Press: The text of the agricultural work series has been written several times before, wheat, soybeans, cotton, tobacco have been discussed, I think it is time to talk about the stick, it is the main force of our autumn crops. When I was a child, I did a lot of work related to sticks, and now I remember the history vividly, as if it was just yesterday.
Corn is planted in most parts of the country, but the names of different places are different, such as maize, baogu, baomi, bao millet, jade russet, bud rice, pearl rice, bud reed, large reed millet and so on. In my hometown area, I call corn cobs, so let's talk about sticks today.
After wheat is harvested, order corn (image from the internet)
Sticks. Every year in the middle and late June of the solar calendar, it is the season of planting sticks. At this time, the wheat in the field has been cut off, the farmers are busy playing the field, and when god comes down through the rain, people stop playing and are busy planting autumn crops. Soybeans and sesame seeds are sown with cattle on a straw, and most of the corn is planted by hand, which we call "an embankment stick".
The so-called stick is to artificially plant corn in the field. Work alone, with a small shovel or stick, dig a small pit and put one or two seeds. It is also possible to cooperate with two people, one person uses a hoe to plan the pit, and one person points out seeds and seals the soil. The stick is a hard job, whether it is bent over or squatting, it is an extremely difficult thing, bending for a long time waist pain, squatting for a long time leg pain, standing up violently will be dizzy. If you want Venus to risk a little more in both eyes, a little longer, a little more squatting, standing up a little harder. Just be careful, don't look at the black in front of you, stand unsteadily, "grab the ground with your head", and hurt yourself.
Small planters, although they can only sow one ridge at a time, are still much faster than manual ridges. (Image from the Internet)
Later, a small planter that could sow a ridge of corn appeared one after another, and one person could pull it, although it still required manpower, but it was much easier and more efficient than the bar. Later, with the planter that could sow three rows of corn with a tractor, people were completely liberated. Today, the tractors running back and forth in the wheat stubble field have replaced the people who are bending down to work, the echo of the countryside is missing, and the scene of the family rushing to the corn is gone.
Broadcasting three ridges at a time and not requiring anyone to pull it is fast and labor-saving. (Image from the Internet)
Pack the sand pack. Corn drill heartworm (corn borer) is a major pest of corn, its larvae moth into the main stem or ear of corn, can make the main stem of corn broken, resulting in corn yield reduction and degradation. When I was a child, the commonly used control of corn drill heartworms was called the poisonous soil sprinkling method, that is, crushing sand and stone mixed with medicine, which we figuratively called the sand bag. At the end of the corn heart leaf, that is, the large horn mouth stage, it is the best time for prevention and control, that is, the corn grows to the height of the thigh to start charging, and a small amount of granules can be sprinkled into the heart leaf with the thumb and index finger. If the effect is not good once, it will be installed a second time later.
Pouring stick (image from the internet)
Pour the stick. Whether the peasants plant the land and harvest well or not, the cost of the high or low has a lot to do with the weather, the wind and rain are smooth and the weather is more convenient, in addition to weeding, fertilization, spraying, and medicine, sitting and waiting for a good harvest. The wind and rain are smooth, the stick pole in July and August is green and shiny, the jade tree is windy, the wind blows, and the handsome is loud. If the Dragon King's son was stingy in the summer, or if the iron heart and stone heart rarely shed a few tears, the ground would dry up, the sun would smoke as soon as it was sunburned, and the rod rod would be a dejected and dry look, standing unsteadily, as if the wind was about to fall as soon as it blew. Peasants who sell their crops for money will not watch the crops die of drought and confiscate them, and where is the money, they have to be busy fighting drought.
When the stick is not tall, watering is still very easy, if the stick grows to more than one person tall, people burrow into it without showing their heads, large cornfields, the wind can not drill in at all, it is uncomfortable. This is not a matter of fact, the most tragic thing is to be scratched by the stick pieces on the skin. Stick leaves, astringent, a circle on the side like short serrated teeth, accidentally arm, neck, face scratched one by one, the body sweated, fiery pain. Often it is poured down a piece of land, the body is scarred, it is impossible not to be scratched, it is nothing more than to be careful and draw a few less.
Moving the water pipe is also very careful. The stick rod is relatively brittle, and the raw and hard water pipe is pulled, and it is easy to break the stick pole. It is best to work with two or three people to quickly move the water pipe from the gap between the rods and rods. When moving, the water pipe will inevitably form a local bend, if the water pipe is bent too hard for too long, it is easy to hold the water pipe joint open, and even hold the pipe at the outlet of the pump. At this time, the machine should be turned off, and the pipe should be connected and then pumped, and the delay time is inevitable. In addition, it is common to hold the water pipe for a long time, pinch the hand pain, and the two hands are blistered (native language pang).
