In the late autumn, in the countryside of Pinglu Duma Township, Shanxi, Uncle Tian, who is more than 80 years old, leads his own cultivating cattle to plant wheat in the field, because the wheat plots in the mountains are of different sizes, large field planters can enter, and small plots can only be cultivated in traditional farming methods. After the autumn harvest, every household began to be busy cutting straw, fertilizing farmers, ploughing the land, and harrowing the land, until the wheat seeds were whisked into the ground, and it felt that the year's field work was over.
Uncle Tian took advantage of the good weather, early in the morning with his wife to drive the cattle to a small slope, Uncle Tian said that this land is a little more than half an acre, it is a dry slope land, he and his wife are older, last year planted walnut trees in the field, this is the last year to plant wheat, next year the trees grow up will not be planted, many people in the village like this small piece of land are deserted, like him with cattle sowing wheat in the village is gone, it is estimated that they will not be able to see it in the future.
Uncle Tian said that he had lived a lifetime, been an old farmer all his life, he felt that the land was the lifeblood of the people, and no matter how hard and tired the grain still had to be planted, he and his wife set up cattle in the morning to turn the ground over with a plough, and then used a grinding rake to level the ground.
Uncle Tian said that this cow has been coming to his house for many years, it is an old cow, he and his wife also have feelings for the cow, tomorrow is to plant a small piece of land every day, the old two are also afraid of tired old cattle.
Uncle Tian drove the old cattle in the rake field, and the ground was generally carried out twice, first rake before ploughing the ground, remove the weeds and residual crop stalks in the field, and then plough the ground to see the moisture for two days, and then rake a second time, and even look at the situation rake a third time.
In the countryside, this scene of ploughing, rake and rake wheat with livestock is difficult to see again in the plains.
Uncle Tian did not use the traditional "耧" to plant wheat, he used the plough to turn the flat ground over, and his wife was responsible for planting with his hands in the back, which was even more rare.
Uncle Tian said that although it takes a lot of energy to plant and harvest, because it is dryland wheat, the yield of wheat is still not high, and only four or five hundred catties of wheat can be beaten per mu of land. Nowadays, the young people in the village are more out to work, and most of the people who stay in the village are like the elderly like Uncle Tian, but they are still full of hope for the village.
In their eyes, the land is the root of life, is the guarantee of survival, no matter who you are, you must eat, the people take food as the sky, because there are too many such rural old people they are sticking to, moved by such old people, moved by such old people in rural China. (For more people's stories, click to follow) Photo: Wang Chunhu