Text‖ Zhang Wangyang Picture‖ Internet
The leaves are green, and the flowers are fragrant.
In late spring in March, when the loud song of cuckoos sounded on the leafy branches beside the forest road, it was time for the valley rain again. Whenever the familiar sound of "coo, coo" comes to my ears, I can't help but feel a faint feeling of homesickness in my heart, and the past like smoke will always linger in my heart.
When I was a child, the story of learning cuckoo calls in the classroom and playing pranks on the teacher because of nothing more happened to me unconsciously appeared in front of my eyes. I remember that it was 1984, the year I graduated from primary school, when the cuckoos began to "coo, coo" in the trees, I played a prank on the then Chinese teacher and homeroom teacher, Mr. He, in class, and was severely reprimanded by him. (If you want to appreciate other beautiful essays written by Mr. Zhang Wangyang, please click the following link: Half a year before my father passed away, I did two stupid things in a row, and I repented for the rest of my life)
The cause of the incident was that I was late for school one morning, and Mr. He criticized me, and I was very upset, so I wanted to play a prank to get revenge on him. Just when I couldn't help it, I suddenly heard the cuckoo cry on the paulownia tree on the campus, and I was inspired.
After Mr. He left the classroom after class, I rolled a book into a microphone and began to learn the cuckoo call while joking at the teacher: "Coo-goo, so-and-so has a stomach; Who knew that because he was too involved in his "performance", he didn't know when the teacher was standing behind him. By the time I felt that the atmosphere was wrong, it had become extremely bad.
On that occasion, Mr. He took me to his office, closed the door, and severely criticized me. Since then, whenever I hear the "cooing" of the cuckoo, I can't help but remember the messy thing I did back then.
As a native of the countryside, I am naturally familiar with many agricultural proverbs and crop farming things about Gu Yu. For example, "before and after the rain in the valley, plant melons and beans", "on rainy days in the valley, busy planting tobacco", "when the rain in the valley is planted with sweet potato seedlings, one can receive a big basket" and so on, it is a big list.
In my impression, the rainy season is basically fixed in the second half of March every year. At that time, the overwintering wheat has already been jointed and booted. The plots reserved for planting millet, cotton, tobacco, sweet potatoes, and watermelons after autumn are also at their best time for sowing and planting seedlings.
Before and after the rain, the farmers began to work non-stop to work on the crops in their fields. And I and other children who don't know anything about it, seeing that the adults in the family are carrying water and planting in the field, they are very busy, but they can't help anything. At most, they just run around the fields to help parents distribute the seedlings to be planted, or scoop out the two buckets of river water that adults carry on their shoulders one by one, and slowly water them on the newly planted crops. Even if it is so easy to live, it will not last long, and when it is a little tired, it will use the excuse to escape and sneak into the ditch to play.
The ditch called the Wen River is a paradise for our leather children every spring and summer. Because my family's responsibility field is close to the river, it is very convenient for me to play in the riverside. Moreover, the slopes of the river during the rainy season are already overgrown with knee-high reeds, and where there are no reeds, there are lush hairy grasses and colorful wildflowers.
The water in the ditch rises every spring, and although the water potential is not very strong at times, it is still a flowing water that flows from the upstream, and the water quality is also very clean, so you can drink it when you hold it, and it is very sweet.
Because the bottom of the ditch is often potholed, the river water is naturally deep and shallow, the deep place not only has big fish from time to time to make a wave of waves, and often overgrown with a variety of aquatic plants, every rainy season, the water surface begins to grow a lot of duckweed. The shallow water in the ditch is mostly crystal clear, and the swimming fish can be counted. Especially in late spring and early summer, many groups of small tadpoles often swim happily in the water, which looks very pleasant. If you want to capture them, it's easy, as long as you stand firm on your feet by the water's edge, crouch down gently, and quickly flick your hands towards the middle of the swimming army of tadpoles, you can capture many of them, and it's always delightful to watch those wet, little tail-wagging elves panic in the palm of your hand.
According to this method, it is also very effective to catch those small fish that swim and small shrimp that cling to the bottom of the water, but most of the results are extremely small fish and small shrimp, which we call "wheat bran drift" and small shrimp. Not only are they small, but they are also fragile, and most of them die when they leave the water. Therefore, we generally do not actively harm them.
