Rosin
——Li Zhixiang
Before the National Day, I went home, when I heard that there were raw red mushrooms on the mountain, I wanted to go up the mountain to pick up a few fresh red mushrooms to taste, I walked into the forest, the greenery of the sky, roaring. The green swaying, a few autumn orchids, the fragrance of the dark, accompanied by the sound of the wind, quietly, quietly dispersed in the air. In the deep and quiet forest, hundreds of birds sing, streams and swirls, squirrels play, animal tracks roam the mountains, autumn leaves first makeup. Doubts made me feel that a thousand trees smiled to welcome the deceased, and the atmosphere of happy meeting flowers and plants in the mountains. At this time, I suddenly found myself in a beautiful paradise.
On the edge of the forest, there are a few scattered pine trees, pine needles are all over the ground, surrounded by pine fragrance, I walked one foot deep and one foot shallow to a pine tree, my footsteps stepped on the pine needles on the ground, squeaking, startling several birds that foraged on the pine branches, flapping their beautiful wings, skimming over the pine branches, and surprisingly dropping a few pine stone qionghua (a kind of moss plant parasitic on the pine tree, which can be used for medicinal purposes), disappeared in an instant, leaving me alone with the gaze of pursuit.
The frightened turquoise qionghua, with a characteristic fenxiang, with the light feathers of a bird, with the traces of time, fell mischievously at my feet. I gently twisted a pine stone qionghua and put it in the palm of my hand, as if, at this moment, my little palm is the final destination of this turquoise qionghua, I thought more, gently asked the turquoise qionghua that quietly fell in the forest...
The mountain wind shakes the pine branches, the pine waves rise, the sound is endless, is that the groan of the pine? I inadvertently found that this pine tree had just been cut with pine oil, and the shallow grooves were secreting pine resin, like a drop of crystalline tears. Pine trees that have just been cut will shed tears, and pine resin is tears of pain. I watched quietly under the pine tree for a long time. The process of seepage is very slow, and a tear forms a bead, which requires patience. Pine's tears radiate a rich fragrance. When the pine is sad, the pine resin will slowly solidify into a crystalline layer, covering its former wounds, day after day and year after year on the pine tree to generate a series of black-brown scars, clearly depicting the vicissitudes of the years...
The fat picker inverted the herringbone of life on the pine tree, the pine resin drips along the top of the herringbone into the plastic bucket hanging on the head of the tree, a drop of pine resin, a strand of pine, I have some pity for the pine tree, so that the fat, the tree will die? But experience has taught me that pine resin can be regenerated when it flows, and it will flow more in the next year, and the fat is like mountain stream spring water, as long as the earth can raise these pine trees, this pine resin will not flow endlessly.
I was silent, pine, pine resin, rosin, I relied on the rough pine tree, I could not help but recall the scene with my father to cut the pine, that is, in the seventies, my father contracted to produce more than a thousand pine trees, when cutting rosin was an important side business. In the summer vacation, every day with my father to learn to cut rosin, lofty mountains, undulating, the road between each pine tree to rely on their own to go out, pine oil road is also called the chicken road, rugged and uneven. Winding and winding, although these roads are sometimes repaired in front of them, but they are all sealed by the newly long vines and wattle grasses, these pine trees are scattered and uneven, some of the fat collecting surfaces are very high, to add long poles to cut upwards, or climb to the tree frame to cut, two feet on the wooden frame, one hand to hold the pine tree, with the other hand to cut; a little careless frame scattered, some of the fat collecting surface is very short, but also have to crouch down, remove the long pole, hold the oil cutting knife, but also have to be similar to crawling to cut. In order to extend the oil production life of pine trees, the thinner the bark cut, the better, so that it is constantly tossed back and forth, and after a day of labor, you are tired and have a sore back. The high production period of pine oil is generally in the summer heat, when pine trees will produce more oil. Every day, I carry a rice bag across a bamboo kettle, eat cold rice, and drink mountain spring water. Leaving early and returning late, you also have to face the bite of insects and snakes on the mountain. At that time, I had just learned to cut oil, and I was either scratched by a knife or fell, anyway, there were wounds every day, and people also blackened a circle and lost a circle.
The pine oil knife is similar to the v-groove shape, and the knife edge is very sharp. The tree used to cut the oil has a y-shaped opening, and the lower end of the y-shaped opening has an oil cylinder made of moso bamboo sawn. Every day, my father and I have to cut more than 1,000 trees, and every thousand trees are cut, called a "ditch", and if we can cut a "ditch" in a day, it is the 'old pine oiler'. At first, I could only cut two or three hundred trees a day, and I continued to work for a while, and my father and I could cut all the trees in five or six hours, so that I could also master the art of cutting oil.
Every day, cut rosin walks through the forest alone, accompanied by squirrels, wild boars, pheasants and poisonous snakes, and there are no human figures. Running back and forth between the mountains and the mountains every day, measuring the distance between the mountains and the trees with their feet, taking the same route, repeating the same actions, boring and lonely. Except for pine trees or pine trees, they always walk around in the forest.
Looking at the pine oil chicken road in front of you, it is the fat cutter who steps on the thorns with his feet full of thick cocoons, and when he steps out, he climbs the cliff with rough hands and goes around the tree, and expands it... Rosin, like a glass of drunken wine, can release the sweet and sour spicy of the cutter with a gentle whisk. The years go by, and nothing seems to stand up to the sculpting of the years. Only the mountains, maintaining their original physique, standing there without moving, and these pine trees that grow on the mountains, the weathered faces are engraved with the traces of time, but they are still majestic and tall, exuding strength and perseverance...
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