As the saying goes: "Autumn is cool, crickets are calling". Pu Songling's "Promoting Weaving" records the intensity of the wind of playing crickets in those years. Crickets, the north is used to call crickets, the south of Shanghai likes to be called "Caiji", a bit of a pleasing meaning. The lifespan of crickets is generally about 3 months, so it is also called a hundred day insect. Old players know that after the heat, they began to catch crickets, and Bai Lu began to fight crickets. In the past few days, the largest flower and bird market in the city center, the Lanling Flower and Bird Market, has begun to stir up crickets and insects.
Walking into the market, I saw that several Shanghai old uncles were around the altar jars on the table, selecting crickets, a little cheaper than one or twenty yuan, and they could choose one. Lift the tin cover, hold the "cricket grass", tease the cricket a few times, the cricket will open its fangs, at this time the "old foot" cricket, from time to time, will open its wings and bark a few times. Listen to the sounds, look at the appearance of the body, and the old uncles who have been raising crickets longer than they have worked, each has his own experience and hobbies of choosing crickets. To "horse" a little bigger, a little bigger teeth, thicker tooth plates, better color.
However, this year, the north is rainy and the south is dry. This actually affects the growth and development of crickets, this cricket is still quite delicate, too hot and too cold, so this year's cricket production should be regarded as a "small year", in order to smoothly and smoothly select a cricket that they are satisfied with, it is still quite difficult. This year's crickets, one is small in quantity, the variety is more difficult to pick, most of them are small. A stall owner in Baoding, Hebei Province, said that this year's crickets are generally small. In the early days, there was a lot of rain in the north, just in time for excavation, it always rained, and all of them were flooded. What comes out now is basically the second batch, so it is generally small, not as big as last year.
In this market, in addition to this fixed cricket stall, the most noisy is the third floor of Juqi City, a temporary stall stall, which can be described as the "world of crickets", crickets from Shandong, Anhui, Hebei and other places, gathered together.
Each stall, supporting white fluorescent lamps, the old uncles will move a small bench and sit, a little professional, but also wear a miner's lamp, holding grass in one hand, while holding a tin can, carefully selecting love insects.
65-year-old Zhao Laobo, from the age of 7, has been playing crickets with his father, only to see that he has hundreds of cans of crickets in front of him, and he chooses as if he is opening the "blind box", and selects it in a few seconds. He said that crickets in the Shanghai market are already second-rate goods, and it is almost impossible to choose a long body and thick teeth according to the standards of regular crickets. Because the cricket north-south confrontation has been held many times, good crickets have long been selected. Big crickets, basically nothing good. Small, because someone slipped through the net. Although it is too small, but the quality of the worm is quite high, he chose this .
Zhao Laobo said that crickets "choose seven out of three." Pick it now, at least raise it for 35 days. Experienced, he jokingly laughed and said that for crickets, he could write a "teaching book". After taking it back, take a bath with the crickets and shut them down for three days. After three days, as soon as the hijab is opened, the image of the worm comes out, and when it comes out, it is selected and put into a good basin.
At this time, into feeding, crickets also pay attention to the "way of health". At first, eat raw food, lotus hearts, corn, raw pears, etc. Don't start with cooked food, or the crickets will age quickly. Only by grasping the weather changes can we feed cooked food. After the autumn equinox, start to eat cooked food, mainly millet, put some crab meat, shrimp meat can be. After eating well, there will be "three sisters", a female cricket to accompany. Get up at six o'clock in the morning, mention "three sisters", and after eight o'clock in the evening, call "three sisters".
Although it is a bit cumbersome to want to raise crickets carefully, the old uncles are happy to do it. Nowadays, the city has changed, there are fewer opportunities to catch crickets, and at this time, buy a few crickets to come back and raise them, fight a bucket, or get back to the feeling of childhood.