Night Reading丨It’s the wheat season again! The wheat harvest season in my memory is so unforgettable

The anchor reads classics and says good night to you, hello everyone! This is Lightning Night Reading. I am Xu Fang, the anchor of Liaocheng Channel. It is the wheat season again. When the Ear Grain solar term arrives, even if we enter the "Three Summers", it is also the busiest season in the northern countryside. Tonight I would like to share with you an article "Wheat Harvest Season".

Wheat harvest season

Looking at the golden waves of wheat under the blue sky and white clouds, and smelling the refreshing fragrance of wheat all over the mountains and fields, I will always think of the time when I bent down to cut wheat.

My hometown is the Yimeng Mountain area. It has many mountains and ridges, and little rain, so wheat ripens quickly. The heavy wheat ears in the morning are still glowing with tender apricot yellow. When the southwest wind blows, the wheat awns explode at noon. When the wind blows, the wheat ears and grains easily fall to the ground. It's like "the wheat is ripe for a while" and the tiger's mouth seizes the food.

Cutting wheat is the most tiring farm work of the year for local farmers. "After a wheat season, one layer of skin is shed." When I remember, the village harvested wheat in a unified production team. The night before, every household "sharpened their sickles" and used whetstones to sharpen their sickles. Before dawn the next day, the wheat field was already crowded with people. Harvesting wheat is the most difficult task when the sun is just rising over the mountains and the temperature is not high. The captain bowed his waist to cut the wheat in front, and the members followed behind him, like a slowly unfolding "human"-shaped formation of wild geese. Everyone's scythes were flying and their steps were steady. After a while, their clothes were soaked through. They were talking and laughing just now, but in the blink of an eye there was no sound except the "swish" sound of the sickle cutting wheat.

It is easy to cause allergies and red bumps when pricked by wheatgrass thorns. When cutting wheat, most people wear dark-colored trousers and long coats, with cuffs and trouser legs tied tightly, and arms and legs exposed as little as possible. At noon, the scorching sun seemed to stick to my back. Take advantage of the fine weather to thresh, dry wheat and raise wheat in the wheat field. The wheat field in the production team is as big as a football field, surrounded by mountains of wheat sheaves. The wheat grains are no longer crushed with stones, but replaced with diesel-burning threshing machines. The machine spins, dust flies, and the threshers are sweating profusely. The wheat field is a happy place for children. The wheat straw stacks are like spring beds. Children after summer vacation are jumping and making noise on the wheat straw stacks while helping their parents stack them. When the team leader called to call it a day, the children also fell asleep on the wheat stack, and the moon was already hanging on the treetops at the head of the village.

After the wheat harvest, every family received new wheat, and the life of the farm became more prosperous, and the intoxicating aroma of wheat exuded from every stove. Of course, in those days, farmers were very poor, and they would only be willing to have a meal of wheat grains during festivals and distinguished guests. Skilled wives and girls use wheat straw to weave beautiful straw hats, cricket cages, handbags, futons and other daily necessities, decorating simple life.

In the 1980s, after household joint production contracting was implemented, each household began to harvest wheat. I remember that during the summer vacation that year, I rushed back to my hometown to help my parents harvest wheat. The clouds don't move and the trees don't shake. The wheat field is really like a steaming steamer. As noon approached, I felt like all the moisture in my body had been dried out, and my lips were so dry that they peeled off. But my mother's movements of cutting wheat were still smooth and easy. She bent her waist more than 90 degrees, held the wheat in her left hand, and waved the sickle in her right hand. The sickle was almost touching the ground. With a few "thump, thump, thump" sounds, a heavy bag of wheat was cut. It was piled on the ground. I straightened my back and felt the small cut on my arm made by the wheat light, which was stained with sweat and painful. After a while, my mother started tying the bundles, and my father and I cut the wheat. My father cut eight elements, and I cut five elements. I waved my sickle desperately and rushed forward, but I was still pushed farther and farther behind. The pain in my lower back was unbearable. I had to straighten my back and take a breath. The palms of my hands were bruised with blood blisters. As I kept cutting, I felt more and more effortless, and I soon caught up with my father. At this time, I suddenly discovered that I had actually only cut three rows, and my father had already cut those rows for me. At this time, my mother got up and filled half a ladle of mung bean soup from an iron bucket covered with reeds at the end of the field. She also wiped the sweat and dust on my face with her sleeves and said, "Come and take a breath and drink some water. I won't dry my hands for a long time." ", I raised my neck and drank a few mouthfuls of it. My mother smiled and persuaded me: "Slow down, slow down." The sweet mellowness penetrated my heart and made me feel refreshed. Within a few days, stacks of wheat straw of different sizes from each household were lined up in the yard and fields, like a pot full of steamed buns.

Later, during the wheat harvest season every year, our unit used buses to take everyone to the wheat fields of the Provincial Academy of Agricultural Sciences to cut wheat. Everyone was given a sickle and a straw hat, and they were asked to wipe their heads after cutting for a while. Wipe sweat and straighten your back. The leader told us: It is to let you young people experience the hard work of cutting wheat and understand the hard-won truth of porridge and meal.

In the new century, wheat harvesters have gradually become popular, even in the mountains of my hometown. Not only are they affordable, but they can also do the work quickly and efficiently, saving worry, effort, and time. Villagers no longer have to bend down and cut wheat with sickles in hand as in the past. The harvester shuttled back and forth several times in the field, harvesting large tracts of wheat with ease. The wheat grains were automatically loaded into cloth bags, and the wheat straw was crushed directly in the field. Some of them could also be secretly sown with autumn crops simultaneously.

"At night the south wind blows, and the wheat is covered with yellow." With the new wheat, my mother will make dumplings for us, steam buns, roll noodles, and bake pot stickers. The rice becomes more and more delicious the more you chew it, the more you taste it, the pure and sweet taste has always lingered in my heart, and I still think about it to this day. endless.

Note: The article is excerpted from "People's Daily" (page 20, May 8, 2019), written by Li Yanlin.

Anchor Introduction

Xu Fang, the host of "Liaocheng News" of Liaocheng People's Broadcasting Station, Liaocheng Comprehensive Broadcasting Station, has been engaged in broadcasting and hosting work for 16 years.