In the yard, two large jujube trees with a thick hug of their heads and tails are shouting at each other, like two cats called spring, with undulating tones, high and low, meandering and piercing.
After two nights of strong winds, a thick layer of gray sand fell on the pulped windowsill wiped by grandma, and he got out of the quilt and knelt in front of the windowsill, pulling the curtains behind him, and the glass full of ice flowers came with a cold air, just like the frozen in the fairy tale book.
Five fingers gathered into a pile, and pressed down at the same time, faintly melting into five small dots, just like the footprints of my little flower cat, pressing it with my left hand, pressing it with my right hand, pressing it with my left hand, pressing it with my right hand, and after a while, a string of small footprints were left in this frozen world, as if the kitten had really come.
It's warm after the wind, cold after the snow. After two days of strong winds, the temperature rose, grandma said, today is the fifteenth day of the lunar month, take advantage of today's good day to sweep the house quickly.
I was still kneeling in front of the window to paint, and my grandmother shouted in her mouth, quickly dressing and going to the ground, moving things out, and carrying my futon out neatly and putting it on the wire in the yard to dry clothes.
Mom and Dad moved the Eight Immortals table, chairs, basin stands, small cupboards, and the dusters, hat buckets, and radios on the large table in the back room to the yard, put the bits and pieces into the large laundry basin, and put them under the Eight Immortals table, and finally took off the statue of Chairman Mao on the wall of the hall and a few photo frames on the wall of the back room, and put them in a place that was not in the way.
Finally, we swept the kang out, found a plastic sheet and covered the large table, and the house was completely vacated, and my brother and I came out and shouted because there was an echo in the house.
Dad found a bamboo pole to tie the sweeping broom to pull the cobwebs off the roof. My house is not covered with a roof, it is smoky all year round, it is getting darker and darker every year, there are always a few spider webs at the top, and the spiders are also very smart, making nests and weaving webs to find the kind of place that is not disturbed by people, and their sense of self-protection is quite strong.
Tearing the window paper is a thing that children like, and they can finally enjoy the fun in the destruction with confidence, first remove the seal of the paste around it, the seal is particularly easy to remove, and it is all white flour + cornmeal made of paste sticky.
Then you just "destroy" casually, how to enjoy it, and poke it with a stick if you can't reach it, which was called enjoyable at that time, and now it is called decompression.
Who hasn't done a little spitting on his fingers when he was a child, poking the bad thing of stabbing the window paper, poking a small hole and being scolded, and then the adults have to patch the window paper, grandma said, the big hole in the needle nose, the big wind.
Pasting windows, washing curtains, and cleaning glass are basically my mother's work, and my grandmother holds a feather duster in her hand, dusting it from top to bottom, and the walls, counters, and corners do not fall.
After that, my grandmother didn't let us go out and run in, so I hung up the cotton curtains, closed the doors and windows tightly, and boiled the briquette stove to save some heat, because the sun was about to go down.
It's really bright, the new window paper edges are shining with golden light, the sunset is obliquely shining on the glass window, the light and shadow are like a flashlight from God, scattered all over most of the east gable.
Looking out of the house, the sun filled the yard, and even a few local chickens in the chicken pen were covered with a layer of golden light.
The sun was gone, the room was warm, and in the dim light, the water vapor from the steamer swirled to the roof.
This time next year, there will be a few more cobwebs on the roof;
This time next year, there will be more beautiful ice flowers on the window panes;
This time next year, the old window paper is still waiting for me to poke it;
This time next year, I don't grow up and they don't get old.