Crop land 丨 Night talk among the clouds

Crop fields (Visual China/Photo)

Every morning in the community, there is always an old farmer who walks out of the gate amid the endless stream of office workers.

His standard equipment is a broken straw hat and a rusty hoe. Of course, it is not only incompatible with the white-collar workers around it, but also particularly dazzling. At first, I thought that the green chemical of the property, but later learned that it turned out to be Tony's father, Lao Tan.

Tony drives a Rolls-Royce to work every day. His father, however, went out every day with a hoe. I couldn't help but follow him on my bike and noticed that he had indeed entered the crop field.

It is said that the fifty-acre crop land in a radius is a very famous wasteland nearby, who knows what kind of project, anyway, it is rotten, and soon after it is deserted, it is planted with crops by all kinds of people, so it is called its crop land.

The question is, Tony is so rich, what is Old Tan doing? "I can't help it." He told me that if I couldn't smell the land for a day, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, and I yawned. As soon as I arrived at the crop field, I smelled the familiar smell of the earth, and I was full of energy. Call me a, what can I do. I just came to Shanghai and was full of illness, one way, all better.

Tony quarreled with him an unknown number of times over this, saying that it had seriously damaged his image. But Old Tan ignored the stubble.

The principle of crop land is that whoever opens as much as he wants, everyone has a playful mentality, anyway, the land is deserted, maybe when the developer will go to work. Only Old Tan recognized the truth. In order to improve the quality of the soil, he collected dog feces all over the street, fermented it in large vats, and despite sprinkling maggot-killing drugs, it still smelled unbearable for his neighbors.

He also made his own "vegetarian fertilizer", another big vat, throwing his own and neighbor's waste vegetables and fruits all over the vat, buying compost strains, and pickling a big lump like pickles. Afraid of the hardening of the land, he also got black "loose soil essence", scattered in three forks and five places.

Anyway, the good villa was made like a toilet by him, and Tony swore to leave him all day long.

But you have to admit that Old Tan is a good way to grow crops. When you look at the soil, you know whether it is alkaline or acidic, when you look at the water, you know whether it is too hard or too soft, and you know at a glance that diseases and pests are inchworms, armyworms, cabbage insects, ground tigers, root maggots, mustard worms, corn borers, rice planthoppers, red spiders... For a while, "green ecology" was advocated in the crop fields, and a few radical ones did not fight any medicine, saying that it was better to sell ugly than ecological and organic. The problem is that the insect population is cruel and ruthless, and it only takes a few days to eat all the vegetables.

Everyone invited Lao Tan to dinner and asked Lao Jiao, why didn't he hit the medicine garden, and there was still a green green? Who said no medicine? Old Tan's throat suddenly straightened, look what to hit?! I'm taking Chinese medicine, this, you can't think of it! For example, when I was a child, I washed my hair and killed insects for a hundred, a kilogram on the Internet was only 12 yuan, and I boiled a hundred tinctures in my own cauldron, sprayed and irrigated, sweeping all germs and pests!

He said and waved his big hand, and at that moment he seemed very tall.

Therefore, despite the blindness of the community, as soon as he arrived at the crop field, it was like Napoleon on the island of Elba returning to France, and his ears were full of greetings - "Old Tan! "Tan Ye!" There are even more called "Father Tan".

Old Tan was very used at this time, sat on the little maza, took out the dry smoke pipe brought by his hometown and swallowed for a while, smiled, and his face was full of ravines.

However, the good times are not long. Gradually, there was news that the developer was indeed about to go to work. Old Tan was so worried that he sat in his vegetable garden in a daze every day, smoked dry smoke for a while, and then reached out to touch the soil. I advised him that it was temporary, not to take it so seriously. He looked at me. Do not speak. Just keep rubbing the dirt.

Until the big machine came in, he was still sitting there every day. I said bluntly, since you love the land so much, first, why leave your hometown; Second, you can go back now!

He didn't speak for a long time. Then said softly, I am a son, my wife died early, I have not followed him, who have I been with? Second, tell you that the land in your hometown is long gone, or is it still rare here?

He suddenly cried. Old tears. Crying with a Hunan accent. I panicked and didn't know how to persuade him. He sat alone until it was completely dark before returning. Then for a long time, it disappeared. Tony's face was very ugly. I know they're arguing fiercely again. Lao Tan even hit his son, so I was embarrassed to inquire about Lao Tan's whereabouts. It's probably going back to my hometown. I think.

On the day of the beginning of winter, I rode an exercise bike through the town of Sijing, 10 miles from home, and the fields of early winter were empty, and a tent struggling in the north wind could be seen on a secluded road.

No, it's just a shack made of large plastic sheeting with ropes, called "Liao" by Southern Cantonese and "Pi" by Shanghainese. An old man wrapped in a quilt, curled up there, next to his head was a pile of foam dishes, the traces of a box lunch, the heel was a bottle of leftover "Wuliang alcohol", the residue was a mess, in front of the floor was a pair of mud-stained shoes, a pair of fuzzy socks pulled on the upper, and the street lamp snored like thunder on his tired face.

I coughed lightly, and he woke up and quickly looked up. I was stunned for a moment, this is not Old Tan!

If you don't live in a good villa, how can you become a wandering sleeper?

I work with people to grow rice. He smiled reluctantly. I didn't tell you that my life was cheap.

"Do you have to stay here all night?" I asked. Could anyone still steal? After all, it is winter, and the north wind of the slaughter has blown the plastic shack to a loud click, curled up inside, equal to the open air.

Old Tan sighed and said, many things in your city people don't understand. First, when the rice is harvested, I am most afraid of rain, and when it rains, even in the middle of the night or early in the morning, I must urgently "gather the rice", pile them up in a pile, and cover them with a rainproof tarpaulin. Second, the rice is sunbathed here, and we are most afraid of car milling, we only sunned half of the road, but there are too many heavy vehicles from the "crop fields". In the middle of the night, they all come to make temporary stops, and all night my ears are pricked up, and the sound of pressing the road can be heard from a long distance, and I must wave the signal light to ask them to "raise your noble hand", so that at least I can press less rice..." Third, the vigil is indeed anti-theft. "Old Tan said, don't be surprised, rice is stolen - chickens, ducks and geese, as soon as they eat rice, they grow fat, and the amount of eggs produced also increases, so the rice thieves, all motor vehicles, shovel and run.

The rice he guarded was called "Nanjing No. 46," and the seed fee was 1.6 yuan per catty; the charter fee was 500 yuan per mu; the fertilizer fee was 200 yuan per mu; the cultivation by man was 105 yuan per mu; the pesticide fee was 115 yuan per mu; the electric irrigation fee was 50 yuan per mu; and the harvesting fee was 100 yuan per mu. In order to ensure a soft taste, you have to add organic fertilizer such as chicken manure per mu, as well as threshing fees, rice milling fees... In this way, the cost of each kilogram of rice is more than 3 yuan, our commodity grain price is 4 yuan, 2 jiao and 1 catty, each catty can actually not earn 1 yuan, 26 acres of chartered land, a year to earn one or two thousand yuan, the cost is so high, so it must be vigiled.

Before parting, he said that he would return to the community after four more days of suffering. The son has already made peace with him.

But on the fourth day, bad news came. That morning, he had just woken up to collect his things and was about to go home, but he fell over. Cerebral haemorrhage.

The heavy machinery in the crop fields is still roaring. But at the entrance, I don't know who drew a circle and burned a lot of paper money.

Hu Zhanfen

Editor-in-Charge: Xing Renjian