If you want to rely on these small fish and shrimp to satisfy your cravings, it is really not enough to fill your teeth, and you often feel happier to watch them shuttle freely in shallow water.
I remember that there is an ancient poem describing the rainy season in the valley, which has the verse "The peony breaks the calyx and the cherry is ripe". When I first read it, I felt that it was quite inappropriate, because the cherries here are basically listed in May, so they have the title of "May fresh", as the name suggests, it is the fresh food of May. The rainy season is often in mid to late April of the solar calendar, and it is at least ten days and a half months away from May. However, after careful consideration, I felt that there was no big mistake, because China is vast, and with the same solar terms, there is a temperature difference between the north and the south, and it is normal for the fruits in the south to ripen a few days earlier than in the north. However, in my young impression, the first fresh thing to ripen when it rains is mulberries.
I remember when I was a child, there was a tall mulberry tree at the door of the east house of my Fa Xiaoliangfeng house, and before and after the valley rain, the fat mulberry leaves on the tree were full of purple-red mulberry fruits. During that time, Liangfeng was my best friend. On the way to and from school, we were almost always inseparable, and on Sundays, we climbed up to his mulberry tree like a monkey.
Sweet and sour mulberry fruit, eat a mouth full of black. Decades have passed, and now when it rains and fresh mulberry fruits go on the market, I often buy them to taste, but I can no longer find the sweet taste of those years.
"Young people enjoy new knowledge, and they miss old friends in the twilight". At this point, I can't help but miss my little bright peak, although I grew up in the same village, but since I became an adult, I have gone to different places for life, and now, I haven't seen each other for more than 30 years. Many years ago, I also heard that he had a bad fate, his wife died in his thirties, left his children in his hometown to live with his parents, and wandered alone for many years, but fortunately, his children were very competitive, and now he has finished graduate school and joined the work. Now that the child has grown up, it's time for him to reconsider his problems, right? I don't know if he has reorganized a new family? I must try to visit him during the Spring Festival this year.
Comparing the ancient poems, and then looking at the annual date of the Luoyang Peony Flower Festival, it is indeed extremely consistent with the Guyu solar term. No wonder the peony flower is also called "Gu Yuhua", and a lot of historical materials and related ancient poems have been consulted, which can also prove that appreciating peonies in the valley rain season has been a custom that has lasted for thousands of years.
It is said that there is also a custom of drinking Guyu tea in the southern tea region. The so-called Gu Yu tea, that is, the tea made from the fresh tea leaves picked by Gu Yu on this day, and even the tea picked by Gu Yu in the morning of the same day, the tea leaves are even more emerald green and pleasant in aroma. Legend has it that Gu Yu's tea on this day is the richest in a variety of vitamins and amino acids. Therefore, no matter what kind of weather it is on the day of Gu Yu, the tea farmers in the tea town will go to the tea mountain to pick tea.
When we go to the tea-producing area to drink Guyu tea, we ordinary people naturally do not have such conditions. But I heard that the tea shop in Xuchang Fat Donglai Supermarket has genuine Gu Yu tea, and I want to take the time to buy a few taels recently and taste the taste of Gu Yu tea in person.
In the rainy season of the valley, in addition to appreciating peonies and drinking valley rain tea, it is said that there is also the custom of eating toon, and there is also a sentence in the ancient poem that "the toon is as tender as silk before the rain". As long as it is in season, toon is naturally very easy to obtain, as long as it is listed, supermarkets and vegetable markets are often sold. It's just that I don't know if today's toons still have the mellow and refreshing taste that I ate when I lived in the countryside.
The sky is silent and the four seasons are moving, and the earth is silent and all things are born. Gu Yu is the parting of spring, and it is the rebirth of all things. Just when the valley rain is clear, the spring flowers will be exhausted, and after the valley rain, green, fat, red and thin!
Zhang Wangyang, pen name recruit, is a member of the Chinese Fable Literature Research Association, a member of the Xuchang Writers Association, and the vice president and secretary general of the Yingchuan Zhongxuan Culture Research Association of Changge City.
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