Pouring sticks is also a pleasure, the water pumped up from the well is cold, hot, poured on yourself, what a cool word. When I don't move the water pipe, I can listen quietly to the cries of crickets and crickets, or I can watch their nests run wild after being washed away by the water, looking for something that belongs to the coke of my childhood.
Image from the web
Cook the sticks. At the end of the summer vacation every year, the stick has grown almost the same, not yet fully mature, and can be boiled and eaten to relieve hunger. Looking back now, when I was a child, it was a very happy and happy thing to take a steaming stick that had just come out of the pot and breathe incense, to change my left hand for my right hand, and to nibble on a mouthful of hot and suck straight. Now, the raw sticks bought in the supermarket, boiled up to eat, can not eat the taste of childhood, do not know whether it is the lack of local atmosphere or now their own taste has become picky.
This is the method of grilling, and when I was a child, I put it directly in the stove and cooked it on the fire. (Image from the Internet)
Bake sticks. The sticks are a little older, not suitable for cooking, you can eat them grilled. The grilling stick I am talking about is not the kind of grilling method that is now barbecued, but is placed in the stove and cooked while cooking. Although it looks a little older, but at this time the stick particles still have a lot of moisture, baking the stick will occasionally make a "crackling" sound or two, like the sound of firecrackers when I was a child, the baked stick is yellow and bright, looking tempting, smelling of thieves, it doesn't matter if it is scorched, but it feels more fragrant. Often after chewing, the lips are black, not very good at washing with water, and wiping things with your hands.
Break the stick. Soon after the start of school in September, it is time to collect the sticks. After a summer of growth, the original lush stick leaves turned yellow, and the stick grains became hard, and they couldn't be pinched. Although it is already autumn at this time, the power of the autumn tiger can still not be underestimated, and it is not a trivial matter to make people dizzy. In addition to the hot weather, there are two other things that impressed me extremely.
One is crickets all over the ground. Autumn is the season of harvest, ripening crops that make farmers smile and feast on a variety of wild animals. The "chirping" and "chirping" sounds that rise and fall in the fields are no less than the knowing cries that fill the air in the middle of summer. When the mood is good, I think it is an idyllic symphony with no end, I will glance at the sound of the drifting place, slowly open the grass or the crop pole, want to see the style of the player, in exchange for the crickets to stop calling, "whizz" away at once. When the mood is short, I feel that even the crickets that can't speak are laughing at themselves, and they will follow the sound and stomp on the grass or crop pole in a hurry, and give out their anger to relieve their hatred. In addition to crickets, there are also large locusts, catching a few large locusts, running to the ground to build a fire and roasting to eat, it is also an extremely pleasant thing, pure game, authentic green food.
The second is the disgusting human caterpillar. Compared to crickets that bark and eatable locusts, caterpillars are unbearable memories. The leaves of the stick are often covered with caterpillars, most of which are dark brown, about 1-2 cm long, and the hairs erect on the body are 1 cm long. When you accidentally touch it when you break the stick, it feels like hot oil poured on your hand, fiery and itchy, and it will soon become red and swollen. At this time, don't care about the pain, you must quickly squeeze out the hairs that are stuck in the meat, otherwise it will hurt for a long time. If you accidentally fall into your neck, it feels like someone has thrown a cigarette butt into your neck, screaming and scrambling.
The broken stick is usually packed in a snakeskin bag and carried to the ground to be loaded on the shelf car. When I was a child, I felt that I was not carrying a stick, but a bag of strangely shaped stones, which hurt my shoulders and back. Or put the broken stick in the basket, to the ground, but not the shoulders, but will strangle the arm, the arm is often strangled by the basket blood red mark, a few days can not go down.
Sometimes, A thought pops up in my mind: people now, living conditions are good, know to pay attention to the body and health, spend money to buy massage chairs, ask people to go to gua sha, before the peasants worked, did not spend money but enjoyed all this.
Later, people learned to be smart, cut down the sticks, and then dried them in the field for two or three days before breaking the sticks. The rack car can be pulled into the ground, and there is no need to carry the broken stick or hit the ground, which is much easier. In fact, it is not that people do not know the convenience of cutting the stick and breaking it again, but it is convenient for themselves, and it is convenient for people with ulterior motives to do something bad. Before the mid-1980s, not many people went out to work, and in that era when the peasants had to rely on the crops in the fields for their entire income, it was a sad thing to say that the corn of anyone else was broken overnight.
(To be continued)