The old courtyard that no longer exists
Wen | Ding Liping
"You are so capable, you have turned our earthen hut into a luxurious Villa!" Seeing the picture of my brother's newly renovated old yard in the family group, I spoke and ridiculed him.
"It's not blown, you'll love it when you come back and see it." Brother Ante me.
"That's for sure! But to be honest, I still miss the old courtyard of our ancestral home. I said back to him.
The house in the picture was built by my parents in the 1970s, and within a few years of its construction, my father moved his family to a building in his unit. Uninhabited houses can easily decay and run out, and I used to think that this house would also be as self-destructive as our family's ancestral home.
My childhood and adolescence were spent in my family's ancestral home, which was built by my great-grandfather and grandfather. Later, due to uninhabited and lack of maintenance, it was demolished many years ago, and later some people built houses there.
Nowadays, I can't find a single photo of my ancestral house or the ancestral house as the background, but I still remember the whole picture of the ancestral house.
My family's ancestral home is a square farmhouse, which looks like half an acre of land. The street gate of the ancestral house faces the east, there are five main rooms, three west wing rooms, and the courtyard is surrounded by a high wall made of yellow mud.
That courtyard was once full of life and was very populated. There used to be flowers and trees planted by my family for generations, and the garden was not a garden of hundreds of fruits (flowers), but there were many high-quality fruit trees and lilies, moon seasons, peonies and other flowers and plants.
It is impossible to know whether the flowers and trees were planted by grandparents or fathers. A generation of my parents has passed away except for my third uncle. I asked my third uncle about this, but he said that because he was very young, my grandfather took him and other family members to Jilin Province, and he knew very little about the story in the old courtyard.
What I remember most about the courtyard of the ancestral house is the pomegranate tree outside the window of the west bedroom of the main room. That pomegranate tree blooms with one tree of flowers every year.
When I was in elementary school, every year on the morning of Children's Day, my mother would cut a few spikes of fiery red pomegranate flowers and pin them on two small pigtails for me, and that day I would feel that I was suddenly much more beautiful, and I was very happy all day. At that time, my mother did not allow our children to cut pomegranate flowers, she said that we do not know male flowers and female flowers, if we cut the female flowers, it will affect the pomegranate.
Most of the fruit of the pomegranate tree in memory could not stand. Every year it blooms countless times, male and female flowers, May and June is the flowering period, the residual flowers that fall under the tree can cover the ground, and then fall down are some dry fruits, and then half of the pomegranates rotted, and some of them are very large. When it was time for harvest, there were only a few pomegranates hanging on the branches of the trees above the eaves, those fruits that stood up to maturity were not large, the outer skin was mostly half green and half yellow, and three or two were half yellow and half red, but the pomegranate grains exposed by peeling the skin were red, which was quite sweet and delicious.
There is a peony tree on the west side under the pomegranate tree, and it is not known which generation it was planted. For as long as I can remember, I have seen it sprout in early spring, bloom in early summer, frost hit the leaves red, and hide in the middle of winter. The peony blossoms purple-red flowers, the flowers are all large and multi-layered, and the flowers are very fragrant and beautiful. Peony is an herbaceous perennial plant with tenacious vitality, just water it and fertilize it, it will reward you with a lot of beautiful flowers year after year.
There was an almond tree on the south wall of the old courtyard, and when I remember it, it was already an old almond tree, and it did not bloom a lot of flowers and fruits every year. At that time, its thick tree body was close to the south wall, and it was estimated that the person who planted it did not consider that it would need more room to grow one day. I was worried that it might one day prop up the earthen wall, and yes, the children would worry about big things too!
I remember that summer, when it was raining heavily, I heard rumors that the Chanzhi Reservoir upstream was about to burst, and my mother once said to me and my brother: "If there is a big water, I will send you both to the wall, and you will climb to the apricot tree yourself and hug a branch, I will not call you, you are not allowed to let go." At that time, I was too young to listen to my mother say that, and I didn't know where she was hiding? When people are young, they will feel that their parents are omnipotent, and they are inviolable.
There were so many fruit trees in the old courtyard that I couldn't list them all. But I'm going to say something about the begonia and the little cherry (a species of cherry tree). As I remember, the begonia and cherry trees were in their full bloom.
The little cherry tree was in front of the window in the north of the West Wing, and my third uncle said that he had planted the tree and that he had picked up the saplings on the road. Cherries are the first seasonal fruit to ripen among the many fruit trees in the old courtyard. At the end of May every year, the cherries on the trees gradually turn red. Ripe cherries are blood-red, and they are covered by a few dark green leaves, becoming more and more crystal clear and mouth-watering. In fact, this small cherry, only ripe to eat sweet and sour, if you carelessly eat a not very cooked, be careful that it sours your teeth.
In my hometown, there is a saying of "three sets of cherries", "set" refers to the five-day market in three miles and five villages, and the main thing used here is to say that the cherry picking period is "three sets", only fifteen days. The lifespan of these small cherry trees is also relatively short, only eleven or twelve years, and it is gratifying that they are super reproductive, they are rooted and do not need grafting.
YanRan smiled at the bamboo hedges, peach and plum mountains are always vulgar, and also know that creation has a deep meaning, so send beautiful people in the empty valley. Natural wealth is out of the sky, do not wait for the golden plate to recommend the Chinese house. (Song, Su Shi). There are only apricot trees, cherries, and pomegranate trees in the courtyard, and the white begonias of "rich and talented" make the courtyard look a bit "Chinese house" flavor.
The begonia tree was in the middle northeast of the yard, and it was in the best location, where the sun was shining. Under its tree, there was a basin of water enclosed with mud, which made it easy to water and fertilize it at any time – which shows how much attention it was valued at that time. Begonia belongs to the apple family, and the shape of the fruit is the same as that of an apple, but it is much smaller. Begonias are two kinds of begonias, red begonias are more sour, and white begonias are sweeter. The white begonia in my old house, the ripe fruit is sweet and sour to eat, if you are lucky to pick a ripe white begonia, bite down, eat the flesh is less juice sand. I love eating begonias.
There is no trace of time, but it has carved a mottled vein in the heart, and each vein records a past.
My ancestral home no longer exists, and it is estimated that others will no longer have pomegranates, cherries, and begonia trees in the newly built yard, even if there is, and it will not be the same as the courtyard of that year. But the old courtyard full of life and flowers will forever be imprinted in my memory. Now, in the distant space and time, I closed my eyes and held my breath, as if I had seen the fiery red pomegranate flower again, smelled the fragrant peony fragrance, tasted the acid of the small cherry, and the sweetness of the white begonia.
About author:Ding Liping, female, pen name Pingshui Encounter, ancestral home of Yantai, Shandong Province; currently lives in Shangzhou, New York, amateur author. The articles can be found in People's Daily (Overseas Edition), Ludong Literature, Yellow Sea Prose Biennial, Yantai Daily and many other media platforms.
Submission email: [email protected]
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