Coal fire
Gao Pengwei
In the past, in the countryside, when it was very cold in winter, people would build coal fires in their houses.
The coal fires are all self-coiled, most of them are in the middle of the house, against the wall facing the door, connected to the front and back of the two earthen kang. The front face is polished with mud, and a rectangular plan is laid with bricks or small stone slabs, called "coal fire platform".
Coal fire is in the middle of the coal fire platform, commonly known as "coal fire hole", above is an outer square inner circle of iron coal fire mouth, leaning down to the front there is a small square mouth that can breathe, at the bottom is a few pig iron stove toes that are flat, under the stove toe is a hole containing cinder, called "cinder knot", the hole is on the ground in front of the coal fire platform, covered with a wooden board, and an iron rod is often inserted obliquely on the side, one is pointed, and the other end is a small round knot. The sides of the coal fire platform are also empty, one is to put debris, and the other is to hold coal and coal.
Coal fire should be "set", with yellow mud mixed with cinder and other materials to wipe out the inside, resistant to burning and not leaking. When making a fire, you should first fill in some cinder blocks to the bottom, and then order some waste paper or shavings to do "ignition", slowly put in straw, corn cobs or dry firewood, and wait until the fire is red, fill in some small coal bumps, and then red can fill the coal.
The fire filled with coal is also called "paste fire", the use of good coal, and before the first to mix the soil, master the proportion, coal soil is not happy, burned easy to refine into pieces can not go down, coal soil small fire is impatient, burned to complete the broken surface easy to collapse. And coal also pays attention to, as the saying goes, "and coal does not sweat, paste fire no flame", which means that and coal should be willing to work hard, with a small coal shovel to keep turning over, shoveling over, and the sticky as much as possible. Fill it in the fire and smooth it with a small spoon on the coal stove, and use the fire to pierce an eye in the middle to breathe.
After the coal fire was "pasted", the fire was temporarily suppressed by wet coal, and only the small blue flames protruded outward from the small eyes in the middle, so that the coal burned very slowly. When it was time to cook, the fire was opened, and the flames immediately rose to the ground, and another pot of water could be boiled after cooking. The fire is "tired" to fill the coal in time, otherwise the fire is not strong when it is used, you have to take a small firewood and keep "swallowing", and smoke the bottom of the pot to black and paste. Sleep on the fire at night, get up in the middle of the night to check to see if the coal fire is blocked by wet coal, if you accidentally extinguish the fire, you have to re-bake in the morning, both cold and can't eat breakfast for a while.
With the coal fire, the house is not cold, but there is no shortage of smoke and ash, every time the fire is made, it is often not blown from above or fanned from below, and the smoke billows all over the house, choking people can't open their eyes. After the coal filling, a wet coal smell goes straight into the nose, who wants to burn cheap "stinky coal", it is even more breathless. In order to prevent coal poisoning, people open a small round hole in the paper "back" directly above the coal fire, or cut open the paper at the top of the window and hang it like a curtain to let the air circulate. When the fire is set, the fire is inserted into the fire, or suddenly inserted into the fire and shaken back and forth, sometimes from the vent below, the cinder is bald and bald, and the coal ash rushes upwards with the hot air, instantly floating all over the room. After a long time, the walls were full of dust, the white cotton paper on the windows had turned gray, and the spider webs in the corners of the walls were also stained with coal ash, and some of them hung heavily, swinging constantly, and could fall down at any time.
At that time, people were "not cold and talked about it", and they circled around the coal fire platform all winter. Every day before dawn, the women get up early, open the fire and sit on the pot and start cooking. The children woke up and waited for the meal to be ready, and the adults turned over their little cotton jackets and little cotton pants, steamed on the fire, and put them on while it was hot. Other meals are eaten in the bed. The eldest child did not have this blessing, and the adult said "I can't get up" and dressed sharply. Elderly people are either in bed all day long, or sitting on a coal stove with a small stool. Young children also enjoy writing homework and playing games on the coal stove. Hungry, pick up the coal fire around the bun block, nest block or small sweet potato or whatever, when the fire is strong, often take a handful of long noodles, one by one into the fire, listen to the sound of the noodles, watch the noodles become white and fat, shrink back directly into the mouth, fragrant and crisp. The adults steamed steamed buns in winter, placed the basin on the coal stove, and sent the noodles in less than half a day. Wet shoes and insoles for adults and children on snowy days are placed around the coal fire before going to bed, and they are dry and hot in the morning. When a child is born in the family, a cage is woven with wire to cover the coal fire, and the child's clothes are put on top of the diaper or something, and it is dried in a moment.
In winter, there is basically no work in the field, and people like to talk to each other. No matter who you walk into, you are enthusiastic to give way to the coal stove, cover the fire with a teapot in half, roast the fire and boil the water, put a few bowls on the coal stove, put a few hawthorn slices or a few pieces of sour carrots in the bowl, the old man or sit on the coal stove or on the kang head near the coal fire, others sit on the edge of the coal or stand on the edge of the coal fire, one foot on the coal stove, stretch out his hand above the coal fire mouth and turn over and roast. The house soon became lively, the men smoked cheap dry cigarettes, you talked about the harvest of the year, or strange things that I heard from nowhere, the women were either mending socks or holding insoles, sometimes spraying along the topic of men, sometimes whispering a high voice deliberately arguing with men, and the whole room erupted from time to time with a burst of laughter. After a while, the room was filled with smoke and a constant coughing sound, but no one felt choking. At night, children also like to lie in the bed and listen to the adults talk, and they fall asleep listening to it.
With the development of the times, the rural areas have changed from burning coal to burning coal balls, and from burning coal balls to burning gas, and now entering the era of clean energy, there are not many people who burn gas. Coal fires have completely withdrawn from people's lives, and those things around the coal fire platform have gradually faded away in the memories of a generation.
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About author:Gao Pengwei, a native of Yuankang Town, Linzhou City, a member of the Linzhou Writers Association, and a member of the Linzhou Citizens' Association. He likes literature and folk history and culture, and his works are scattered in various media and literary network platforms.
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