots, and mixed them into the feed. Because the cattle are about to start working hard, improve their living conditions and make adequate preparations for the upcoming strong labor. The big village where I grew up had dozens of production teams, almost all of which were like this. The aroma of fried beans could be smelled inside and outside the village.

At that time, the land outside my hometown village was divided into mountains, slopes, and depressions. Which piece of land to plow first depends on what crops are grown in that piece of land. Although the growing periods of crops come first and last, adults are all born "agricultural experts". It seems that they all know what to plant in which land without any teaching.

"The driver of the carriage" has two bull whips, one long and one short, one thick and one thin, hung on the wall of everyone's house. When the big carriage is used to transport dung, crops, and grain, the whip is used to drive the horse. A long whip is used for oxen, and a short whip is used for plowing. Bull whips are all made of cowhide strips, which become hard over time and cannot be whipped. At this time, they will soak it in water. Soon the bullwhip will become soft and its head will droop in one fell swoop, like noodles just out of the pot.

I have gone to the fields many times to plow the fields with the "carriage driver" of the production team my family was in. A production team has more than a hundred people and dozens of families, and they basically all live together in the same family. Although the "carriage driver" of my production team and I are both surnamed Liu, our ancestors all migrated from Hongdong, Shanxi Province, but we have the same surname but different branches. For some reason, although his son is only one year older than me, he still calls me "Liu". I am "Uncle". I have been playmates with him since I was a child. He often followed his father to plow the fields, firstly to pick up cow dung, and secondly, to pick up the sweet potatoes that had not been dug up in the fields after autumn, which made me extremely envious.

Once, he asked me if I would play with him. I happened to be fine, so I went back and told my mother. My mother thought it was better than wandering around alone on the street, so she specially found a wicker basket for me and told me to pick up some sweet potatoes if I had them, and pick up some cow dung if I had them. At that time, cow dung was collected not to fertilize the land, but to take it home and use it to cook pots. The thoroughly dried cow dung pot was full of flames and there was no smoke at all. There is almost no rain in spring, so the cow dung is the best at this time.

Most of the cultivated land in the north of my hometown is mid-mountain land close to the roots of the mountains and layers of hillside terraces. The plots are small and the roads are narrow. The old cow pulled a square trailer with plows, rakes, etc. on it, walking on the winding dirt road. The trailer rubbed against the hard ground and rocks, making different sounds. On both sides of the road were decayed yellow grass, which was blown in one direction by the wind. The "carriage driver" spends a lot of time with the cows, as if he treats the animals as his own children and scolds them all the time. If the cow walks slowly or goes astray, he will raise the cow whip on his shoulder, whip it forward, and curse, "Grandma, where are you going!" "You just know how to eat. They are just lazy when they are working!"

When they arrived at the edge of the field, the "carriage driver" loaded the plow tools on the oxen, connected the plow to the oxen, and then positioned the plow from the edge of the field. In the place where plowing began. The plow blades are bright, brighter than a mirror. The tip of the plow penetrates the ground, and the soil moves along the path of the plow, rolling up like ocean waves. The "carriage driver" and I followed behind step by step. If there were any sweet potatoes, we would immediately run over and pick them up in the basket. The sweet potatoes have been frozen and spoiled by the winter, but they still have an evil sweet taste. But there were not many sweet potatoes left in the field, so finding dried cow dung elsewhere became the main thing.

At this time, I especially like to stand on the high slope and look around. At this time, the scenery under my feet is unobstructed.

The wheat seedlings on the plains in the distance have turned green, new shoots have sprouted from the roots of the withered grass, the poplar trees on the field ridges have also begun to sprout fluffy poplar awns, and the wild mountains on the cliffs and in the ravines have begun to sprout. The yellow leaf buds of the jujube tree begin to grow outward. Looking from a distance and looking up close, you can see that there are many farmers in the fields, shouting at their animals, plowing or raking, and working in plots of different heights and sizes. This is a unique spring farming picture in the north. Those who drove the carriages were the first to enter the fields in the village. They plowed land after land, making the soil in the fields look like flour in the urns. In a few days, these plowed soils would be Plant cotton, beans, sweet potatoes, etc., and the entire desolate field will become green.

When the sun sets, those "carriage drivers" begin to prepare to go home. Shi Niu seemed to be more energetic and less obedient in his work. He quickly finished plowing the remaining plots. When I was a child, I often saw the old cow in front of me when I went to the fields to cut grass on weekends. " "The carriage driver" is behind him, walking home on the road in the mountains and fields. The sun is about to set on the top of the mountain in the distance to the west. The sunlight turns into a dazzling orange-red color, shining on the ridges of the undulating earth ridges, like a mosaic. There is a golden edge. In the distance, the cuckoo's call in the sky and the hoot of an owl on an unknown tree are particularly crisp and clear in the deserted field. Zhuo Zhuo, slowly walked towards the village where the smoke began to rise...

This scene did not end until the Grain Rain season, when the wheat ears were embroidered. This was the back view of the spring in my childhood. But now there is no such scene, it has long become a yellowed memory film.

About the author: Liu Demin, male, born in 1967, created and published in 2011 by the Dongping County Branch of Tai'an City, Shandong Province. A large-scale popular research monograph "Guanzhong Hometown: Water Margin" (China Culture Publishing House), published 8 short stories, 20 poems, 20 essays, 2 folk arts and film short scripts in various newspapers and periodicals, including the short story " "Refunding Money" won the third prize in the financial literary circle, the short story "Ma Sanzhu Loan" won the first prize in the Agricultural Bank of China's Shandong Province essay competition, and the essay "City Story" won the first prize in the "Beautiful Dongping - Change Around Me" essay competition in "Today's Dongping".

One Point Shandong Creation Center